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Books by
Barack
Obama
Dreams from My Father: A Story of Race and Inheritance
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The Audacity of Hope: Thoughts on Reclaiming the
American Dream
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National African
American History Month 2009
A Proclamation by
the President of the United States of America
February 2, 2009
The history of
African Americans is unique and rich, and one that has
helped to define what it means to be an American.
Arriving on ships on the shores of North America more
than 300 years ago, recognized more as possessions than
people, African Americans have come to know the freedoms
fought for in establishing the United States and gained
through the use of our founding principles of freedom of
speech, freedom of the press, the right to assembly, and
due process of law. The ideals of the Founders became
more real and more true for every citizen as African
Americans pressed us to realize our full potential as a
Nation and to uphold those ideals for all who enter into
our borders and embrace the notion that we are all
endowed with certain unalienable rights.
Since Carter G. Woodson
first sought to illuminate the African American
experience, each February we pause to reflect on the
contributions of this community to our national
identity. The history is one of struggle for the
recognition of each person's humanity as well as an
influence on the broader American culture. African
Americans designed our beautiful Capital City, gave us
the melodic rhythms of New Orleans Jazz, issued new
discoveries in science and medicine, and forced us to
examine ourselves in the pages of classic literature.
This legacy has only added luster to the brand of the
United States, which has drawn immigrants to our shores
for centuries.
This year's theme, "The Quest for Black Citizenship in
the Americas," is a chance to examine the evolution of
our country and how African Americans helped draw us
ever closer to becoming a more perfect union.
The narrative of the African American pursuit of full
citizenship with all of the rights and privileges
afforded others in this country is also the story of a
maturing young Nation. The voices and examples of the
African American people worked collectively to remove
the boulders of systemic racism and discrimination that
pervaded our laws and our public consciousness for
decades. Through the work of
Frederick Douglass
and Harriet Tubman,
Booker T.
Washington and George Washington Carver,
Martin Luther King
and Thurgood Marshall,
the African American community has steadily made
progress toward the dreams within its grasp and the
promise of our Nation. Meanwhile, the belief that those
dreams might one day be realized by all of our citizens
gave African American men and women the same sense of
duty and love of country that led them to shed blood in
every war we have ever fought, to invest hard-earned
resources in their communities with the hope of self
empowerment, and to pass the ideals of this great land
down to their children and grandchildren.
As we mark National African American History Month, we
should take note of this special moment in our Nation's
history and the actors who worked so diligently to
deliver us to this place. One such organization is the
National Association for the Advancement of Colored
People—the
NAACP—which
this year will witness 100 years of service to the
Nation on February 12. Because of their work, including
the contributions of those luminaries on the front lines
and great advocates behind the scenes, we as a Nation
were able to take the dramatic steps we have in recent
history.
NOW, THEREFORE, I, BARACK
OBAMA, President of the United States of America, by
virtue of the authority vested in me by the Constitution
and the laws of the United States, do hereby proclaim
February 2009 as National African American History
Month. I call upon public officials, educators,
librarians, and all the people of the United States to
observe this month with appropriate ceremonies,
activities, and programs that raise awareness and
appreciation of African American history.
IN WITNESS WHEREOF, I have hereunto set my hand this
second day of February, in the year of our Lord two
thousand nine, and of the Independence of the United
States of America the two hundred and thirty-third.
Barack Obama
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Black History Month 2009
We went into slavery a
piece of property; we came out American
citizens. We went into slavery pagans;
we came out Christians. We went into
slavery without a language; we came out
speaking the proud Anglo-Saxon tongue.
We went into slavery with slave chains
clanking about our wrists; we came out
with the American ballot in our hands.
Progress, progress is the law of nature;
under God it shall be our eternal
guiding star.—Booker
Taliaferro Washington
After the Egyptian and
Indian, the Greek and Roman, the Teuton
and Mongolian, the Negro is a sort of
seventh son, born with a veil, and
gifted with second-sight in this
American world, — a world which yields
him no true self-consciousness, but only
lets him see himself through the
revelation of the other world.—W.
E. B. Du Bois
God and Nature first made
us what we are, and then out of our own
created genius we make ourselves what we
want to be. Follow always that great
law. Let the sky and God be our limit
and Eternity our measurement.—Marcus
Garvey
You know my friends,
there comes a time when people get tired
of being trampled by the iron feet of
oppression ....If we are wrong, the
Supreme Court of this nation is wrong.
If we are wrong, the Constitution of the
United States is wrong. And if we are
wrong, God Almighty is wrong. If we are
wrong, Jesus of Nazareth was merely a
utopian dreamer that never came down to
Earth. If we are wrong, justice is a
lie, love has no meaning. And we are
determined here in Montgomery to work
and fight until justice runs down like
water, and righteousness like a mighty
stream.—M.
L. King
<-------artist
Chuck Siler
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Sister Citizen: Shame, Stereotypes, and Black Women in
America
By Melissa V.
Harris-Perry
According to the
author, this society has historically exerted
considerable pressure on black females to fit into one
of a handful of stereotypes, primarily, the Mammy, the
Matriarch or the Jezebel. The selfless
Mammy’s behavior is marked by a slavish devotion to
white folks’ domestic concerns, often at the expense of
those of her own family’s needs. By contrast, the
relatively-hedonistic Jezebel is a sexually-insatiable
temptress. And the Matriarch is generally thought of as
an emasculating figure who denigrates black men, ala the
characters Sapphire and Aunt Esther on the television
shows Amos and Andy and Sanford and Son, respectively.
Professor Perry
points out how the propagation of these harmful myths
have served the mainstream culture well. For instance,
the Mammy suggests that it is almost second nature for
black females to feel a maternal instinct towards
Caucasian babies.
As for the source
of the Jezebel, black women had no control over their
own bodies during slavery given that they were being
auctioned off and bred to maximize profits. Nonetheless,
it was in the interest of plantation owners to propagate
the lie that sisters were sluts inclined to mate
indiscriminately.
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Sex at the Margins
Migration, Labour Markets and the Rescue Industry
By Laura María Agustín
This book explodes several myths: that selling sex is completely different from any other kind of work, that migrants who sell sex are passive victims and that the multitude of people out to save them are without self-interest. Laura Agustín makes a passionate case against these stereotypes, arguing that the label 'trafficked' does not accurately describe migrants' lives and that the 'rescue industry' serves to disempower them. Based on extensive research amongst both migrants who sell sex and social helpers, Sex at the Margins provides a radically different analysis. Frequently, says Agustin, migrants make rational choices to travel and work in the sex industry, and although they are treated like a marginalised group they form part of the dynamic global economy. Both powerful and controversial, this book is essential reading for all those who want to understand the increasingly important relationship between sex markets, migration and the desire for social justice. "Sex at the Margins rips apart distinctions between migrants, service work and sexual labour and reveals the utter complexity of the contemporary sex industry. This book is set to be a trailblazer in the study of sexuality."—Lisa Adkins, University of London |
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The Warmth of Other Suns
The Epic Story of America's Great
Migration
By Isabel Wilkerson
Ida Mae Brandon Gladney, a
sharecropper's wife, left Mississippi
for Milwaukee in 1937, after her cousin
was falsely accused of stealing a white
man's turkeys and was almost beaten to
death. In 1945, George Swanson Starling,
a citrus picker, fled Florida for Harlem
after learning of the grove owners'
plans to give him a "necktie party" (a
lynching). Robert Joseph Pershing Foster
made his trek from Louisiana to
California in 1953, embittered by "the
absurdity that he was doing surgery for
the United States Army and couldn't
operate in his own home town." Anchored
to these three stories is Pulitzer
Prize–winning journalist Wilkerson's
magnificent, extensively researched
study of the "great migration," the
exodus of six million black Southerners
out of the terror of Jim Crow to an
"uncertain existence" in the North and
Midwest. Wilkerson deftly incorporates
sociological and historical studies into
the novelistic narratives of Gladney,
Starling, and Pershing settling in new
lands, building anew, and often finding
that they have not left racism behind.
The drama, poignancy, and romance of a
classic immigrant saga pervade this
book, hold the reader in its grasp, and
resonate long after the reading is done.
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The White Masters of the
World
From
The World and Africa, 1965
By W. E. B. Du Bois
W. E. B. Du Bois’
Arraignment and Indictment of White Civilization
(Fletcher)
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Ancient African Nations
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Black World
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Enjoy!
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The Death of Emmett Till by Bob Dylan
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The Lonesome Death of Hattie Carroll
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Only a Pawn in Their Game
Rev. Jesse Lee Peterson Thanks America for
Slavery /
George Jackson /
Hurricane Carter
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The Journal of Negro History issues at Project Gutenberg
The
Haitian Declaration of Independence 1804
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January 1, 1804 -- The Founding of
Haiti
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posted 6 February 2009
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