Readings in African American Culture

Helps readers understand and appreciate the black experience through readings that illustrate the lives, history, and intersecting cultures of African Americans and the development of a unique African American identity. Rooted in an interdisciplinary approach, Readings in African American Culture is appropriate for courses on Black culture.

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Readings in African American Culture: Resistance, Liberation, and Identity from the 1600s to the 21st Century helps readers understand and appreciate the black experience through readings that illustrate the lives, history, and intersecting cultures of African Americans and the development of a unique African American identity.

Early chapters define African American culture and examine racism in America in relation to the existence of a dominant culture of white privilege. Readers learn about the history of West Africa before imperialism, the role of slavery in the suppression of the African culture, the loss of African identity, and the creation of racism in the making of America.

They study the acculturation of Africans, and the post-Civil War migration which led to a widespread cultural revolution. They explore the origins of blues and jazz, Black religious traditions, the rise of Black nationalism, and the role of Black literary artists in the quest for community and identity. The book concludes with the civil rights movement and the on-going struggle for African Americans to become fully realized within American society.

Rooted in an interdisciplinary approach, Readings in African American Culture is appropriate for courses on Black culture, and will be of interest in any course centered on the effects of race and culture on minority populations.