The African American experience: black history and culture through speeches, letters, editorials, poems, songs, and stories

I WILL BE HEARD: A Violent beginning 'They will display diligence / Spanish Council of the Indies 'Negros might easily be had on the coast of Guinea / Richard Hakluyt '20 and odd negroes' / John Rolfe 'The one whose name is Elizabeth is to serve thirteene years' / Capt. Francis Pott The Freeman Anthony Johnson and his family Black children to serve 'according to the condition of the mother' / Virginia General Assembly Baptism is no exemption / Virginia Assembly An act concerning negroes and other slaves / Maryland General Assembly 150 acres for 'negroes as well as Christians' / Proprietors of South Carolina The negro's and Indian's advocate / Morgan Godwyn Correspondence from Fort James, Accra / The Royal African Company 'They must have all my slaves and goods' / Thomas Woolman The fundamental Constitutions of Carolina / Founders of the South Carolina colony 'Sheep jump, jump for joy' / Carolina rice beating songs The selling of Joseph / Samuel Sewall The New York City revolt of 1712 / Governor Robert Hunter Rising tensions and clashing cultures / Dr. Francis Le Jau A voyage to Guinea, Brasil, and the West Indies / John Atkins 'The most fierce enemies of the English' / Black fugitives of the English plantations Prohibiting the importation and the use of black slaves or negroes / The Trustees of the Georgia Colony The Darien antislavery petition / Eighteen freeholders of New Inverness 'He made you to live with himself above the sky. And so you will' / John Wesley She could not help praising and blessing God' / George Whitefiled Report of the Committee of conference on the case of the negroes' desertion to St. Augustine / South Carolina Assembly 'The said Caesar was executed at the usual place and hung in chains' / South Carolina Gazette 'St. Augustine...that den of thieves and ruffians!' / South Carolina Assembly 'They calling out liberty, marched on with colours displayed' / The Stono Rebellion 'At least a hundred and fifty were got together in defiance' / William Stephens Prohibiting education to slaves / South Carolina Assembly The trial of Cuff and Quack / Judge Daniel Horsmanden 'Bars fight' / Lucy Terry Prince 'An evening thought' / Jupiter Hammon Some memoirs of the life of Job / Thomas Bluett 'Uncommon sufferings and surprizing deliverance' / Briton Hammon The interesting narrative of the life of Olaudah Equiano / Olaudah Equiano THE BIRTH OF AFRICAN AMERICA: from religion to revolution: 'A mulatto man, named Crispus Attucks...killed instantly' / Samuel Adams 'Such a rabble of negroes, & C.' / John Adams A 'peaceable and lawful' petition for freedom / Slaves of the town of Thompson, Massachusetts Thoughts upon slavery / John Wesley 'This land will become a field of blood' / Thomas Rankin 'The executioner was savingly converted to God' / John Marrant 'Roll, Jordan, roll' / Revival songs The British offer freedom for service / Lord Dunmore Journal of a Black loyalist soldier / Boston King Salem poor at Bunker Hill / Colonel William Prescott The Battle of Groton Heights / An unnamed source 'A poem of the inhuman tragedy' at Lexington / Lemuel Haynes Poems on various subjects / Phillis Wheatley 'To his excellency General Washington / Phillis Wheatley An address to Miss Phillis Wheatley / Jupiter Hammon Rough draft of the Declaration of Independence / Thomas Jefferson Notes on the State of Virginia / Thomas Jefferson 'Three fifths of all other persons' / The United States Constitution 'Providence punishes national sins, by national calamities" / Constitutional Convention debate on slavery Petition for repatriation to Africa / Prince Hall and African Lodge No. 1 'The slavish fear of man' / Prince Hall 'In what single circumstance are we different from the rest of mankind?' / A free negro An address to the negroes of the State of New-York / Jupiter Hammon 'I freely and cheerfully acknowledge, that I am of the African race' / Benjamin Banneker A plan to aide 'our hitherto too much neglected fellow creatures' / Benjamin Franklin 'Equal liberty was originally the portion, and is still the birth-right, of allmen' / Benjamin Franklin 'It introduces more evils than it can cure' / George Washington Fugitive Act of 1793 / United States Congress 'It is my will and desire that all slaves whom I hold...receive their freedom' / George Washington 'We believe Heaven is free for all who worship in spirit and truth' / Richard Allen and Absalom Jones The First Baptist Church of Savannah, Ga. / Andrew Bryan A narrative of the life and adventures of Venture / Venture Smith Thanksgiving sermon / Absalom Jones 'The sweets of liberty' / African Methodist Episcopal Hymn

I WILL BE HEARD: abolition and the build up to civil war: 'No black or mulatto person shall be permitted to settle or reside in this state, unless he or she shall first produce a fair certificate...of his or her actual freedom' / Manumission Certificates 'We will wade to our knees in blood sooner than fail in the attempt' / Gabriels's conspiracy to rebellion Back to Africa / Paul Cuffe 'It is not asked for by us' / James Fortes and Russell Perrott Establishing the Liberia Colony / President James Monroe 36 degrees and 30 minutes / Missouri Compromise 'Your professed design was to trample on all laws, human and divine; to riot in blood, outrage, rapine, and conflagration' / Denmark Vesey's Revolt 'I ask you, O my brethren! Are we men?' / David Walker's appeal 'I should arise and prepare myself, and slay my enemies with their own weapons' / Nat Turner's confession 'Address to the free people of colour of the United States' / Richard Allen The hope of liberty / George Moses Horton 'The slave auction' / Frances E. W. Harper 'I am sick of our unmeaning declamation in praise of liberty and equality; of our hyprocritical cant about the unalienable rights of man; / William Lloyd Garrison 'I will be heard!' / William Lloyd Garrison Declaration of sentiments / The American Anti-slavery society 'Thoughts on African colonization' / William Lloyd Garrison 'We know nothing of that debasing inferiority with which our very colour stamped us in America' / Letters from Liberia 'All we want is make us free' / The Amistead Africans 'If the man may preach...why not the woman?' / Jarena Lee 'There are no chains so galling as the chains of ignorance' / Maria Stewart ' Like our brethren in bonds, we must seal our lips in silence and despair' / Anit-slavery Convention of American Women 'What is a mob?...Any evidence that we are wrong? / Angela Grimke Weld 'To instruct others in beneficial to the mind' / Ann Plato 'I have come to tell you something about slaverywhat I know of it , as I have felt it' / Frederick Douglass 'Brethren, Arise! arise! strike for your lives and liberties' / Henry Highland Garnet 'The light broke in upon degrees' / Frederick Douglass 'What is America slavery?' / Frederick Douglass The North Star / Frederick Douglass and Martin Delany 'Ar'n't I a woman?' / Sojourner Truth 'Mrs. Bradford had a son about ten years old; she used to make him beat me and spit in my face' / Leonard Black A tale of escape and betrayal / Henry Bibb Abolition in the nation's poetry / Whittier, Lowell, and Longfellow Fact meets fiction in the first black novel / William Wells Brown Another slavery compromise holds the Union / Fugitive Slave Act of 1850 Uncle Tom's Cabin / Harriet Beecher Stowe An ideological rift over the U. S. Constitution and slavery / Frederick Douglass and William Lloyd Garrison 'What to the slave is the Fourth of July?' / Frederick Douglass A HOUSE DIVIDED: emancipation and the Civil War era: The Kansas-Nebraska Act / Stephen Douglas and Abraham Lincoln A. The Kansas Nebraska Act ; B. Abraham Lincoln of the Act 'Crimes against Kansas' / Charles Sumner Dred Scott v. Sanford / The United States Supreme Court A house divided / Abraham Lincoln 'Had I so interfered in behalf of the rich, the powerful...this court would have deemed it an act worthy of reward' / John Brown's Raid: A. Last words of John Copeland, a black raider ; B. Black raider Dangerfield Newby's motivation ; C. John Brown's last words 'His truth is marching on' / Julia Ward Howe: A. "Say, brothers, will you meet us" ; B. Union Marching song ; C. The Battle Hymn of the Republic Our nig / Harriet Wilson Incidents in the life of a slave girl / Harriet Jacobs A Georgia plantation / Mortimer Thompson and Fanny Kemble: A. "What became of the slaves on a Georgia Plantation?" ; B. Journal of a residence on a Georgia plantation Slavery's expansion 'The only substantial dispute' / Abraham Lincoln A war for emancipation / Frederick Douglass 'We are ready to stand and defend our government' / Northern Blacks: A. April 1861 declaration by free blacks of New Bedford, Massachusetts ; B. "Fighting rebels with only one hand" from September 1861 issue of Frederick Douglass' Monthly (successor to The North Star) Debating 'the duty of the black man' / Alfred Green and "R. H. V.": A. R. H. V.'s argument against black participation B. Alfred Green's rebuttal 'The uterus protruding, as large, yes larger than my fist ; it has been so 10 years' / Life in the Contraband Camps: A. The health of freed slaves ; B. Susie King Taylor's Reminiscences of my life in camp 'Let my people go!' / African-American spirituals: A. Go down Moses ; B. Down the valley Confiscation and militia act / U. S. Congress 'My paramount object in this struggle is to save the Union' / Abraham Lincoln 'All persons held a slaves within said designated states...are, and henceforward shall be free' / The Emancipation proclamation: A. Emancipation proclamation ; B. New York Times editorial on the Proclamation 'His body was left suspended for several hours' / The New York Draft Riot of 1863 'Mortal men could not stand such a fire' / Massachusetts 54th Regiment 'Niggers has riz in public estimation and are at a high premium' / Christiam Abraham Fleetwood: A. Blacks conscripted for manual labor ; B. Defending his regiment's reputation ; C. Fleetwood leaves the forces angered by inequality 'We have done a soldier's duty. Why can't we have a soldier's pay?' / Corporal James Henry Gooding 'The longor you keep my child from me the longor you will have to burn in Hell and the qwicer youll get their' / Private Spottswood Rice: A. Spotswood Rice's letter to his daughters ; B. Spotswood Rice's letter to his daughter's owner The end of slavery / Thirteenth Amendment to the U. S. Constitution

FORTY ACRES AND A MULE : reconstruction and its aftermath 'If he knows enough to be hanged, he knows enough to vote' / Frederick Douglass 'I will indeed be your Moses' / Andrew Johnson The last speech / Abraham Lincoln 'In the matter of government...no notice should be taken of the color of men' / The National Convention of Colored Men 'We were and still are opressed; we are not demoralized criminals' / New Orleand Tribune: A. Our dormant partners ; B. Opposition to military rule Forty acres and a mule / Gen. William T. Sherman and the Freedmen's Bureau 'They would like to have land4 or 5 acres to a family' / Establishing the Freedmen's Bureau: A. Freeman Harry McMillan's testimony before the American Freedmen's Inquiry Commission ; B. Congressional act establishing the Freedmen's Bureau Resettlement at Port Royal, South Carolina / Freedmen's Bureau records 'We are left in a more unpleasand condition than our former' / Freed blacks of Edisto Island, South Caroline: A. The Ediston Island commitee's statement to Howard ; B. A Georgia labor contract 'You enfranchise your enemies, and disenfranchise your friends' / A confrontation at the White House 'Any person who shall so intermarry...shall be confined in the state penitentiary for life' / Black Codes: A. Penal code ; B. Vagrancy Law ; C. Civil Rights Law ; D. Apprentice Law The Civil Rights battle of 1866 / U. S. Congress: A Johnson's Freedmen's Bureaubill message ; B. Civil Rights Act of 1866 The 14th Amendment / U. S. Congress 'It is useless to attempt to disguise the hostility that exist...towards northern men' / New Orleans Riot of 1866 'We always told you that it would be a great deal worse for you when they come' / Freedmen's Bureau records 'Rebel states shall be divided into military districts' / The Reconstruction Act 'Keep bright the council fires' / Union League of Alabama The 15th Amendment / U. S. Congress The Ku Klux Klan / Petitions from African Americans to Congress The new Black Laws / Benjamin W. Arnett Behind the scenes / Elizabeth Keckley Iola Leroy / Frances Ellen Watkins Harper The Hazeley Family / Amelia Etta Johnson Violets / Alice Ruth Moore (Alice Dunbar-Nelson) Oak and Ivy / Paul Lawrence Dunbar: A. "Welcome Address" ; B. "The old tunes" ; C. "To Miss Mary Britton" 'We wear the mask' / Paul Lawrence Dunbar: A. "We wear the mask" ; B. "Sympathy" The lynch mob's 'thread-bare lie' / Ida B. Wells 'A negroe's life is a very cheap thing in Georgia' / Ida B. Wells A black woman of the south / Anna Julia Cooper Lifting as we climb / Mary Church Terrell The 'Atlanta Compromise' / Booker T. Washington Separate but equal / U. S. Supreme Court: A. Justice Brown's majority opinion ; B. Justin Harlan's dissent Up from slavery / Booker T. Washington 'Tuskegee song' / Paul Lawrence Dunbar: A. Dunbar's revised "Tuskegee Song" ; B. Dunbar's letter to Washington 'Lift every voice and sing' / James Weldon Johnson

TALENTED TENTH: The Harlem Renaissance and the New Negro The sould of black folk / W. E. B. Dubois 'The talented tenth' / W. E. B. Dubois 'We refuse to allow the impression to remain that the Negro-American assents to inferiority' / The Niagra Movement 'Silence means approval' / The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People 'Agitation is a necessary evil' / NAACP's The Crisis 'The Trotter encounter with Wilson. Talks to President as any American should' / William Monroe Trotter and Woodrow Wilson at the White House Autobiography of an ex-colored man / James Weldon Johnson 'St. Louis Blues' / W. C. Handy 'We protest the proposition that the pictured slander and disparagement of a minority race shall make licensed amusement' / Protesting Birth of a Nation: A. Boston petition to mayor ; B. Cleveland Advocate on Ohio movement to ban the film Stumping for the peanut / George Washington Carver 'Stay on the soil' / The 1917 Tuskegee Conference and northern migration The most dangerous negroes in the United States / Asa Philip Randolph and Chandler Owen The 24th Colored Infantry's Houston uprising / The Baltimore Afro-American 'We are cowards and jackasses if now that the war is over we do not...battle against the forces of Hell in our own land' / The Crisis Thirty years of lynching / The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People The red summer of 1919 / Chicago Tribune 'Africa for the Africans' / Marcus Garvey: A. Garvey in the Negro World ; B. UNIAs "Declaration of Rights of the Negro Peoples of the World" 'T'aint nobody's business' / Bessie Smith: A. 'T'aint nobody's business if I Do' ; B. Smith's mythical death by racism 'Take the"A" train' / Duke Ellington and Billy Strayhorn: A. "It don't mean a thing" ; B. "Take the 'A' train" 'A form that is freer and larger' / James Weldon Johnson 'The negro speaks of rivers' / Langston Hughes: A. "The negro speaks of rivers" ; B. "The weary blues" ; C. "Harlem" (also known as "A dream deferred") 'Yet I do marvel' / Countee Cullen: A. "Yet I do marvel" ; B. "To a brown boy" 'How it feels to be colored me' / Zora Neale Hurston: A. "Spunk" ; B. "How it feels to be colored me" 'Smoke, lilies and jade' / Richard Bruce Nugent The new negro / Alan Leroy Locke 'What I want from life' / Paul Robeson Criticism of nigger heaven / W. E. B. Dubois 'The negro artist and the racial mountain' / Langston Hughes 'The creation' / James Weldon Johnson 'Strange fruit' / Billie Holiday: A. "Strange Fruit" ; B. "God bless the child" Fighting for segregation or integration? / W. E. B. Dubois

A DREAM NO LONGER DEFERRED: The Civil Rights Movement 'A call to negro America' / Asa Philip Randolph Executive order 8802 / Franklin D. Roosevelt 'Nonviolence vs Jim Crow' / Bayard Rustin Native Son / Richard Wright Invisible Man / Ralph Ellison 'I'm a believer in fairy tales now' / Jackie Robinson: A. Wendell Smith's report on the first game ; B. Jackie Robinson's column following his first major league game 'Equality of treatment and opportunity for all those who serve in our country's defense': A. to secure these rights ; B. Executive order 9981 'We real cool': A. "The sonnet-ballad from Annie Allen ; B. "We real cool" from The Bean Eaters Go tell it on the mountain / James Baldwin 'Separate cannot be equal' / Brown v. Board of Education: A. Justice Marshall's oral argument ; B. Chief Justice Warren's opinion 'There comes a time' / Martin Luther King, Jr.: A. King's December 5, 1955 speech launching the prolonged boycott ; B. "The violence of desparate men" from Stride towards freedom 'Maybelline' / Chuck Berry A Raisin in the Sun / Lorraine Hansberry 'I stand upon the Fifth Amendment' / Paul Robeson: A. Robeson's testimony before the House Committee on Un-American Activities ; B. Robeson's undelivered statement appearing before the committee, which he was not allowed to read 'Give us the Ballot' / Martin Luther King, Jr. Them ain't local little niggers / Ted Poston 'Through nonviolence, courage displaces fear' / The student sit-ins of 1960-61: A. The Register's coverage of the Greensboro, N.C. sit in ; B. Founding resolution of SNCC 'We hae been cooling off for 350 years. If we cool off any more, we'll be in a deep freeze' / The Freedom Rides Lobbying Kennedy / NAACP How the 'Blue-eyed devil' race was created / Malcolm X 'I ain't no entertainer, and ain't trying to be one' / Miles Davis Letter from a Birmingham jail / Martin Luther King, Jr. 'We shall overcome' / Freedom songs: A. "We shall overcome" ' B. "Oh, freedom" 'The time has come for this nation to fulfill its promise' / John F. Kennedy 'I have a dream' / Martin Luther King, Jr. 'In answer to Senator Thurmond' / Bayard Rustin 'The chickens come home to roose' / Malcolm X The Civil Rights Act of 1964 / U. S. Congress

SAY IT LOUDl: Black power and beyond 'The ballot or the bullet' / Malcolm X Letter from Mecca / El-Haji Malik El-Shabazz (Malcolm X) The greatest of all time / Muhammad Ali (Cassius Clay) with Alex Haley 'And I said "I want you to know something," I said, "If I live I will become a registered voter"' / Fannie Lou Hammer Bloody Sunday / The movement in Selma: A. President Johnson's speech to Congress ; B. King's speech on the steps of the Alabama capital Voting Rights Act of 1965 / U. S. Congress A eulogy for Malcolm X / Ossie Davis '"Get Whitey," scream blood-hungry mobs' / Watts riots of 1965: A. Watts residents speak to Los Angeles Times ; B. Times offers shocked first person account from "a negro" A 'domestic Marshall Plan' / Whitney Young 'The deterioration of the negro family' / The Moynihan Report: A. The Moynihan Report ; B. President Johnson's Howard University speech Black power / Stoakley Carmichael Kwanzaa / Maulana Karenga 'We believe this racist government has robbed us' / The Black Panther Party: A. Black Panther Party platform and program ; B. Black Panther National anthem Executive mandate number one / Bobby Seale Vietnam: 'A time comes when silence is betrayal' / Martin Luther King, Jr. 'I ain't got no quarrel with them Viet Cong' / Muhammad Ali Soul on Ice / Eldridge Cleaver 'How many white folks you kill today?' / H. Rap Brown 'The Dutchman' / Amiri Baraka (Leroi Jones) The crisis of the negro intellectual / Harold Cruse 'Nikki-Rosa' / Nikki Giovanni: A. "My poem" ; B. "Nikki Rosa" ; C. "Kidnap Poem" 'Say it loud (I'm black and I'm proud) / James Brown Divide and conquer / Federal Bureau of Investigation: A. Memo directing offices to target black nationalists ; B. Memo suggesting tactic to divide SNCC and Black Panthers 'Two societies, one black, one white' / Kerner Commission Report 'We don't have no leader. We lost our leader' / The Washington Post on Martin Luther King's assassination and the 1968 race riots 'Niggers are scared of revolution' / The Last Poets A caged bird singing / Maya Angelou: A. "I know why the caged bird sings" ; B. "And still I rise" 'ABC' / Jackson Five 'I am somebody' / Jesse Jackson The Tuskegee Syphilis Study / Associated Press 'Perhaps that 18th century Constitution should be abandoned to a 20th century paper shredder' / Barbara Jordan 'What is special? I, Barbara Jordan, am a keynote speaker' / Barbara Jordan Roots / Alex Haley Race as a factor, but no 'quotas' / Regents of University of California vs. Bakke Black macho and the myth of the superwoman / Michelle Wallace

LEARNING TO TALK OF RACE: The modern era

'Rapper's delight' / Sugar Hill Gang

'I know what it means to be called a nigger. I know what it means to be called a faggot' / Melvin Boozer

'The imperialism of patriarchy' / bell hooks

The color purple / Alice Walker

'Womanist' defined / Alice Walker

'God bless you Jesse Jackson' / The rescue of Lt. Robert Goodman

'The controversy over Jackson's remarks might have been much easier for many blacks to accept had the messenger been white' / Milton Coleman and the 'Hymietown' story

'Our time has come' / Jesse Jackson

'Thriller' / Michael Jackson

'Sucker Mcs' / Run-DMC

'It is racist to suggest that the series is merely Father Knows Best in blackface' / Alvin Poussaint on the Cosby Show

Beloved / Toni Morrison

'Len Bias is dead...traces of cocaine found in system' / Washington Post

The War on Drugs / Mandatory Minimum Sentences: A. United Press International report on Los Angeles police efforts to stop gangs and "rock houses" ; B. 1988 mandatory minimum sentencing law

'Fuck tha police' / Nigga with Attitude (N.W.A.)

'Don't believe the hype' / Public Enemy

'Keep hope alive!' / Jesse Jackson

Blacks three times as likely as whites to contract AIDS / U. S. Centerrs for Disease Control

Coming out / Linda Villarosa

'I will not provide the rope for my own lynching' / Clarence Thomas on Anita Hill: A. Clarence Thomas's statement in response to the charges ; B. Anita Hill's opening statement

'I felt each one of those not guiltys' / Assault on Rodney King and 1992 riots: A. Transcript of police conversation ; B. The Riots

'Learning to talk of race' / Cornell West

'The inaugural poem' / Maya Angelou

Waiting to exhale / Terry McMillan

'Please thing of the real O.J. / O.J. Simpson

The million man march / Lous Farrakhan

'Thirteen ways of looking looking at a black man' / Henry Louis Gates, Jr.

'Government-sponsored racial discrimination based on benign prejudice is just a noxious as discrimination inspired by malicious prejudice' / Justice Clarence Thomas

'What the United States government did was shameful, and I am sorry' / President Bill Clinton

'I rise to object' / Congressional Black Caucus

'America is special among the nations' / Condoleeza Rice

'George Bush doesn't care about black people' / Kanye West: A. Kanye West at the Red Cross Benefit ; B. An oral history of Katrina survivor Tysuan Harris

'This was the moment...where America remembered what it means to hope' / Barack Obama

I can no more disown him that I can my white grandmother / Barack Obama.