Here are examples of some of the books available in our collection. Please continue your search in the online catalog. To learn more about searching the catalog, watch this video.
Dancing in the Streets by
Every Sunday from late August to Father's Day, a second line parade snakes through the neighborhoods and backstreets of New Orleans. The parades are hosted by social aid and pleasure clubs (SAPCs), civic organizations that have been fixtures in Black New Orleans since the nineteenth century. Born out of the funeral parades hosted by pre-Civil War benevolent associations, the second line tradition has persisted through Reconstruction, Jim Crow, wartime, and the flooding of New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina, evolving with the times while staying rooted to its founding principles of mutual aid and cultural expression. A companion volume to an exhibition at the Historic New Orleans Collection, Dancing in the Streets combines archival imagery with the work of ten contemporary photographers to depict the evolution of a unique and resilient tradition. Essays by Judy Cooper, Rachel Carrico, Freddi Williams Evans, Matt Sakakeeny, and Michael G. White explore the history of second line music, dance, and decorations, while an epilogue by Charles "Action" Jackson addresses the effects of the pandemic on the second line community. Distributed for the Historic New Orleans Collection
Economy Hall: the hidden history of a free Black brotherhood by
Selected by Kirkus for "Best of 2021: Our Favorite Nonfiction" It is impossible to imagine New Orleans, and by extension American history, without the vibrant and singular Creole culture. In the face of an oppressive white society, members of the Société d'Economie et d'Assistance Mutuelle built a community and held it together through the era of slavery, the Civil War, Reconstruction, and Jim Crow terrorism. Economy Hall: The Hidden History of a Free Black Brotherhood follows Ludger Boguille, his family, and friends through landmark events--from the Haitian Revolution to the birth of jazz--that shaped New Orleans and the United States. The story begins with the author's father rescuing a century's worth of handwritten journals, in French, from a trash hauler's pickup truck. From the journals' pages emerged one of the most important multiethnic, intellectual communities in the US South: educators, world-traveling merchants, soldiers, tradesmen, and poets. Although Louisiana law classified them as men of color, Negroes, and Blacks, the Economie brothers rejected racism and colorism to fight for suffrage and education rights for all. A descendant of the Economie's community, author Fatima Shaik has constructed a meticulously detailed nonfiction narrative that reads like an epic novel.
Henriette Delille by
The story of Henriette Delille, a New Orleans free woman of color and the Sisters of the Holy Family.
Hip Hop Family Tree Book 1: 1975 - 1981 by
The lore of the early days of hip hop has become the stuff of myth, so what better way to document this fascinating, epic true story than in another great American mythological medium âe" the comic book? From exciting young talent and self-proclaimed hip hop nerd Ed Piskor, acclaimed for his hacker graphic novel Wizzywig, comes this explosively entertaining, encyclopedic history of the formative years of the music genre that changed global culture. Originally serialized on the hugely popular website Boing Boing, The Hip Hop Family Tree is now collected in a single volume cleverly presented and packaged in a style mimicking the Marvel comics of the same era. Piskorâe(tm)s exuberant yet controlled cartooning takes you from the parks and rec rooms of the South Bronx to the night clubs, recording studios, and radio stations where the scene started to boom, capturing the flavor of late-1970s New York City in panels bursting with obsessively authentic detail. With a painstaking, vigorous and engaging Ken Burns meets- Stan Lee approach, the battles and rivalries, the technical innovations, the triumphs and failures are all thoroughly researched and lovingly depicted. plus the charismatic players behind the scenes like Russell Simmons, Sylvia Robinson and then-punker Rick Rubin. Piskor also traces graffiti master Fab 5 Freddyâe(tm)s rise in the art world, and Debbie Harry, Keith Haring, The Clash, and other luminaries make cameos as the music and culture begin to penetrate downtown Manhattan and the mainstream at large. Like the acclaimed hip hop documentaries Style Wars and Scratch, The Hip Hop Family Tree is an exciting and essential cultural chronicle and a must for hip hop fans, pop-culture addicts, and anyone who wants to know how it went down back in the day.
March by
Congressman John Lewis (Georgia) is an American icon, one of the key figures of the civil rights movement. His commitment to justice and nonviolence has taken him from an Alabama sharecropper's farm to the halls of Congress, from a segregated schoolr
Monumental: Oscar Dunn and his radical fight in Reconstruction Louisiana by
Monumental tells, for the first time, the incredible story of Oscar James Dunn, a New Orleanian born into slavery who became America's first Black lieutenant governor and acting governor. A champion of universal suffrage, civil rights, and integrated public schools, Dunn fought for radical change during the early years of Reconstruction in Louisiana, a post-Civil War era rife with corruption, subterfuge, and violence. A graphic history informed by newly discovered primary sources, Monumental resurrects, in vivid detail, Louisiana and New Orleans after the Civil War--and presents an iconic American life that never should have been forgotten. Contextual essays and a map and timeline add layers of depth to the narrative. Monumental is a story of determination, scandal, betrayal, and how one man's principled fight for equality and justice may have cost him everything.
The 'Baby Dolls': breaking the race and gender barriers of the New Orleans Mardi Gras tradition by
One of the first women's organizations to "mask" in a Mardi Gras parade, the "Million Dollar Baby Dolls" redefined the New Orleans carnival tradition. Tracing their origins from Storyville brothels and dance halls to their re-emergence in post-Katrina New Orleans, author Kim Vaz uncovers the fascinating history of the "raddy-walking, shake-dancing, cigar-smoking, money-flinging" ladies that strutted their way into a predominantly male establishment. The Baby Dolls formed around 1912 as an organization for African American women who used their profits from working in New Orleans's red-light district to compete with other black women in their profession on Mardi Gras. Part of this competition involved the tradition of masking in which carnival groups create a collective identity through costuming. Their baby doll costumes?short satin dresses, stockings with garters, and bonnets?set against their bold and provocative public behavior not only exploited stereotypes but also empowered and made visible an otherwise marginalized demographic of women. In addition to their subversive presence at Mardi Gras, the Baby Dolls helped shape the sound of jazz in the city. The Baby Dolls often worked in and patronized dance halls and honky-tonks, where they introduced new dance steps and challenged house musicians to keep up the beat. The entrepreneurial Baby Dolls also sponsored dances with live jazz bands, effectively underwriting the advancement of an art form now inseparable from New Orleans's identity. Over time, the Baby Doll's members diverged as different neighborhoods adopted the tradition. Groups such as the Golden Slipper Club, the Gold Diggers, the Rosebud Social and Pleasure Club, and the Satin Sinners stirred the creative imagination of middle-class Black women and men across New Orleans, from the downtown Tremé area to the uptown community of Mahalia Jackson. Vaz follows the Baby Doll phenomenon through one hundred years of photos, articles, and interviews to conclude with the birth of contemporary groups such as the modern day Antoinette K-Doe's Ernie K-Doe Baby Dolls, the New Orleans Society of Dance's Baby Doll Ladies, and the Tremé Million Dollar Baby Dolls. Her book celebrates these organizations' crucial contribution to Louisiana's cultural history.
Black Life in Old New Orleans by
African Americans, their city, and their past. Capturing 300 years of history and focusing on African American communities' social, cultural, and political pasts, this book captures a significant portion of the diversity that is New Orleans. Author Keith Weldon Medley's research encompasses Congo Square, Old Treme, Louis Armstrong, Fannie C. Williams, Mardi Gras, and more in this groundbreaking work. He creates a comprehensive history of New Orleans and the black experience.
The complete encyclopedia of African American history by
"The Complete Encyclopedia of African American history. This comprehensive resource explores the past, the progress, and the present of African Americans in four volumes, each building, complementing, and expanding on the previous volume" -- back cover.
Enjoy the Same Liberty: Black Americans and the revolutionary era by
In this cohesive narrative, Edward Countryman explores the American Revolution in the context of the African American experience, asking a question that blacks have raised since the Revolution: What does the revolutionary promise of freedom and democracy mean for African Americans? Countryman, a Bancroft Prize-winning historian, draws on extensive research and primary sources to help him answer this question. He emphasizes the agency of blacks and explores the immense task facing slaves who wanted freedom, as well as looking at the revolutionary nature of abolitionist sentiment. Countryman focuses on how slaves remembered the Revolution and used its rhetoric to help further their cause of freedom. Many contend that it is the American Revolution that defines us as Americans. Edward Countryman gives the reader the chance to explore this notion as it is reflected in the African American experience.
Help Me to Find My People: the African American search for family lost in slavery by
After the Civil War, African Americans placed poignant "information wanted" advertisements in newspapers, searching for missing family members. Inspired by the power of these ads, Heather Andrea Williams uses slave narratives, letters, interviews, public records, and diaries to guide readers back to devastating moments of family separation during slavery when people were sold away from parents, siblings, spouses, and children. Williams explores the heartbreaking stories of separation and the long, usually unsuccessful journeys toward reunification. Examining the interior lives of the enslaved and freedpeople as they tried to come to terms with great loss, Williams grounds their grief, fear, anger, longing, frustration, and hope in the history of American slavery and the domestic slave trade. Williams follows those who were separated, chronicles their searches, and documents the rare experience of reunion. She also explores the sympathy, indifference, hostility, or empathy expressed by whites about sundered black families. Williams shows how searches for family members in the post-Civil War era continue to reverberate in African American culture in the ongoing search for family history and connection across generations.
