Black History, Black Futures Resource List

ACLS highlights scholarly resources on the hidden and lesser known histories of the Black American experience, and humanistic resources that celebrate, envision, and work toward positive Black futures.

Similar to the previously published section of scholarly writing and resources celebrating Inclusive Excellence, we asked members of the ACLS community to share their own published works, as well as recommendations for resources that can expand knowledge and understanding in this important area of scholarship.
 
We invite ACLS fellows and members to share additional contributions, as well as any questions or comments, with us at [email protected].

Scholarly Resources by ACLS Fellows

ARTICLES

• “Arteries of capital: William Johnson and the practice of black moneylending in the antebellum U.S. South” – Slavery & Abolition; A Journal of Slave and Post-Slave Studies, Volume 41, 2020 – Issue 2, June 2019 
  Written by Kimberly Welch F’19, Assistant Professor, Department of History, School of Law, Vanderbilt University
• “Between Africa and America: Recalibrating Black Americans’ Relationship to the Diaspora” – Perspectives on History, August 20, 2020
  Written by Jeannette Eileen Jones F’19, G’19, UB Center for Diversity Innovation Distinguished Visiting Scholar, University at Buffalo and Nemata Blyden, Professor of History and International Affairs, Columbian College of Arts and Science
• “Black Latinx Encuentros: Embodied Knowledge and Reciprocal Forms of Knowledge Sharing” – footnotesblog.com, July 1, 2020
  Written by Amarilys Estrella F’20, ACLS Emerging Voices Postdoctoral Fellow, History Department, Program for the Study of Women, Gender and Sexuality, Johns Hopkins University, and Meryleen Mena F’19, Mellon/ACLS Public Fellow appointed as Policy & Budget Analyst, Citizens’ Committee for Children of New York
• “Black Women, Police Violence, and Gentrification” – processhistory.org
  Written by Anne Gray Fischer F’17, Assistant Professor, History, University of Texas at Dallas
• “Catholic Conspirators? Religious Rebels in Nineteenth-Century Cuba, Slavery & Abolition” – Slavery & Abolition: A Journal of Slave and Post-Slave Studies, Volume 36, Issue 3, 2015
  Written by Jane Landers G’22, G’16, F’13, Gertrude Conaway Vanderbilt Professor of History at Vanderbilt University
• “Changing Currents and Charting New Courses: Collage and Visioning of Black Histories and Memories” – Multiplicity: The Black Experience in Contemporary Collage, ed. Katie Delmez (Frist Art Museum to be published with Yale University Press, 2023)
  Written by Rebecca VanDiver F’10, Associate Professor of African American Art, Vanderbilt University
• “Disorderly Communion: Julia Chinn, Richard Mentor Johnson, and Life in an Interracial, Antebellum, Southern Church” – The Journal of African American History, Volume 105, Number 2, Spring 2020
  Written by Amrita Chakrabarti Myers F’17, Ruth N. Halls Associate Professor of History and Gender Studies and 2020-2022 College of Arts and Sciences Faculty Fellow for Diversity and Inclusion, Indiana University, Bloomington

• “Everyday Use: A History of Civil Rights in Black Churches” – Journal of American History, Volume 107, Issue 4, March 2021
  Written by Dylan C. Penningroth F’18, Associate Dean, Program in Jurisprudence and Social Policy / Legal Studies; Professor of Law; and Alexander F. and May T. Morrison Professor of History, University of California, Berkeley
• “Expanding the Southscape to the Global South: Remapping History and Afro-Vietnamese Intimacy in Yusef Komunyakaa’s Dien Cai Dau” – African American Review, Volume 53, Number 2, Summer 2020
  Written by Sunny Yang F’18, F’13, Assistant Professor, English, University of Houston
• “Founding Mothers: Female Rebels in Colonial New Granada and Spanish Florida” – The Journal of African American History, Volume 98, Number 1, Winter 2013
  Written by Jane Landers G’22, G’16, F’13, Gertrude Conaway Vanderbilt Professor of History at Vanderbilt University
• “Freedom on the Move: Marronage in Martin Delany’s Blake; or, the Huts of America” – MELUS (Multi-Ethnic Literature of the United States), Volume 43, Issue 3, Fall 2018
  Written by Sean Gerrity F’20, Assistant Professor of English, Hostos Community College, CUNY 
• “Hidden heirlooms: Black families and their stories of continuity” – Journal of Narrative Politics, Volume 6, Issue 2
  Written by Kersha Smith F’21, Associate Professor Social Sciences, City University of New York, Queensborough Community College
• “Historians and Ethics: Finding Anne Moody” – American Historical Review,Volume 125, Issue 2, April 2020
  Written by Françoise Hamlin F’15, Royce Family Associate Professor of Teaching Excellence in Africana Studies & History, Brown University
• “Introduction: African American Writers Respond to Poe” – Poe Studies, Volume 56, 2023
  Written by John C. Gruesser G’18, Research Scholar, Natural History Collections, Sam Houston State University and Norlisha Crawford, Assistant Professor of English at University of Wisconsin-Oshkosh
• “Latin America and the Radicalization of U.S. Abolition” – Journal of American History, Volume 108, Issue 4, March 2022
  Written by Caitlin Fitz, F’18 Associate Professor of History, Northwestern University
• “‘The Place is Gone!’: Policing Black Women to Redevelop Downtown Boston” – Journal of Social History, Volume 53, Issue 1, Fall 2019
  Written by Anne Gray Fischer F’17, Assistant Professor, History, University of Texas at Dallas
• “Queer (Be)Longing: Glenn Ligon’s Million Man March Series and the Civil Rights Movement’s Legacy” – Art Journal, 79, no. 4, Winter 2020
  Written by Kim Bobier F’16, Visiting Assistant Professor, Department of History of Art and Design, Pratt Institute 
• “Race, Blacksound, and the (Re)Making of Musicological Discourse” – Journal of the American Musicological Society, Volume 72, Issue 3, Fall 2019
  Written by Matthew Morrison F’21, Susan McClary and Robert Walser ACLS Fellow, Assistant Professor, The Clive Davis Institute of Recorded Music, Tisch School of the Arts, New York University
• “Race in Contract Law” – University of Pennsylvania Law Review, Volume 170, Number 5, 2022
  Written by Dylan C. Penningroth F’18, Associate Dean, Program in Jurisprudence and Social Policy / Legal Studies; Professor of Law; and Alexander F. and May T. Morrison Professor of History, University of California, Berkeley
• “Race, memory and implication in Tulsa’s Greenwood Rising” – Memory Studies Volume 15(6), November 30, 2022
  Written by Amy Sodaro F’22, Associate Professor of Sociology, City University of New York, Borough of Manhattan Community College
• “Segregating a Great Singer: Marian Anderson and the Daughters of the American Revolution” – TLS, July 17, 2020
  Written by Carol J. Oja F’16, William Powell Mason Professor Department of Music and Graduate Program in American Studies, Harvard University
• “The Torture of Mothers: Elizabeth Catlett’s Prints as a Call for Reproductive Justice” –  Art     Journal, Volume 80, Number 2, Summer 2021
  Written by Rebecca VanDiver F’10, Associate Professor of African American Art, Vanderbilt University
• “William Johnson’s Hypothesis: A Free Black Man and the Problem of Legal Knowledge in the Antebellum United States South” – Law and History Review, Volume 37 , Issue 1 , February 2019
  Written by Kimberly Welch F’19, Assistant Professor, Department of History, School of Law, Vanderbilt University
• “You Say You Want A Revolution” – The Monist, Volume 107, Issue 1, January 2024
  Written by Wendy Salkin, Assistant Professor of Philosophy and Law, Stanford University

BOOKS

• The African American Struggle for Secondary Schooling, 1940-1980: Closing the Graduation Gap (Teachers College Press, 2011)
  Written by John L. Rury F’15, Professor Emeritus, School of Education and Human Sciences, University of Kansas and Shirley A. Hill, Professor Emerita of Sociology, University of Kansas
• Atlantic Bonds: A Nineteenth-Century Odyssey from America to Africa (University of North Carolina Press, 2016)
  Written by Lisa A. Lindsay F’04, F’00, Professor and Chair, History, University of North Carolina
• Atlantic Creoles in the Age of Revolutions (Harvard University Press, 2011)
  Written by Jane Landers F’13, G’16, Gertrude Conaway Vanderbilt Professor Department of History, Vanderbilt University
• Becoming Free, Becoming Black: Race, Freedom, and Law in Cuba, Virginia, and Louisiana (Cambridge University Press, 2020)
  Written by Alejandro de la Fuente F’17, Robert Woods Bliss Professor of Latin American History and Economics; Professor of African and African American Studies and of History; Director of Graduate Studies; Director, Afro-Latin American Research Institute, Hutchins Center for African and African American Research at Harvard University; and Ariela J. Gross F’17, F’03, John B. and Alice R. Sharp Professor of Law and History, University of Southern California 
• Before the Movement: The Hidden History of Black Civil Rights (Liveright, 2023)
  Written by Dylan C. Penningroth F’18, Associate Dean, Program in Jurisprudence and Social Policy / Legal Studies; Professor of Law; and Alexander F. and May T. Morrison Professor of History, University of California, Berkeley
• Black Freethinkers: A History of African American Secularism (Northwestern University Press, 2019)
  Written by Christopher Cameron F’20, Professor of History, Faculty Fellow, Honors College, University of North Carolina at Charlotte
• Black Litigants in the Antebellum American South (University of North Carolina Press, 2018)
  Written by Kimberly Welch F’19, Assistant Professor, Department of History, School of Law, Vanderbilt University
• Black Society in Spanish Florida (University of Illinois Press, 1999)
  Written by Jane Landers F’13, G’16, Gertrude Conaway Vanderbilt Professor Department of History, Vanderbilt University
• Black Woman Reformer: Ida B. Wells, Lynching, and Transatlantic Reform (University of Georgia Press, 2015)
  Written by Sarah L. Silkey F’17, Professor and Chair of History, Lycoming College
• Crossroads At Clarksdale: The Black Freedom Struggle In The Mississippi Delta After World War II (University of North Carolina Press, 2012)
  Written by Françoise Hamlin F’15, Royce Family Associate Professor of Teaching Excellence in Africana Studies & History, Brown University
• Designing a New Tradition: Loïs Mailou Jones and the Aesthetics of Blackness (Pennsylvania State University Press, 2020)
  Written by Rebecca VanDiver F’10, Assistant Professor of African American Art, Vanderbilt University
• Final Passages: The Intercolonial Slave Trade of British America, 1619-1807 (The University of North Carolina Press, 2016)
  Written by Gregory E. O’Malley, Professor of History and Director, UCSC Center for World History, University of California, Santa Cruz
• Fit Citizens: A History of Black Women’s Exercise from Post-Reconstruction to Postwar America (The University of North Carolina Press, 2023)
  Written by Ava Purkiss F’22, Assistant Professor of American Culture and Assistant Professor of Women’s and Gender Studies, University of Michigan
• Forgotten Readers: Recovering the Lost History of African American Literary Societies (Duke University Press, 2002)
  Written by Elizabeth McHenry F’18, Professor and Chair, Department of English, New York University
• God and the Green Divide: Religious Environmentalism in Black and White (University of California Press, 2016)  
  Written by Amanda J. Baugh F’11, Associate Professor, Religious Studies, California State University, Northridge

• Half in Shadow: The Life and Legacy of Nellie Y. McKay (University of North Carolina Press, 2021)
  Written by Shanna Greene Benjamin F’19, Professor of African American Studies, Wake Forest
• How to Lose the Hounds: Maroon Geographies and a World beyond Policing (Duke University Press, 2023)
  Written by Celeste Winston F’22, Assistant Professor of Geography and Urban Studies, Temple University
• A Literary Life of Sutton E. Griggs: The Man on the Firing Line (Oxford University Press, 2022)
  Written by John Gruesser G’18, Senior Research Scholar, Sam Houston State University
• To Make Negro Literature: Writing, Literary Practice, and African American Authorship (Duke University Press, 2021)
  Written by Elizabeth McHenry F’18, Professor and Chair, Department of English, New York University
• New World A Coming: Black Religion and Racial Identity during the Great Migration (New York University Press, 2017)
  Written by Judith Weisenfeld F’14, Agate Brown and George L. Collord Professor, Chair, Department of Religion, Princeton University
• Overground Railroad: The Green Book and the Roots of Black Travel in America (Abrams Press, 2020)
  Written by Candacy A. Taylor F’16, independent scholar
• Plantation Politics and Campus Rebellions: Power, Diversity, and the Emancipatory Struggle in Higher Education (State University of New York Press, 2021)
  Edited by Bianca C. Williams F’21, Associate Professor of Anthropology, Women & Gender Studies, & Critical Psychology, The Graduate Center, City University of New York; Dian D. Squire; and Frank A. Tuitt
• The Pursuit of Happiness: Black Women, Diasporic Dreams, and the Politics of Emotional Transnationalism (Duke University Press, 2018)
  Written by Bianca C. Williams F’21, Associate Professor of Anthropology, Women & Gender Studies, & Critical Psychology, The Graduate Center, City University of New York
• The Revolution has Come: Black Power, Gender and the Black Panther Party in Oakland, CA (Duke University Press, 2016)
  Written by Robyn C. Spencer F’18, Associate Professor of History, City University of New York, Lehman College
• Social Practice Art in Turbulent Times: The Revolution Will Be Live (Routledge, 2019)
  Chapter entitled “Reframing Resistance & Surveillance: Lorraine O’Grady’s Art Is…” written by Kim Bobier F’16, Visiting Assistant Professor, Department of History of Art and Design, Pratt Institute 
• Struggle of Struggles (University Press of Mississippi, 2023)
  Written by Vera Pigee, republished with a new introduction, annotation, and footnotes by Françoise N. Hamlin F’15, Royce Family Associate Professor of Teaching Excellence in Africana Studies & History, Brown University
• These Truly Are The Brave: An Anthology of African American Writings on War and Citizenship (University Press of Florida, 2015)
  Edited by Françoise Hamlin F’15, Royce Family Associate Professor of Teaching Excellence in Africana Studies & History, Brown University, and Yęmisi Jimoh, Professor, University of Massachusetts Amherst
• The Vice President’s Black Wife: The Untold Life of Julia Chinn (The University of North Carolina Press, 2023)
  Written by Amrita Chakrabarti Myers F’17, Ruth N. Halls Associate Professor of History, Indiana University, Bloomington 
• Word by Word: Emancipation and the Act of Writing (Harvard University Press, 2015)
  Written by Christopher Hager F’10, F’19, Professor and Chair, Department of English, Trinity College
• Your Sister in the Gospel: The Life of Jane Manning James, a Nineteenth-Century Black Mormon (Oxford University Press, 2019)
  Written by Quincy D. Newell F’11, Professor of Religious Studies, Hamilton College

BOOK CHAPTERS

• “The Atlantic Transformations of Francisco Menéndez” – Biography and the Black Atlantic (University of Pennsylvania Press, 2013)
  Chapter written by Jane Landers G’22, G’16, F’13, Gertrude Conaway Vanderbilt Professor of History at Vanderbilt University
• “Yamasee-African Ties in Carolina and Florida” – The Yamasee Indians: From Florida to South Carolina (University of Nebraska Press, 2018)
  Chapter written by Jane Landers G’22, G’16, F’13, Gertrude Conaway Vanderbilt Professor of History at Vanderbilt University

FILMS AND VIDEOS

• “Abolitionist and Emancipatory Futures: Anti-Racist Struggles and Climate Justice” – UCLA International webinar, January 26, 2021
  Panelist Malini Ranganathan F’17, Associate Professor School of International Service, Interim Faculty Director of the Antiracist Research and Policy Center, American University
• “A Deeper Dive into African American Literature” (video podcast series)
  Produced by Derek C. Maus G’18, Professor of English and Chair, Interdisciplinary Studies, State University of New York at Potsdam
• “Imperfectly Known”: Nicholas Said and the Routes of African American Narrative – Radcliffe Institute lecture, December 2, 2020
  Delivered by Ira Dworkin F’20, Associate Professor of English at Texas A&M University
• “The Missing Century of Black History in the Americas” – Jane Landers at TEDxNashville, April 2014
  Written by Jane Landers F’13, G’16, Gertrude Conaway Vanderbilt Professor Department of History, Vanderbilt University

PODCASTS

• The Forward Ever – African Communities Together
  Co-created by Martha Lagace F’21, ACLS Leading Edge Fellow, African Communities Together and Abosede George, Associate Professor of History and Africana Studies, Barnard College
• “Locked Up: The Prison Labor That Built Business Empires” – Reveal
  Features Camille Westmont F’22, Postdoctoral Fellow University of the South
• “Rebecca VanDiver on Lois Mailou Jones” – Great Women Artists Podcast
  Featuring Rebecca VanDiver F’10, Associate Professor of African American Art, Vanderbilt University

WEBSITES

• Eileen Southern and The Music of Black Americans: A Digital Exhibit
  Created by Carol J. Oja F’2016, William Powell Mason Professor Department of Music and Graduate Program in American Studies, Harvard University, and Faculty Director of the Humanities Program, Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study; Katie Callam, Postdoctoral Fellow, Harvard GSAS Fellowships & Writing Center; and Christina Linklater, Keeper of the Isham Memorial Library, Eda Kuhn Loeb Music Library, Harvard
• To Enter Africa from America
  Created by Jeannette Eileen Jones F’19, G’19, UB Center for Diversity Innovation Distinguished Visiting Scholar, University at Buffalo; John Gruesser G’18, Senior Research Scholar, Sam Houston State University; Nadia Nurhussein F’08, Professor, English and Africana Studies, John Hopkins University; and Nemata Blyden, Professor of History and International Affairs, Columbian College of Arts and Science
• The Ohio Black Press in the 19th Century
  Created by Jewon Woo F’19, Associate Professor of English, Division of Arts and Humanities, Lorain County Community College
• Slave Societies Digital Archive (2022 ACLS Digital Justice Development Grantee)
  Directed by Jane Landers G’22, G’16, F’13, Gertrude Conaway Vanderbilt Professor of History at Vanderbilt University
• SPIRIT HOUSE: A Crossroads Project
  Directed by Judith Weisenfeld F’14, Agate Brown and George L. Collord Professor and Chair, Department of Religion, Princeton University
• “The Intra-American Slave Trade Database” – SlaveVoyages
  Created by Alex Borucki G’21, Daniel Domingues G’21, Gregory O’Malley G’21, and Jennie Williams G’21
• “Oceans of Kinfolk” dataset – SlaveVoyages
  Created by Alex Borucki G’21, Daniel Domingues G’21, Gregory O’Malley G’21, and Jennie Williams G’21
• “The Transatlantic Slave Trade Database” – SlaveVoyages
  Created by Alex Borucki G’21, Daniel Domingues G’21, Gregory O’Malley G’21, and Jennie Williams G’21
• Sutton Griggs
  Co-created by John Gruesser G’18, Senior Research Scholar, Sam Houston State University

Resources Recommended by ACLS Fellows

BOOKS

• My Love, My Love: or, The Peasant Girl by Rosa Guy (Coffeehouse Press, 2002)
  Recommended by K. Maya Larson F’22, ACLS Emerging Voices Fellow, Program in Translation and Intercultural Communication, Princeton University
• On Being Included: Racism and Diversity in Institutional Life by Sara Ahmed (Duke University Press, 2012)
  Recommended by K. Maya Larson F’22, ACLS Emerging Voices Fellow, Program in Translation and Intercultural Communication, Princeton University

FILMS AND VIDEOS

• Backs Against The Wall: The Howard Thurman Story (Journey Films)
  Submitted by Brother Lawrence A. Whitney, F’21, Associate Lecturer, Philosophy & Religious Studies, Curry College, Boston University

PODCASTS

• Africa Past and Present – Michigan State University
  Recommended by Martha Lagace F’21, ACLS Leading Edge Fellow, African Communities Together
• Remarkable Receptions
  Recommended by John Gruesser G’18, Senior Research Scholar, Sam Houston State University

WEBSITES

• Century of Black Mormons 
  Submitted by Quincy D. Newell F’11, Professor of Religious Studies, Hamilton College
• Electric Marronage by Jessica Marie Johnson and Yomaira Figueroa-Vásquez
  Recommended by Bianca C. Williams F’21, Associate Professor of Anthropology, Women & Gender Studies, & Critical Psychology, The Graduate Center, City University of New York