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The Making of African American Identity:
Volume III, 1917-1968


All Texts
in chronological order by date of event or publication/creation date
No.
Date
Title
Online Source
1 1912 A Negro Nurse, "More Slavery at the South," Independent, 25 January 1912
https://historymatters.gmu.edu/d/80
History Matters, George Mason University and the City University of New York (CUNY)
2 1919 Emmett J. Scott, ed., "Letters of Negro Migrants, 1916-1918," annotated collection, The Journal of Negro History, July & October 1919, selection
https://ecuip.lib.uchicago.edu/diglib/social/greatmigration/letters/
negro_letters.html
eCUIP: Digital Library Project of the Chicago Public Schools & University of Chicago Internet Project
3 1919 Claude McKay, "If We Must Die," poem
https://historymatters.gmu.edu/d/5130/
History Matters
4 1919 Walter White, "N.A.A.C.P.—Chicago and Its Eight Reasons," essay, The Crisis, October 1919
https://historymatters.gmu.edu/d/4978
History Matters
5 1919 "Negroes Petition General Assembly," The State (Columbia, South Carolina), 23 January 1919
https://nationalhumanitiescenter.org/maai3/protest/text1/text1read.htm
National Humanities Center
6 1919 "Where We Are Lacking" & "Some "Don'ts," Chicago Defender, 17 May 1919
https://nationalhumanitiescenter.org/maai3/migrations/text6/text6read.htm
National Humanities Center
7 1920 Emmett J. Scott, Negro Migration during the War, Ch. 3-4
https://nationalhumanitiescenter.org/maai3/migrations/text1/text1read.htm
National Humanities Center
8 1921 Leslie Rogers, "People We Can Get Along Without," cartoon, Chicago Defender, 9 July 1921
https://historymatters.gmu.edu/d/6785
History Matters
9 1922 Charles Johnson, Chicago Commission on Race Relations, The Negro in Chicago: A Study of Race Relations and a Race Riot in 1919, commission report, excerpts
https://historymatters.gmu.edu/d/4977
History Matters
10 1922 Bessie Smith, "Tain't Nobody's Business If I Do," blues recording
-Lyrics https://www.heptune.com/taintnob.html
-Audio clip https://www.last.fm/music/Bessie+Smith/_/%27Tain%27t+
Nobody%27s+Business+if+I+Do
Heptune.com
& last.fm
11 1924 Marcus Garvey, "Aims and Objects of Movement for Solution of Negro Problem," essay, 1924
https://nationalhumanitiescenter.org/maai3/segregation/text1/text1read.htm
National Humanities Center
12 1925 Rudolph Fisher, "The City of Refuge," short story, Atlantic Monthly, February 1925
https://nationalhumanitiescenter.org/maai3/migrations/text4/text4read.htm
National Humanities Center
13 1925 Alain Locke, "Enter the New Negro," essay, Survey Graphic, March 1925
https://nationalhumanitiescenter.org/maai3/migrations/text8/text8read.htm
National Humanities Center
14 1925 R. Edgar Iles, "Boley: An Exclusively Negro Town in Oklahoma," essay, Opportunity: A Journal of Negro Life, August 1925
https://nationalhumanitiescenter.org/pds/maai3/community/text1/text1read.htm
National Humanities Center
15 1925 James Weldon Johnson, "Harlem: The Culture Capital," essay in Alain Locke, ed., The New Negro
https://nationalhumanitiescenter.org/pds/maai3/community/text1/text1read.htm
National Humanities Center
16 1925 Zora Neale Hurston, "Spunk," short story, Opportunity: A Journal of Negro Life, June 1925
https://historymatters.gmu.edu/d/5131/
History Matters
17 ca.
1925
Georgia Douglas Johnson, A Sunday Morning in the South, one-act play
https://nationalhumanitiescenter.org/pds/maai3/segregation/text3/text3read.htm
National Humanities Center
18 1926 George Schuyler, "The Negro-Art Hokum," essay, The Nation, 16 June 1926
https://historymatters.gmu.edu/d/5129/
History Matters
19 1926 Langston Hughes, "The Negro Artist and the Racial Mountain," essay, The Nation, 23 June 1926
https://www.hartford-hwp.com/archives/45a/360.html
The Nation
20 1926 W. E. B. Du Bois, "Criteria of Negro Art," essay, The Crisis, October 1926
https://www.webdubois.org/dbCriteriaNArt.html
WEBDuBois.org
21 1927 E. Franklin Frazier, "Racial Self-Expression" (excerpt), in Ebony and Topaz: A Collectanea, ed. Charles S. Johnson, National Urban League
https://nationalhumanitiescenter.org/pds/maai3/community/text5/text5read.htm
National Humanities Center
22 1927 William Pickens, "Racial Segregation," essay, Opportunity: A Journal of Negro Life, December 1927
https://nationalhumanitiescenter.org/pds/maai3/segregation/text1/text1read.htm
National Humanities Center
23 1927 Gwendolyn B. Bennett, "Hatred," poem
https://nationalhumanitiescenter.org/pds/maai3/protest/text11/text11read.htm
National Humanities Center
24 1928 Alain Locke, "Art or Propaganda?" essay, Harlem, November 1928
https://nationalhumanitiescenter.org/pds/maai3/protest/text10/text10read.htm
National Humanities Center
25 1929 Nella Larsen, Passing, novel, Ch. 3
https://nationalhumanitiescenter.org/pds/maai3/segregation/text6/text6read.htm
National Humanities Center
26 1929 Walter White, "I Investigate Lynchings," essay, American Mercury, January 1929
https://nationalhumanitiescenter.org/pds/maai3/segregation/text2/text2read.htm
National Humanities Center
27 1930 Eddie "Son" House, "Dry Spell Blues," blues recording
-Version I: Lyrics https://www.harptab.com/lyrics/ly5014.shtml
-Version II: Lyrics https://www.harptab.com/lyrics/ly5015.shtml
-Audio clips https://www.amazon.com/Complete-Recorded-Works-House-Singers/
dp/B000000J26


HarpTab.com
& Amazon.com
28   ca.
1930
Georgia Douglas Johnson, Blue-Eyed Black Boy, one-act play
https://nationalhumanitiescenter.org/pds/maai3/segregation/text3/text3read.htm
National Humanities Center
29 1931 Sterling A. Brown, "Strong Men," poem
https://nationalhumanitiescenter.org/pds/maai3/protest/text11/text11read.htm
National Humanities Center
30 1934 Countee Cullen, "Scottsboro, Too, Is Worth Its Song," poem
https://nationalhumanitiescenter.org/pds/maai3/protest/text11/text11read.htm
National Humanities Center
31 1934 Aaron Douglas, Song of the Towers, in mural series Aspects of Negro Life
https://xroads.virginia.edu/~ASI/musi212/brandi/douglas.html
American Studies, University of Virginia
32 1937 Richard Wright, "The Ethics of Living Jim Crow: An Autobiographical Sketch," essay, Federal Writers' Project (WPA)
https://newdeal.feri.org/fwp/fwp03.htm
New Deal Network, Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt Institute
33 1939 Augusta Savage, Lift Every Voice and Sing (The Harp), plaster sculpture for the New York World's Fair
https://nationalhumanitiescenter.org/pds/maai3/community/text4/text4read.htm
National Humanities Center
34 1940 Langston Hughes, "Ballad of the Landlord," poem
https://nationalhumanitiescenter.org/pds/maai3/protest/text11/text11read.htm
National Humanities Center
35 ca.
1940
"We Shall Overcome," (transition from earlier spiritual), lyrics & audio clip
https://www.lib.virginia.edu/small/exhibits/music/
protest_overcome.html
Lift Every Voice, University of Virginia Library
36 1940
-1941
Jacob Lawrence, The Migration of the Negro, series of sixty paintings with captions, casein tempera on hardboard
-Even-numbered panels
https://www.moma.org/collection/browse_results.php?
criteria=O%3AAD%3AE%3A3418&page_number=1&template_id=6&sort_order=1


-Odd-numbered panels https://www.phillipscollection.org/american_art/artwork/
Lawrence-Migration_Series1.htm


Museum of Modern Art




Phillips Collection
37 1941 H. Lee Waters, Kannapolis, N.C., in film series Movies of Local People, video clip
https://nationalhumanitiescenter.org/pds/maai3/community/text2/text2read.htm
National Humanities Center
38   ca.
 1943
-1944
William H. Johnson, Moon over Harlem, oil on plywood
https://americanart.si.edu/cottingham/tour-noframe.html?/
cottingham/more-moon.html
Smithsonian American Art Museum
39 1945 Letters of protest to A. S. Donaldson, manager, Lansburgh's Dept. Store, Washington, DC, from J. L. Henry, Florence Patterson Clark, and Beatrice M. Short
https://nationalhumanitiescenter.org/pds/maai3/protest/text1/text1read.htm
National Humanities Center
40 1945 Robert Gwathmey, Poll Tax Country, oil on canvas
https://nationalhumanitiescenter.org/pds/maai3/segregation/text4/text4read.htm
National Humanities Center
41 1946 Claude Clark, Slave Lynching, oil on canvas
https://shs.westport.k12.ct.us/jwb/Art/Clark/Slave.jpg
J. Whiting, Staples HS, Westport, CT
42  1946
-1947
Elizabeth Catlett, four linoleum cuts in series The Negro Woman
https://nationalhumanitiescenter.org/pds/maai3/segregation/text5/text5read.htm
National Humanities Center
43 1947 Jessie P. Guzman & W. Hardin Hughes, "Lynching-Crime," Negro Year Book: A Review of Events Affecting Negro Life, 1944-1946
https://nationalhumanitiescenter.org/pds/maai3/segregation/text2/text2read.htm
National Humanities Center
44 1957 Gwendolyn Brooks, "The Chicago Defender Sends a Man to Little Rock," poem
https://nationalhumanitiescenter.org/pds/maai3/protest/text11/text11read.htm
National Humanities Center
45   ca.
1960
Southern Christian Leadership Conference, "This Is SCLC," pamphlet, excerpts
https://nationalhumanitiescenter.org/pds/maai3/protest/text2/text2read.htm
National Humanities Center
46 1960 Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC), Statement of Purpose
https://nationalhumanitiescenter.org/pds/maai3/protest/text2/text2read.htm
National Humanities Center
47 1960 Ruby Bridges integrating Frantz Elementary School, New Orleans, escorted by federal marshals, photograph
https://nationalhumanitiescenter.org/pds/maai3/segregation/text9/text9read.htm
National Humanities Center
48 1961 Albany (Georgia) Nonviolent Movement, handbill announcing a meeting
https://nationalhumanitiescenter.org/pds/maai3/protest/text2/text2read.htm
National Humanities Center
49 1962 Martin Luther King, Jr., "Fumbling on the New Frontier," essay, The Nation, 3 March 1962
https://nationalhumanitiescenter.org/pds/maai3/overcome/text1/text1read.htm
National Humanities Center
50 1962 Robert Williams, Negroes with Guns, Ch. 3-5
https://nationalhumanitiescenter.org/pds/maai3/protest/text6/text6read.htm
National Humanities Center
51 1963 Reginald Gammon, Freedom Now, acrylic on board
https://xroads.virginia.edu/~UG01/hughes/now.html
American Studies, University of Virginia
52 1964 Malcolm X, "The Ballot or the Bullet," address, Detroit, Michigan, 12 April 1964, text & audio
https://www.americanrhetoric.com/speeches/malcolmxballotorbullet.htm
American Rhetoric.com
53 1964 Romare Bearden, Sermons: The Walls of Jericho, mixed media
https://hirshhorn.si.edu/visit/collection_object.asp?key=32&subkey=3825
Hirshhorn Museum (Smithsonian)
54 1964 Joe Overstreet, The New Jemima, acrylic on fabric over plywood
https://nationalhumanitiescenter.org/pds/maai3/overcome/text4/text4read.htm
National Humanities Center
55 1964 Norman Rockwell, The Problem We All Live With, oil on canvas
https://www.guggenheim.org/exhibitions/past_exhibitions/rockwell/
problem.html
Guggenheim Museum
56 1965 James Farmer, "Integration or Desegregation," Ch. 5 (excerpt) of Freedom—When?
https://nationalhumanitiescenter.org/pds/maai3/segregation/text7/text7read.htm
National Humanities Center
57 1965 Bayard Rustin, "From Protest to Politics: The Future of the Civil Rights Movement," essay, Commentary, February 1965
https://www.socialdemocrats.org/protopol.html
Social Democrats, USA
58 1965 Malcolm X, "Not Just an American Problem, But a World Problem," address, Rochester, New York, 16 February 1965
https://nationalhumanitiescenter.org/pds/maai3/community/text10/text10read.htm
National Humanities Center
59 1965 LeRoi Jones (Amiri Baraka), "The Revolutionary Theatre," essay, Liberator, July 1965
https://nationalhumanitiescenter.org/pds/maai3/protest/text12/text12read.htm
National Humanities Center
60 1965 Douglas Turner Ward, Day of Absence, one-act play, excerpts
https://nationalhumanitiescenter.org/pds/maai3/protest/text12/text12read.htm
National Humanities Center
61 1965 Curtis Mayfield, "People Get Ready," song
-Lyrics
https://lyricsplayground.com/alpha/songs/p/peoplegetready.shtml
-Audio clips (NPR broadcast)
https://www.npr.org/news/specials/march40th/people.html
International Lyrics Playground
& National Public Radio
62 1966 Julius Lester, "The Angry Children of Malcolm X," essay, Sing Out!, October/November 1966, excerpt
https://nationalhumanitiescenter.org/pds/maai3/overcome/text5/text5read.htm
National Humanities Center
63 1966 Stokely Carmichael, "Toward Black Liberation," essay, The Massachusetts Review, Autumn 1966
https://nationalhumanitiescenter.org/pds/maai3/segregation/text8/text8read.htm
National Humanities Center
64 1967 Martin Luther King, Jr., "Where Do We Go from Here?," address to the Southern Christian Leadershp Conference (SCLC), Atlanta, Georgia, 16 August 1967
https://mlk-kpp01.stanford.edu/index.php/kingpapers/
article/where_do_we_go_from_here/
The King Center & Stanford University
65   ca.
1967
Alice Walker, "Roselily," short story
https://nationalhumanitiescenter.org/pds/maai3/migrations/text11/text11read.htm
National Humanities Center
66 1968 Anne Moody, Coming of Age in Mississippi, Ch. 26: "The Movement," excerpts (Mississippi Summer Freedom Project of 1963)
https://nationalhumanitiescenter.org/pds/maai3/protest/text7/text7read.htm
National Humanities Center
67 1968 Larry Neal, "The Black Arts Movement," essay, Drama Review, Summer 1968, excerpt
https://nationalhumanitiescenter.org/pds/maai3/community/text8/text8read.htm
National Humanities Center
68 1968 Elizabeth Catlett, Black Unity, mahogany sculpture
https://nationalhumanitiescenter.org/pds/maai3/community/text9/text9read.htm
National Humanities Center
69 1969 Sonia Sanchez, "right on: white america," poem
https://nationalhumanitiescenter.org/pds/maai3/protest/text11/text11read.htm
National Humanities Center
70 1970 Charles White, lithograph in Wanted Poster series
https://negroartist.com/negro%20artist/charles%20white/pages/CHARLES%20WHITE%20Wanted%20Poster%201970_jpg.htm
NegroArtist.com
71 1972 Betye Saar, The Liberation of Aunt Jemima, mixed media assemblage
https://www.netropolitan.org/saar/auntjemima.html
Netropolitan: Museum without Walls
72 1974 Henry Dumas, "Ark of Bones," short story (published posthumously), excerpt
https://nationalhumanitiescenter.org/pds/maai3/community/text7/text7read.htm
National Humanities Center
73 1976 Bernice Johnson Reagon, "In Our Hands: Thoughts on Black Music," Sing Out!, January 1976
https://nationalhumanitiescenter.org/pds/maai3/protest/text3/text3read.htm
National Humanities Center
74 1987 Pauli Murray, "Members of Your Race Are Not Admitted" (on 1938 application to the University of North Carolina law school), Ch. 11 in Song in a Weary Throat, memoir (published posthumously)
https://nationalhumanitiescenter.org/pds/maai3/protest/text1/text1read.htm
National Humanities Center
75 1987 Jo Ann Gibson Robinson, The Montgomery Bus Boycott and the Women Who Started It, Ch. 2: "The Boycott Begins"
https://nationalhumanitiescenter.org/pds/maai3/protest/text5/text5read.htm
National Humanities Center
76 1992 Brent Wade, Company Man, novel, excerpts
https://nationalhumanitiescenter.org/pds/maai3/overcome/text7/text7read.htm
National Humanities Center
77 1993 Interview with Walter Cavers on choosing to remain in the South, Behind the Veil Project, Center for Documentary Studies, Duke University, as published in William Chafe et al., eds., Remembering Jim Crow: African Americans Tell about Life in the Segregated South, 2001
-Narrative:
https://nationalhumanitiescenter.org/pds/maai3/migrations/text7/text7read.htm
-"Wrongly Accused": audio clip (3:20) https://americanradioworks.publicradio.org/features/ remembering/danger.html
National Humanities Center
& Remembering Jim Crow, American Radio Works
78 1994 Interview with A. I. Dixie and Samuel Dixie on fraternal organizations in Florida in the 1920s/1930s, Behind the Veil Project, Center for Documentary Studies, Duke University, as published in William Chafe et al., eds., Remembering Jim Crow: African Americans Tell about Life in the Segregated South, 2001
https://nationalhumanitiescenter.org/pds/maai3/community/text3/text3read.htm
National Humanities Center
79 1994 Interview with Brent Wade, author of novel Company Man (1992), radio broadcast in SoundingsTM from the National Humanities Center, audio clip
https://nationalhumanitiescenter.org/pds/maai3/overcome/text7/text7read.htm
National Humanities Center
80 1995 Interview with Willie Harrell on plantation life in the twentieth-century South, Behind the Veil Project, Center for Documentary Studies, Duke University, as published in William Chafe et al., eds., Remembering Jim Crow: African Americans Tell about Life in the Segregated South, 2001
https://nationalhumanitiescenter.org/pds/maai3/migrations/text7/text7read.htm
National Humanities Center
81 1999 Tracy Price-Thompson, "Bensonhurst: Black and Then Blue" (school integration in 1960s), in Laurel Holliday, ed., Children of the Dream: Our Own Stories of Growing Up Black in America, 1999
https://nationalhumanitiescenter.org/pds/maai3/overcome/text6/text6read.htm
National Humanities Center
82 2000 David Van Leeuwen, "Marcus Garvey and the Universal Negro Improvement Association," essay in TeacherServeTM, Divining America: Religion in the National Culture, from the National Humanities Center
https://nationalhumanitiescenter.org/tserve/twenty/tkeyinfo/garvey.htm
National Humanities Center

TOOLBOX: The Making of African American Identity: Volume III, 1917-1968
Segregation | Migrations | Protest | Community | Overcome?




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Toolbox Library: Primary Resources in U.S. History and Literature
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Revised: February 2011
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