February is
Black History Month
For four decades, 400 African American men from Macon, Alabama were unwitting participants in a government study of untreated syphilis. NOVA tells the story of this notorious human experiment. George Strait, ABC News Medical Correspondent, hosts. (1993)
Though virtually forgotten today, Ida B. Wells-Barnett was a household name in black America during much of her lifetime (1863-1931). This film is a stirring biography of a crusading journalist, anti-lynching campaigner, and black suffragette during the most repressive years of the Jim Crow period. It documents the dramatic life and turbulent times of the pioneering African-American woman during the post-Reconstruction period. Nobel Prize-winning author Toni Morrison reads selections from Wells’ memoirs and other writings in this winner of more than 20 film festival awards.
In this program, Bernice Johnson Reagon, founder of the musical group Sweet Honey in the Rock, and curator of the Community Life Division of the Smithsonian Institution, discusses with Bill Moyers how black music has shaped the African-American experience and identity. Reagon traces the role of early spirituals rooted in the black church to their inspirational use in the early Civil Rights movement. Live musical performances, educational workshops, and archival footage of Reagon and noted Civil Rights leaders are included. Reagon’s work with Sweet Honey in the Rock is shown as continuing the tradition of black music as a source of resistance, courage, and pride, as well as determination and faith. (58 minutes)
This program is part five of For Love of Liberty: The Story of America’s Black Patriots (University Edition).
Below is a selection of books on Black history, music, art and culture. For more books on these subjects, try subject searches in the catalog using the following terms:
African American Women
African Americans
African Americans, History
African American Aesthetics
African Americans, Music
African American Art
African American Authors
Harlem Renaissance
Jazz, History and Criticism