National Humanities Center
National Humanities Center: Toolbox Library: Education, Making of African American Identity: V. 2
Chapters and photographs in which Booker T. Washington promotes manual education for blacks. In this resource, Washington makes his case for the practical, trades-based education he installed at the Tuskegee Institute.
National Humanities Center
National Humanities Center: Toolbox Library: Business, Making of African American Identity: V. 2
A painting and an appeal that explore the role business played in black uplift in nineteenth-century America. This resource focuses on the work of Edward Bannister (1828-1901), one of the leading black painters of the nineteenth century.
National Humanities Center
National Humanities Center: Toolbox Library: Race Problem, Making of African American Identity: V. 2
A poem, an address, and a painting that illustrate black political struggle in late-nineteenth-century America. This series of resources characterize "the Negro Problem" as "a concrete test of the underlying principles of the great...
National Humanities Center
National Humanities Center: Toolbox Library: Making of African American Identity: Goals
The full text of Booker T. Washington's plea for white support of black enterprise and W. E. B. Dubois's response are provided within this resource, in addition to a summary of their positions.
National Humanities Center
National Humanities Center: Toolbox Library: Segregation Separation: Making of African American Identity: V. 3
This resource summarizes and links to primary source articles examining the relationship between segregation and racial separation highlighting some of the effects of segregation on the black community post World War I.
National Humanities Center
National Humanities Center: Toolbox Library: Making of African American Identity: Segregation: Antilynching Dramas
Brief plays by Georgia Douglas Johnson that protest lynching are examined within this resource. Links to each play are provided in addition to a series of questions for discussion.
National Humanities Center
National Humanities Center: Toolbox Library: Image of Community, 1939, Making of African American Identity
This resources illustrates how artist Augusta Savage (1892-1962) embodied the virtues of self-help, self-reliance, and close-knit cohesion of the black community in her sculpture Lift Every Voice and Sing (The Harp).
National Humanities Center
National Humanities Center: Toolbox Library: Community, Making of African American Identity: V. 1, 1500 1865
Twenty nine primary sources-historical documents, literary texts, and visual images-that explore how enslaved individuals and families coped with, adjusted to, maintained communities within, and opposed the system of oppression.
National Humanities Center
National Humanities Center: Toolbox Library: Civil War I: Slaves, Making of African American Identity: V. 1
Photographs of slaves during the Civil War and war memories of former slaves during that conflict. Links to two separate resources can be found here, each focusing on the war memories of former slaves.
National Humanities Center
National Humanities Center: Toolbox Library: The Making of African American Identity: Vol. Ii, 1865 1917: Migration
Congressional testimony and a letter that explore late nineteenth-century black migration from the South. Links to both resources are provided within this site.
National Humanities Center
National Humanities Center: Toolbox Library: Passing: Making of African American Identity: V. 3
An excerpt from a novel that explores the tensions of racial passing. Set in Chicago, Passing examines the diverging lives and chance reunions of two light-skinned women.
National Humanities Center
National Humanities Center: Toolbox Library: Kongo, Making of African American Identity: V. 1
Eight watercolor drawings and an accompanying narrative from an Italian Catholic missionary about the peoples in the Kingdom of Kongo (present-day Angola).
National Humanities Center
National Humanities Center: Toolbox Library: Making of African American Identity: Segregation
A Supreme Court decision, a chapter from a novel, and an editorial that explore segregation in late-nineteenth-century America. This resource focuses primarily on Plessy v. Ferguson, and the complexities that followed from this ruling.
National Humanities Center
National Humanities Center: Toolbox Library: The Vote, Making of African American Identity: V. 2
An appeal for black voting rights and an editorial cartoon opposing them. This resource explains that while the 15th Amendment granted black men the right to vote, southern states fought to block its implementation.
National Humanities Center
National Humanities Center: Toolbox Library: Making of African American Identity: Forward: The Naacp
In February 1909, to coincide with the centennial of Lincoln's birth, a group of northern white and black activists sent out letters calling for a national conference to address the problem of lynchings and mob violence. This site...
National Humanities Center
National Humanities Center: Toolbox Library: Lynching and Segregation: Making of African American Identity
Primary source articles discusses mob violence and the practice of lynching while examining social conformity and segregation. Links to both articles, summary of text and questions for discussion.
National Humanities Center
National Humanities Center: Toolbox Library: The Black Psyche, Making of African American Identity: V. 3
Woodcuts that explore the effects of segregation on the black psyche. Links to Elizabeth Catlett's "The Negro Woman," a series of fifteen linoleum cuts are provided, as well as a summary of their meaning.
National Humanities Center
National Humanities Center: Toolbox Library: Ambiguity of Integration: Making of African American Identity
A painting and a photograph illustrating some of the problems posed by racial integration. Norman Rockwell's illustration is compared to the experiences of Ruby Bridges.
National Humanities Center
National Humanities Center: Toolbox Library: Reasoning, Making of African American Identity: V. 3
Brochures and a speech from the Southern Christian Leadership Conference describing the organization's philosophy, its strategy, and its position on voting rights, civil disobedience, and segregation.
National Humanities Center
National Humanities Center: Toolbox Library: Singing, Making of African American Identity: V. 3
An analysis of the role music played in the civil rights movement. The well known spiritual, "We Shall Overcome," is referenced as playing a key role in supporting this movement.
National Humanities Center
National Humanities Center: Toolbox Library: Arming, Making of African American Identity: V. 3
This resource offers a memoir that examines the role of armed self-defense in the civil rights movement. An excerpt from the text "Negroes with Guns", by Robert Williams is made available here, describing his approach towards civil...
National Humanities Center
National Humanities Center: Toolbox Library: Separating: Making of African American Identity: V. 3
Article summarizes and provides links to audio and text versions of a speech made by Malcolm X one month after he left the Nation of Islam over a disagreement with its leader Elijah Muhammad. Includes questions for discussion.
National Humanities Center
National Humanities Center: Toolbox Library: Theater, Making of African American Identity: V. 3
A manifesto and scenes from a play illustrating black protest in the theater. LeRoi Jones's short manifesto, "The Revolutionary Theatre," and Douglas Turner Ward's, " Day of Absence" encapsulates the mindset of many black writers and...
National Humanities Center
National Humanities Center: Toolbox Library: Community on Film, Making of African American Identity: V. 3
Excerpts from a 1941 film that depicts black and white communities in Kannapolis, NC, by H. Lee Waters (1902-1997). This two part film characterizes the differences in economy, community, and values of two separate cultures.