History

Disintegration : the splintering of Black America book cover

Disintegration : the splintering of Black America

Eugene Robinson

eBOOK
Nonfiction, History, Black History, Political

Explains how years of desegregation and affirmative action have led to the revelation of four distinct African American groups who reflect unique political views and circumstances, in a report that also illuminates crucial modern debates on race and class.

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The condemnation of blackness : race, crime, and the making of modern urban America book cover

The condemnation of blackness : race, crime, and the making of modern urban America

Khalil Gibran Muhammad

eBOOK
Nonfiction, History, Political

"The Idea of Black Criminality was crucial to the making of modern urban America. Khalil Gibran Muhammad chronicles how, when, and why modern notions of black people as an exceptionally dangerous race of criminals first emerged. Well known are the lynch mobs and racist criminal justice practices in the South that stoked white fears of black crime and shaped the contours of the New South. In this illuminating book, Muhammad shifts our attention to the urban North as a crucial but overlooked site for the production and dissemination of those ideas and practices." "Following the 1890 census - the first to measure the generation of African Americans born after slavery - crime statistics, new migration and immigration trends, and symbolic references to America as the promised land were woven into a cautionary tale about the exceptional threat black people posed to modern urban society. Excessive arrest rates and overrepresentation in northern prisons were seen by many whites - liberals and conservatives, northerners and southerners - as indisputable proof of blacks' inferiority. What else but pathology could explain black failure in the land of opportunity? Social scientists and reformers used crime statistics to mask and excuse anti-black racism, violence, and discrimination across the nation, especially in the urban North." "The Condemnation of Blackness is the most thorough historical account of the enduring link between blackness and criminality in the making of modern urban America. It is a startling examination of why the echoes of America's Jim Crow past continue to resonate in "color-blind" crime rhetoric today."--BOOK JACKET.

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The warmth of other suns : the epic story of America's great migration book cover

The warmth of other suns : the epic story of America's great migration

Isabel Wilkerson

eBOOK
Nonfiction, History, Black History

In this epic, beautifully written masterwork, Pulitzer Prize-winning author Isabel Wilkerson chronicles one of the great untold stories of American history: the decades-long migration of black citizens who fled the South for northern and western cities, in search of a better life. From 1915 to 1970, this exodus of almost six million people changed the face of America.

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Between the world and me book cover

Between the world and me

Ta-Nehisi Coates

eBOOK
Nonfiction, Literary Nonfiction, History, Memoir, Black Lives Matter, Black History

"For Ta-Nehisi Coates, history has always been personal. At every stage of his life, he's sought in his explorations of history answers to the mysteries that surrounded him -- most urgently, why he, and other black people he knew, seemed to live in fear. What were they afraid of? In Tremble for My Country, Coates takes readers along on his journey through America's history of race and its contemporary resonances through a series of awakenings -- moments when he discovered some new truth about our long, tangled history of race, whether through his myth-busting professors at Howard University, a trip to a Civil War battlefield with a rogue historian, a journey to Chicago's South Side to visit aging survivors of 20th century America's 'long war on black people,' or a visit with the mother of a beloved friend who was shot down by the police. In his trademark style -- a mix of lyrical personal narrative, reimagined history, essayistic argument, and reportage -- Coates provides readers a thrillingly illuminating new framework for understanding race: its history, our contemporary dilemma, and where we go from here"--

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Gentleman Jack book cover

Gentleman Jack

Anne Choma

eAUDIO
Nonfiction, LGBTQ+, History

In 1834, Anne Lister made history by celebrating and recording the first ever known marriage to another woman. Now the basis for the HBO series Gentleman Jack, this is her remarkable, true story. Anne Lister was extraordinary. Fearless, charismatic and determined to explore her lesbian sexuality, she forged her own path in a society that had no language to define her. She was a landowner, an industrialist and a prolific diarist, whose output has secured her legacy as one of the most fascinating figures of the 19th century. Gentleman Jack: The Real Anne Lister follows Anne from her crumbling ancestral home in Yorkshire to the glittering courts of Denmark as she resolves to put past heartbreak behind her and find herself a wife. This book introduces the real Gentleman Jack, featuring unpublished journal extracts decrypted for the first time by series creator Sally Wainwright and writer Anne Choma.

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The Stonewall Riots : coming out in the streets book cover

The Stonewall Riots : coming out in the streets

Gayle E. Pitman

j306.76 Pitman
Kids, LGBTQ+, Nonfiction, History

"This book is about the Stonewall Riots, a series of spontaneous, often violent demonstrations by members of the gay (LGBTQ+) community in reaction to a police raid that took place in the early morning hours of June 28, 1969, at the Stonewall Inn in the Greenwich Village neighborhood of Manhattan, New York City. The Riots are attributed as the spark that ignited the LGBTQ+ Movement. The author describes American gay history leading up to the Riots, the Riots themselves, and the aftermath, and includes her interviews of people involved or witnesses, including a woman who was ten at the time. Profusely illustrated, the book includes contemporary photos, newspaper clippings among other period objects. A timely and necessary read, The Stonewall Riots helps readers to understand the history and legacy of the LGBTQ+ movement"--

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Foxcatcher : the true story of my brother's murder, John du Pont's madness, and the quest for Olympic gold book cover

Foxcatcher : the true story of my brother's murder, John du Pont's madness, and the quest for Olympic gold

Mark Schultz

eBOOK
Nonfiction, Sports, History

"On January 26, 1996, Dave Schultz, Olympic gold-medal winner and wrestling golden boy, was shot three times by du Pont family heir John E. du Pont at the famed Foxcatcher Farms estate in Pennsylvania. Following the murder there was a tense standoff when du Pont barricaded himself in his home for two days before he was finally captured. How did such a horrifying senseless murder happen?...Mark Schultz takes us through his remarkable wrestling career from high school to world and Olympic championships, revealing both the triumphs of his career and the personal and financial struggles that gave him no choice but to join forces with the eccentric, controlling du Pont."--Provided by publisher.

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The boys in the boat : nine Americans and their epic quest for gold at the 1936 Berlin Olympics book cover

The boys in the boat : nine Americans and their epic quest for gold at the 1936 Berlin Olympics

Daniel James Brown

eAUDIO
Nonfiction, Sports, History

This is the remarkable story of the University of Washington's 1936 eight-oar crew and their epic quest for an Olympic gold medal. The sons of loggers, shipyard workers, and farmers, the boys defeated elite rivals first from eastern and British universities and finally the German crew rowing for Adolf Hitler in the Olympic games in Berlin, 1936.

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War fever : Boston, baseball, and America in the shadow of the Great War book cover

War fever : Boston, baseball, and America in the shadow of the Great War

Randy Roberts

eBOOK
Nonfiction, Sports, History

American culture in upheaval and a sweeping account of the conflict, War Fever is narrative history at its best."--

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Hotbox : inside catering, the food world's riskiest business book cover

Hotbox : inside catering, the food world's riskiest business

Matt (Cookbook author) Lee

647.95 /Lee
History

"Hotbox exposes the real-life drama behind cavernous event spaces and soaring white tents, where cooking conditions have more in common with a mobile army hospital than a restaurant. Known for their modern take on Southern cooking, the Lee brothers steeped themselves in the catering business for four years, learning the culture from the inside-out. It's a realm where you find eccentric characters, working in extreme conditions, who must produce magical events and instantly adapt when, for instance, the host's toast runs a half-hour too long, a hail storm erupts, or a rolling rack of hundreds of ice cream desserts goes wheels-up. Whether they're dashing through black-tie fundraisers, celebrity-spotting at a Hamptons cookout, or following a silverware crew at 3:00 a.m. in a warehouse in New Jersey, the Lee brothers guide you on a romp from the inner circle--the elite team of chefs using little more than their wits and Sterno to turn out lamb shanks for eight hundred--to the outer reaches of the industries that facilitate the most dazzling galas. You'll never attend a party, or entertain on your own, in the same way after reading this book."--Book jacket.

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I never knew the history and techniques of catering were so fascinating! -Anne W