Dressing Freedom: The Wedding Clothing of Freed People
by Brenda E. Stevenson
Explore the importance of wedding clothing for freed people during Reconstruction.
Phillis Wheatley’s poem on tyranny and slavery
1772
Take a deep dive into one of Wheatley's best-known poems.
The Odyssey of Phillis Wheatley
with David Waldstreicher
Explore the life of this Black, female poet who published a book of poems while enslaved, and learn about the reactions to her work at the time.
Breakdancers in New York
1984
View an example of b-boy culture from 1980s New York.
“Les Fétiches”
1938
View Loïs Mailou Jones’s painting, which brought Négritude from literature to art.
Marcus Garvey at His Desk
1924
View this photograph of Marcus Garvey, the founder and leader of the Universal Negro Improvement Association.
Solomon Northup Remembers the New Orleans Slave Market
1853
Read an excerpt from Northup’s autobiographical account, Twelve Years a Slave.
“Lift Every Voice and Sing”
1900
Read the lyrics composed by James Weldon Johnson for what has become known as the Black National Anthem.
“We Wear the Mask”
1895
Read Paul Laurence Dunbar’s poem, which poses a “mask” similar to Du Bois’s “veil.”
“On Being Brought from Africa to America”
1773
Read Phillis Wheatley’s poem on slavery and Christianity.
“If We Must Die”
1919
Read Claude McKay’s defiant poem, in response to violence against African Americans following World War I.
“The Negro Artist and the Racial Mountain”
1926
Read Langston Hughes's essay on the limits placed on Black poets and writers during this period.
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