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African American Studies

African American Studies

Last updated: November 28, 2023

    The Best Books for Juneteenth, recommended by Barbara Krauthamer

  • Read
    The Best Books for Juneteenth - Festivals of Freedom: Memory and Meaning in African American Emancipation Celebrations, 1808-1915 by Mitch Kachun

    1

    Festivals of Freedom: Memory and Meaning in African American Emancipation Celebrations, 1808-1915
    by Mitch Kachun

  • Read
    The Best Books for Juneteenth - Envisioning Emancipation: Black Americans and the End of Slavery by Barbara Krauthamer & Deborah Willis

    2

    Envisioning Emancipation: Black Americans and the End of Slavery
    by Barbara Krauthamer & Deborah Willis

  • Read
    The Best Books for Juneteenth - Closer to Freedom: Enslaved Women and Everyday Resistance in the Plantation South by Stephanie Camp

    3

    Closer to Freedom: Enslaved Women and Everyday Resistance in the Plantation South
    by Stephanie Camp

  • Read
    The Best Books for Juneteenth - To 'Joy My Freedom: Southern Black Women's Lives and Labors after the Civil War by Tera Hunter

    4

    To 'Joy My Freedom: Southern Black Women's Lives and Labors after the Civil War
    by Tera Hunter

  • Read
    The Best Books for Juneteenth - A Black Women's History of the United States by Daina Berry & Kali Gross

    5

    A Black Women's History of the United States
    by Daina Berry & Kali Gross

  • June 19th, or 'Juneteenth,' is a holiday commemorating the final end of slavery in the United States. Professor Barbara Krauthamer, a leading historian of African American slavery and emancipation, talks us through its significance down the decades and which books to read to get a better understanding of what it's all about.

  • The Best Books for Juneteenth - Festivals of Freedom: Memory and Meaning in African American Emancipation Celebrations, 1808-1915 by Mitch Kachun
  • The Best Books for Juneteenth - Envisioning Emancipation: Black Americans and the End of Slavery by Barbara Krauthamer & Deborah Willis
  • The Best Books for Juneteenth - Closer to Freedom: Enslaved Women and Everyday Resistance in the Plantation South by Stephanie Camp
  • The Best Books for Juneteenth - To 'Joy My Freedom: Southern Black Women's Lives and Labors after the Civil War by Tera Hunter
  • The Best Books for Juneteenth - A Black Women's History of the United States by Daina Berry & Kali Gross

The Best Books for Juneteenth, recommended by Barbara Krauthamer

June 19th, or ‘Juneteenth,’ is a holiday commemorating the final end of slavery in the United States. Professor Barbara Krauthamer, a leading historian of African American slavery and emancipation, talks us through its significance down the decades and which books to read to get a better understanding of what it’s all about.

The Best Books for Juneteenth, recommended by Barbara Krauthamer

    African American History Books, recommended by Imani Perry

  • Read
    African American History Books - Black Reconstruction in America by W E B Du Bois

    1

    Black Reconstruction in America
    by W E B Du Bois

  • Read
    African American History Books - Exodus: Religion, Race and Nation in Early Nineteenth-Century Black America by Eddie S Glaude Jr

    2

    Exodus: Religion, Race and Nation in Early Nineteenth-Century Black America
    by Eddie S Glaude Jr

  • Read
    African American History Books - Hammer and Hoe: Alabama Communists During the Great Depression by Robin D G Kelley

    3

    Hammer and Hoe: Alabama Communists During the Great Depression
    by Robin D G Kelley

  • Read
    African American History Books - Hands on the Freedom of the Plow: Personal Accounts by Women in SNCC Faith S. Holsaert, Martha Prescod, and others (eds.)

    4

    Hands on the Freedom of the Plow: Personal Accounts by Women in SNCC
    Faith S. Holsaert, Martha Prescod, and others (eds.)

  • Read
    African American History Books - Creating Black Americans: African-American History and Its Meanings, 1619 to the Present by Nell Irvin Painter

    5

    Creating Black Americans: African-American History and Its Meanings, 1619 to the Present
    by Nell Irvin Painter

  • Princeton Professor Imani Perry—a prolific scholar of African American Studies whose biography of Lorraine Hansberry, Looking For Lorraine,  won the 2019 PEN Biography Prize—recommends five books she considers essential to an understanding of the history of black life in America.

  • African American History Books - Black Reconstruction in America by W E B Du Bois
  • African American History Books - Exodus: Religion, Race and Nation in Early Nineteenth-Century Black America by Eddie S Glaude Jr
  • African American History Books - Hammer and Hoe: Alabama Communists During the Great Depression by Robin D G Kelley
  • African American History Books - Hands on the Freedom of the Plow: Personal Accounts by Women in SNCC Faith S. Holsaert, Martha Prescod, and others (eds.)
  • African American History Books - Creating Black Americans: African-American History and Its Meanings, 1619 to the Present by Nell Irvin Painter

African American History Books, recommended by Imani Perry

Princeton Professor Imani Perry—a prolific scholar of African American Studies whose biography of Lorraine Hansberry, Looking For Lorraine,  won the 2019 PEN Biography Prize—recommends five books she considers essential to an understanding of the history of black life in America.

African American History Books, recommended by Imani Perry

About

We ask experts to recommend the five best books in their subject and explain their selection in an interview.

This site has an archive of more than one thousand seven hundred interviews, or eight thousand book recommendations. We publish at least two new interviews per week.

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