Born into slavery, young Harriet Tubman knew only hard work and hunger. Escape seemed impossible--certainly dangerous. Yet Harriet did escape North, by the secret route called the Underground Railroad. Harriet didn't forget her people. Again and again she risked her life to lead them on the same secret, dangerous journey.

Here is the superb second edition of the annual anthology devoted to the best nonfiction writing by African American authors--provocative works from an unprecedented and unforgettable year when truth was stranger (and more inspiring) than fiction.
The galvanizing election of Barack Obama was on the minds--and the pages--of authors everywhere. Best African American Essays 2010 features the insights of writers from Juan Williams to Kelefa Sanneh and even Obama himself (his seminal speech on race is included here in its entirety). Ta-Nehisi Coates, in The Nation, proclaims that the president has "redefined blackness for white America," while Adolph Reed, Jr., in The Progressive, calls him a "vacuous opportunist" and Colson Whitehead, in The New York Times, lightheartedly revels in the election of "someone who looked like me . . . slim." The First Lady is considered, too, as Lauren Collins, in The New Yorker, assesses the radical quality of Michelle Obama's very normalcy.
But Best African American Essays 2010 goes beyond the Obamas with brilliant pieces from such writers as Hua Hsu, who declares the end of white America in "a new cultural mainstream which prizes diversity above all else"; Henry Louis Gates, who researches his family tree, adding to the "young discipline" that is African American history; and Jelani Cobb, who dares to defend George W. Bush. There are thoughtful and heartfelt tributes to living legends, including Bill Cosby (and an analysis of his famous "pound cake" speech, which promoted black responsibility, empowerment, and self-esteem), and remembrances of those who have passed, including Miriam Makeba, Isaac Hayes, Eartha Kitt, and Michael Jackson.
Selected by guest editor Randall Kennedy, a leading intellectual and legal scholar, the wide-ranging pieces in Best African American Essays 2010 comprise a thrilling collection that anyone who wishes to understand the meaning of the new America must own.

"An extraordinary achievement in natural history and science. But it's so artfully written you forget it's a scientific treatise and find yourself reading it with sheer pleasure." - Provincetown Advocate Dorothy Sterling explores the fascinating plants and animals that inhabit the peninsulas and islands of the East Coast known as the Outer Lands. With vibrant original drawings by Winifred Lubell and a new foreword by natural historian Robert Finch, The Outer Lands is a lively, lovingly observed biography of place.

Describes The Events Leading Up To The Signing Of The Emancipation Proclamation That Freed Over Four Million Slaves In The United States.

Describes The Events Leading Up To The Signing Of The Emancipation Proclamation That Freed Over Four Million Slaves In The United States.

A Natural History Guide to Cape Cod, Martha's Vineyard, Nantucket, Block Island, and Long Island

Illustrated by Winifred Lubell
Foreword by Robert Finch

Did you know that horseshoe crabs have been around for 200 million years? That mussels "spin" long anchor lines and climb steep slopes with them? Do you know what a "Beetlebung" tree is?

This is all part of Dorothy Sterling's fascinating description of The Outer Lands, and the plants and animals that inhabit this penninsula and chain of islands along our New England coast.

"This book belongs in the hands of anyone who has ever been even remotely curious about the myriad forms of teeming organisms that surround us." —The Cape

"An extraordinary achievement in natural history and science. But it's so artfully written you forget it's a scientific treatise and find yourself reading it with sheer pleasure." —Provincetown Advocate

"This lovely volume will never leave my library shelves until I again enter the enchanted land it describes." —Los Angeles Herald Examiner

This impressive collection, drawn from a wealth of original research into previously untapped sources,including letters, diaries, memoirs, speeches, poems, songs, newspaper articles, advertisements, a ship's log, and official documents,allows African Americans to speak afresh across more than two centuries. Besides the expected voices of Frederick Douglass and Sojourner Truth, this book makes vivid the experiences and views of a diverse range of lesser-known but equally fascinating personalities: Ira Aldridge, one of the great Shakespearean actors of his day William Allen, the first black college professor in the country the astronomer and mathematician Benjamin Banneker Paul Cuffe, owner of a fleet of merchant ships Martin R. Delany, the father of black nationalism James Forten, war veteran, inventor, and one of the wealthiest men in America the militant Henry Highland Garnet, who urged slaves to revolt the poet Phillis Wheatley, as well as ordinary free blacks, fugitive slaves, soldiers, wives, mothers, pioneers, sailors, and numerous others. The editor has forged her material into a documentary history as dramatic as it is memorable.

Reissued in a new trade paperback format and design, "This richly researched, sensitively edited, annotated volume portrays indelibly, in their own words, the lives of American black women before, during, and immediately after the Civil War. . . ". Following a successful run in New York, an acclaimed stage adaptation of this work is touring nationally in 1997. Photos.

Decades before Marcus Garvey, W.E.B. Du Bois, and Malcolm X, Martin Robison Delany (1812-1885) proclaimed his pride in being black, and demanded, not only emancipation but independence for African Americans. Frederick Douglass said of his friend and sometimes rival, "I thank God for making me a man, but Delany thanks Him for making him a black man". Grandson of an African prince, son of a slave, Delany lived a life of singular achievement: the first African-American explorer to venture into the heart of Africa; the publisher, editor, and writer of one of the first black newspapers in the U.S.; one of the first three blacks admitted to Harvard Medical School; the first black to hold field grade rank of U.S. Army major during the Civil War, as well as prominent careers as an author, doctor, ethnologist, orator, judge, Freedmen's Bureau official, and spokesman for black nationalism. This assiduously researched biography brings into vivid focus the life and times of Delany, whose militant, uncompromising voice is as vital today as it was more than a century ago.

In the tumultuous years before the Civil War, a young white woman from a Quaker background came to embody commitment to the cause of antislavery and equal rights for black people. Abby Kelley became the abolitionist movement s chief money-raiser and organizer and its most radial member. She traveled hundreds of miles to awaken the country to the evils of slavery, braving hardship and prejudice as well as opening the way for other women, black and white, to take leadership roles. Now the full story of this principled woman has been told in Dorothy Sterling s compelling biography."

Most histories of Reconstruction deal primarily with political issues and the larger conflicts between Democrats and Republicans, notherners and southerners. The Trouble They Seen departs from this approach to examine in their own words the lives of ordinary ex-slaves who had few skills and fewer opportunities. People are by now familiar with names like Frederick Douglass, Martin R. Delany, and Robert Smalls, but they know little of the men and women of more modest distinction, less still of the anonymous millions whose lives have been recorded in letters, diaries, newspaper accounts, and official documents. Editor Dorothy Sterling has drawn on these primary sources and with cogent commentary depicts the African American experience during Reconstruction, from 1865 to 1877. The period unfolds with immediacy and drama in the voices of African Americans: the problems and promise of the first year the role of the Freedmen's Bureau anti-black violence the initiation of political participation the development of black colleges the renaissance in the African American community, a time of unprecedented progress in the fields of politics, education, economics, and culture and the inevitable tragic struggle by African Americans against southern white efforts to resume political power and to fetter black freedom with a thousand chains more durable than slavery.

This is the autobiography of a quiet woman whose exceptional social conscience and actions are an example of the influence one person can have on society without being either rich or in a lofty political position. As a young woman, Dorothy Sterling's concern for working people in America led her to the Communist Party in the 1930's, a refuge for many with noble intentions. In the 1950s, her concern for the plight of African Americans led her to help integrate her own community of Rye, New York. She went on to become one of the most prolific authors of works of African American history, first for young readers with books such as Mary Jane, the first book about a young black girl growing up in the South. Later works for adults were equally important and influential, including a documentary book on black women's lives which would become a play performed throughout the country and a life of Abolitionist Abby Kelly. Sterling's fascination and concern for the environment led her to write a wonderful natural history guide to Cape Cod, Martha's Vineyard, Nantucket, Long Island, and the islands in between. Still active at 90, her most recent triumph was to open her own road to oystermen, whose access to local salt flats had been denied by wealthy summer residents.