Celebrating Black History Month

Western Libraries celebrates Black History Month by highlighting the people, history, and stories from the Black Diaspora. The materials below are available to check-out  from our collection.  Be sure to check out the events for Black History Month at Western.

Afrofuturism : a history of Black futures

cover of Afrofuturism : a history of Black futures
by edited by Kevin M. Strait, Kinshasha Holman Conwill ; foreword by Kevin Young ; contributions by Reynaldo Anderson [and 20 others] ; in association with the National Museum of African American History and Culture.

Publication Date: 2023

Material Type: Book

Summary:

Afrofuturism: A History of Black Futures explores the evolving and exhilarating concept of Afrofuturism, a lens used to imagine a more empowering future for the Black community through music, art, and speculative fiction. Spreads feature 100 gorgeous illustrations of objects and images that reflect Black identity, agency, creativity, and hope, including: T’Challa’s suit from Black Panther, Octavia Butler’s typewriter, Uhura’s outfit from Star Trek, Sun Ra’s space harp, costumes from Broadway’s The Wiz, handwritten lyrics by Jimi Hendrix, and Janelle Monae’s ArchAndroid dress. Chapters include essays from a diverse group of scholars who reflect on themes such as legacy, alienation, and activism, with profiles on influential people and objects. Afrofuturism offers a framework of radical potential to envision Black liberation and alternatives to oppressive structures like white supremacy. Afrofuturism comes at a time of increasing visibility for the concept, both in scholarship and in pop culture, and is an ode to the revolutionary power of Black imagination. --

Algorithms of oppression : how search engines reinforce racism

cover of Algorithms of oppression : how search engines reinforce racism
by Safiya Umoja Noble.

Publication Date: 2018

Material Type: Book

Summary:

In Algorithms of Oppression, Safiya Umoja Noble challenges the idea that search engines like Google offer an equal playing field for all forms of ideas, identities, and activities. Data discrimination is a real social problem. Noble argues that the combination of private interests in promoting certain sites, along with the monopoly status of a relatively small number of Internet search engines, leads to a biased set of search algorithms that privilege whiteness and discriminate against people of color, especially women of color. Through an analysis of textual and media searches as well as extensive research on paid online advertising, Noble exposes a culture of racism and sexism in the way discoverability is created online. As search engines and their related companies grow in importance--operating as a source for email, a major vehicle for primary and secondary school learning, and beyond--understanding and reversing these disquieting trends and discriminatory practices are of utmost importance.--Page 4 of cover.

All that she carried : the journey of Ashley's sack, a Black family keepsake

cover of All that she carried : the journey of Ashley's sack, a Black family keepsake
by Tiya Miles.

Publication Date: 2021

Material Type: Book

Summary:

Historian Tiya Miles carefully traces these women's faint presence in archival records, and, where archives fall short, she turns to objects, art, and the environment to write a singular history of the experience of slavery, and the uncertain freedom afterward, in the United States. All That She Carried is a poignant story of resilience and love passed down against steep odds. It honors the creativity and resourcefulness of people who preserved family ties when official systems refused to do so, and it serves as a visionary illustration of how to reconstruct and recount their stories today--Publisher's description.

Angel of Greenwood

cover of Angel of Greenwood
by Randi Pink.

Publication Date: 2021

Material Type: Book

Summary:

Seventeen-year-old Isaiah Wilson is, on the surface, a town troublemaker, but is hiding that he is an avid reader and secret poet, never leaving home without his journal. A passionate follower of W.E.B. Du Bois, he believes that black people should rise up to claim their place as equals. Sixteen-year-old Angel Hill is a loner, mostly disregarded by her peers as a goody-goody. Her father is dying, and her family's financial situation is in turmoil. Also, as a loyal follower of Booker T. Washington, she believes, through education and tolerance, that black people should rise slowly and without forced conflict. Though they've attended the same schools, Isaiah never noticed Angel as anything but a dorky, Bible toting church girl. Then their English teacher offers them a job on her mobile library, a three-wheel, two-seater bike. Angel can't turn down the money and Isaiah is soon eager to be in such close quarters with Angel every afternoon. But life changes on May 31, 1921 when a vicious white mob storms the community of Greenwood, leaving the town destroyed and thousands of residents displaced. Only then, Isaiah, Angel, and their peers realize who their real enemies are--

Before you suffocate your own fool self

cover of Before you suffocate your own fool self
by Danielle Evans.

Publication Date: 2010

Material Type: Book

Summary:

Fearless, funny, and ultimately tender, Evans's stories offer a bold new perspective on the experience of being young and African-American or mixed-race in modern-day America.

Black lives under Nazism : making history visible in literature and art

cover of Black lives under Nazism : making history visible in literature and art
by Sarah Phillips Casteel.

Publication Date: 2024

Material Type: Book

Summary:

During the Third Reich people of African descent were viewed as a threat to the health and purity of Germany. Black Europeans suffered a variety of forms of persecution including ostracism, forced sterilization, incarceration in concentration camps, medical experimentation, and execution. Blacks in occupied Europe represented a variety of backgrounds including many of whom were of dual African and European heritage; African, Caribbean and African American expatriates who traveled to Europe in search of educational and employment opportunities; and colonial and African-American troops. Among the African American emigrés were a number of jazz musicians, who chose to stay in Europe when the war broke out rather than return to the segregated American society. In 'Making History Visible', Sarah Phillips Casteel explores a wide range of transnational literary and artistic works that depicted the experiences of Black victims of the Third Reich. In the first half of the book, she examines testimonial artworks produced either during the war or retrospectively by survivors of the Nazi regime, such as the visual diaries of Josef Nassy as well as three autobiographical accounts by German and French men of African descent. In the second half, Casteel turns her attention to later literature and visual art that produced fictional testimonies and archival objects that integrate the experiences of Black victims into the collective memory of the Holocaust. Casteel argues that African diaspora writers and artists have persistently challenged the erasure of Black wartime history both through their testimonial art and through imaginative acts of recovery. At the same time, the reception histories of their works reveal the extent to which scholarly, curatorial, and marketing categories and imperatives have tended to undermine these efforts to emphasize other groups' experiences during World War II.--

Deacon King Kong

cover of Deacon King Kong
by James McBride.

Publication Date: 2020

Material Type: Book

Summary:

From James McBride, author of the National Book Award-winning The Good Lord Bird, comes a wise and witty novel about what happens to the witnesses of a shooting. In September 1969, a fumbling, cranky old church deacon known as Sportcoat shuffles into the courtyard of the Cause Houses housing project in south Brooklyn, pulls a .45 from his pocket, and in front of everybody shoots the project's drug dealer at point-blank range. The reasons for this desperate burst of violence and the consequences that spring from it lie at the heart of Deacon King Kong, James McBride's funny, moving novel and his first since his National Book Award-winning The Good Lord Bird. In Deacon King Kong, McBride brings to vivid life the people affected by the shooting: the victim, the African-American and Latinx residents who witnessed it, the white neighbors, the local cops assigned to investigate, the members of the Five Ends Baptist Church where Sportcoat was deacon, the neighborhood's Italian mobsters, and Sportcoat himself. As the story deepens, it becomes clear that the lives of the characters--caught in the tumultuous swirl of 1960s New York--overlap in unexpected ways. When the truth does emerge, McBride shows us that not all secrets are meant to be hidden, that the best way to grow is to face change without fear, and that the seeds of love lie in hope and compassion. Bringing to these pages both his masterly storytelling skills and his abiding faith in humanity, James McBride has written a novel every bit as involving as The Good Lord Bird and as emotionally honest as The Color of Water. Told with insight and wit, Deacon King Kong demonstrates that love and faith live in all of us--

James : a novel

cover of James : a novel
by Percival Everett.

Publication Date: 2024

Material Type: Book

Summary:

From Percival Everett--a recipient of the NBCC Lifetime Achievement Award and finalist for the Pulitzer Prize, Booker Prize, and numerous PEN awards--comes James, a retelling of The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, both harrowing and ferociously funny, told from the enslaved Jim's point of view. When the enslaved Jim overhears that he is about to be sold to a man in New Orleans, separated from his wife and daughter forever, he decides to hide on nearby Jackson Island until he can formulate a plan. Meanwhile, Huck Finn has faked his own death to escape his violent father, recently returned to town. As all readers of American literature know, thus begins the dangerous and transcendent journey by raft down the Mississippi River toward the elusive and too-often-unreliable promise of the Free States and beyond. While many narrative set pieces of The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn remain in place (floods and storms, stumbling across both unexpected death and unexpected treasure in the myriad stopping points along the river's banks, encountering the scam artists posing as the Duke and Dauphin...), Jim's agency, intelligence and compassion are shown in a radically new light. Brimming with the electrifying humor and lacerating observations that have made Everett a cult literary icon (Oprah Daily), and one of the most decorated writers of our lifetime, James is destined to be a major publishing event and a cornerstone of twenty-first century American literature--

Maybe an artist : a graphic memoir

cover of Maybe an artist : a graphic memoir
by by Liz Montague.

Publication Date: 2022

Material Type: Book

Summary:

When Liz Montague was twenty-two years old, she wrote to the New Yorker, asking why they didn't publish more inclusive cartoons. The New Yorker wrote back, asking if she could recommend any artists. She said 'me, I guess.' Here is the story of Liz's childhood, from the age of five through college--how she navigated life in her predominantly white New Jersey town, overcame severe dyslexia through art, excelled as a track star, and found he calling in life (which didn't involve running). This brilliant, poignant, and at times laugh-out-loud graphic memoir offers up a fresh perspective on life and social issues and proves that you don't need to be a dead white man to find success in art. -- Book jacket

Quietly hostile : essays

cover of Quietly hostile : essays
by Samantha Irby.

Publication Date: 2023

Material Type: Book

Summary:

Beloved writer Samantha Irby has returned to the printed page for her much-anticipated, sidesplitting fourth book following her 2020 breakout, Wow, no thank you, a Vintage Books Original. The success of Irby's career has taken her to new heights. She fields calls with job offers from Hollywood and walks the red carpet with the iconic ladies of Sex and the City. Finally, she has made it. But, behind all that new-found glam, Irby is just trying to keep her life together as she always had. Her teeth are poisoning her from inside her mouth, and her diarrhea is back. She gets turned away from a restaurant for wearing ugly clothes, she goes to therapy and tries out Lexapro, gets healed with Reiki, explores the power of crystals, and becomes addicted to QVC. Making light of herself as she takes us on an outrageously funny tour of all the details that make up a true portrait of her life, Irby is once again the relatable, uproarious tonic we all need--

Shine bright : a very personal history of black women in pop

cover of Shine bright : a very personal history of black women in pop
by Danyel Smith.

Publication Date: 2022

Material Type: Book

Summary:

A weave of biography, criticism, and memoir, Shine Bright is Danyel Smith's intimate history of Black women's music as the foundational story of American pop. Smith has been writing this history for more than five years. But as a music fan, and then as an essayist, editor (Vibe, Billboard), and podcast host (Black Girl Songbook), she has been living this history since she was a latchkey kid listening to Midnight Train to Georgia on the family stereo. Shine Bright is an overdue paean to musical masters whose true stories and genius have been hidden in plain sight--and the book Danyel Smith was born to write--Publisher's description.

The shadow king

cover of The shadow king
by Maaza Mengiste.

Publication Date: 2019

Material Type: Book

Summary:

With the threat of Mussolini's army looming, recently orphaned Hirut struggles to adapt to her new life as a maid to Kidane and his wife Aster. Kidane, an officer in Emperor Haile Selassie's army, rushes to mobilize his strongest men before the Italians invade. His initial kindness to Hirut shifts into cruelty when she resists his advances, and Hirut finds herself tumbling into a new world of thefts and violations, of betrayals and rage. As the war begins in earnest, the Emperor goes into exile and Ethiopia quickly loses hope. Hirut helps disguise a gentle peasant as the emperor and soon becomes his guard, inspiring other women to take up arms against the Italians. -- adapted from jacket

The sisterhood : how a network of Black women writers changed American culture

cover of The sisterhood : how a network of Black women writers changed American culture
by Courtney Thorsson.

Publication Date: 2023

Material Type: Book

Summary:

On February 6, 1977, Toni Morrison, Alice Walker, Ntozake Shange, and several other Black women writers met at June Jordan's Brooklyn apartment. Naming itself The Sisterhood, the group would meet over the next two years to discuss the future of Black literary feminism, how to promote and publicize their work, and the everyday pressures and challenges of being a Black woman writer. This network of individuals, which would also come to include Audre Lorde, Paule Marshall, Toni Cade Bambara and Margo Jefferson, as well as other Black women, shaped the direction of Black women's writing and Black literary culture in the post-Civil Rights and post-Black Arts Movement era and its reception in popular culture, the literary marketplace, and the academy. Drawing on meeting notes, interviews with participants, their writings, and correspondence, Courtney Thorsson's history of The Sisterhood recounts the personal, political, and professional bonds and motivations that shaped the group's history and its dissolution. Turning to the group's legacy, she considers the critical and popular success of Alice Walker and Toni Morrison in the 1980s, the uneasy absorption of Black feminism into the academy, and the racist and misogynistic backlash these writers faced and the limits of mainstream success. Though The Sisterhood only formally existed for two years, its impact on American literature and culture, as Thorsson demonstrates, has been profound even as it reveals the limitations of its success--

The talk : conversations about race, love & truth

cover of The talk : conversations about race, love & truth
by edited by Wade Hudson & Cheryl Willis Hudson.

Publication Date: 2020

Material Type: Book

Summary:

Thirty diverse and award-winning authors and illustrators capture frank discussions about racism, identity, and self-esteem--

There's always this year : on basketball and ascension

cover of There's always this year : on basketball and ascension
by Hanif Abdurraqib.

Publication Date: 2024

Material Type: Book

Summary:

While Hanif Abdurraqib is an acclaimed author, a gifted poet, and one of our culture's most insightful music critics, he is most of all, at heart, an Ohioan. Growing up in Columbus in the '90s, Abdurraqib witnessed a golden era of basketball, one in which legends like LeBron were forged, and countless others weren't. His lifelong love of the game leads Abdurraqib into a lyrical, historical, and emotionally rich exploration of what it means to make it, who we think deserves success, the tensions between excellence and expectation, and the very notion of role-models, all of which he expertly weaves together with memoir: Here is where I would like to tell you about the form on my father's jumpshot, Abdurraqib writes. The truth, though, is that I saw my father shoot a basketball only one time.--

To free the captives : a plea for the American soul

cover of To free the captives : a plea for the American soul
by Tracy K. Smith.

Publication Date: 2023

Material Type: Book

Summary:

Smith begins in Sunflower, Alabama, where her grandfather returned after World War I with a hero's record but difficult prospects as a Black man. She consider the life of her father through the lens of history, then bears witness to the terms of freedom afforded her as Black woman, mother, and educator in the twenty-first century. Her book provides a sounding board for our most pressing collective questions: Where are we going as a nation? Where have we been? -- adapted from jacket

Vengeance feminism : the power of Black women's fury in lawless times

cover of Vengeance feminism : the power of Black women's fury in lawless times
by Kali Nicole Gross.

Publication Date: 2024

Material Type: Book

Summary:

So often failed by the state, demeaned by racism and sexism, and denied respectable means of redress, Black women have nevertheless patiently resisted myriad injustices. Yet history shows an alternative path. It involved razors, pistols, hatchets, and blackjacks, and playacting for courts and reporters-whatever it took to beat the system. In a world where Black women are castigated and caricatured for being angry, Vengeance Feminism tells the story of those who leaned into their fury, crafting a different kind of ideology that scratched and stabbed and sometimes even succeeded. Vengeance Feminism is about the Black women who hit back-not always figuratively, and not necessarily nobly either. Weaving together historical narrative with Black feminist analysis, Gross illuminates the stories of Black women who fought for their dignity on their own terms, from the nineteenth-century badger thieves who robbed men on the streets of Philadelphia to victims of intimate partner violence who defended their honor and bodily autonomy with deadly force. Reckoning with women who lied, robbed, and cheated a racist, misogynistic world, Vengeance Feminism grapples with the volatile power of violence in pursuit of racial and gender justice--