Milestone Documents in African American History: Exploring the Essential Primary Sources

Gr 8 Up–One hundred and twenty-five speeches, documents, and chapters or passages from longer works are fully analyzed in this collection of selected primary sources. Coverage includes John Rolfe's casual mention in correspondence of “20 and odd Negroes” delivered as indentured servants in 1619; President Obama's address to the 2009 NAACP Centennial Convention; the “Ohio Black Code”; the wrenching Confessions of Nat Turner from the 1831 pamphlet authored by Thomas Ruffin Gray; Martin Luther King, Jr.'s “I Have A Dream” address; and Clarence Thomas's acid “concurrence/dissent” in the Grutter v. Bollinger case. In each of the chronologically ordered entries, the document's text is preceded by a clear explanation of its significance, a context-placing essay, a biography of its author, a time line, a paragraph-by-paragraph analysis, a discussion of its audience and impact, one or more contemporary black-and-white illustrations, a multimedia resource list, and several study questions. References readers may be unfamiliar with and foreign words and phrases are outlined in glossaries following the texts. Back matter in volume 4 includes teacher activity guides keyed to national history standards. The set's full text is available online (through the end of 2011) in the “Salem History” database. As a print resource for upper-level students, this work substantially trumps Kai Wright's single-volume The African American Experience (Black Dog & Leventhal, 2009) as a primary-source supplement to Kwame Anthony Appiah and Henry Louis Gates's Africana: The Encyclopedia of the African and African American Experience (Oxford, 2005).John Peters, formerly at New York Public Library
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*Starred Review* The latest installment in the award-winning Milestone Documents series lives up to the excellence of previous sets (Milestone Documents in American History, 2008; Milestone Documents of American Leaders, 2009; Milestone Documents in World History, 2010). Here, the chronologically arranged documents portray the story of African Americans from the introduction of slavery in the 1600s to the inauguration of President Barack Obama. The 125 signed entries, which have been prepared by experts in history and law, include correspondence, essays, reports, tracts, manifestos, petitions, proclamations, legal opinions, legislation, military orders, narratives, presidential and executive documents, speeches and addresses, and testimony. In addition to document text, each entry includes context, a time line, a biographical profile, explanation and analysis, intended audience, impact, quotes, and more. This content guides readers’ understanding of each document’s role in shaping African American history. The inclusion of 223 photographs and illustrations in the entries helps engage reader interest. Following each entry are citations containing both general and academic sources. For example, the entry on Shirley Chisholm’s 1974 keynote speech for a national conference of black women at the University of Missouri is followed by citations that include Chisholm’s books, an entry in African American National Biography (2008), a scholarly journal article, a bibliography of Chisholm’s writings and life, and two Web sites. The documents and analyses will be useful to students and researchers of differing abilities and experience. Researchers of history will be interested in the quality of the documents, which contain all original spelling and syntax. Novice history readers will appreciate the glossaries of terms that appear after documents using specialized language. High-school teachers will want to utilize the “Teacher’s Activity Guides,” in volume 4, which provide focus questions connecting the primary documents in the collection to the National History Standards established by the National Center for History in the Schools. Undergraduate and high-school students looking for paper topics will appreciate the “Questions for Further Study” provided for each document. Purchase of the print books also includes access to the online content, at www.history.salempress.com. This resource is essential for high-school, public, and undergraduate libraries. --Cynthia Crosser