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African American History Month

Knopf archive reveals details about Lonely Crusade author Chester Himes

February 26, 2021 - Harry Ransom Center

Many writers and artists through history have developed their craft, and even published, while they were imprisoned. Among them is Chester Himes, an African American author who wrote about racism, prison life, and who is best known for his Harlem Detective series.

Records related to Himes are found in the Alfred A. Knopf, Inc. archive, which documents the history of the well-known publishing house. The papers contain correspondence, publicity materials, and/or manuscripts from a number of other African American writers, including James Baldwin, Lorraine Hansberry, Langston Hughes, Zora Neale Hurston, James Weldon Johnson, John Oliver Killens, Nella Larsen, Alain Locke, Claude McKay, and Walter White. [Read more…] about Knopf archive reveals details about Lonely Crusade author Chester Himes

Filed Under: Authors, Books + Manuscripts, Featured1 Tagged With: African American Creators, African American History Month, African American literature

ABOUT MELANIE ALBERTS
Melanie Alberts works in the Office of the Director at the Harry Ransom Center. She serves on the Diversity and Inclusion committee, is a psychic artist, and writes lyric poems which have appeared in journals such as Borderlands: Texas Poetry Review.

A lost work by Langston Hughes

February 1, 2021 - Steven Hoelscher

Langston Hughes by Carl Van Vechten

In 1933, the Harlem Renaissance star wrote a powerful essay about race, unpublished in English until 2019.

It’s not every day that you come across an extraordinary unknown work by one of the nation’s greatest writers. But buried in an unrelated archive, I discovered a searing essay condemning racism in America by Langston Hughes—the moving account, published in its original form below, of an escaped prisoner he met while traveling with Zora Neale Hurston.

[Read more…] about A lost work by Langston Hughes

Filed Under: Authors, Featured1 Tagged With: African American Creators, African American History Month, archive, Black History Month, Langston Hughes, literature

Powerful currents: John Wilson’s Down by the Riverside prints

November 14, 2018 - Tracy Bonfitto

The dark male figure, head bent to the driving rain indicated by the dense lines that cover the page, lifts a slight woman into a simple rowboat. The boat’s bow is pointed through the floodwaters toward higher ground, its port side steadied by a second stooped male. [Read more…] about Powerful currents: John Wilson’s Down by the Riverside prints

Filed Under: Art, Exhibitions + Events Tagged With: African American History Month, lithographs, Stories to Tell

Researcher publications examine black history and culture

February 23, 2017 - Bridget Ground

Each year dozens of researchers publish books based on their work at the Ransom Center. For African American History Month we compiled the following selection of recent publications informed by the Center’s collections. [Read more…] about Researcher publications examine black history and culture

Filed Under: Authors, Books + Manuscripts, Research + Teaching Tagged With: African American History Month, Better Git It in Your Soul: An Interpretive Biography of Charles Mingus, Black History Month, Chained in Silence: Black Women and Convict Labor in the New South, Dennis Childs, Erich Nunn, Fellowships, Krin Gabbard, Megan Walsh, Miriam J. Petty, researcher publications, Slaves of the State: Black Incarceration from the Chain Gang to the Penitentiary, Sounding the Color Line: Music and Race in the Southern Imagination, Stealing the Show: African American Performers and Audiences in 1930s Hollywood, Talitha L. LeFlouria, The Portrait and the Book: Illustration and Literary Culture in Early America

Frederick Douglass and the Mass Meeting for Civil Rights

February 21, 2017 - Danielle Sigler

A portrait of Frederick Douglass from the frontispiece of My Bondage and My Freedom (New York: Miller, Orton & Mulligan, 1855).

February 20, 2017, marks the 122nd anniversary of Frederick Douglass’s death. Douglass (1818–1895), an abolitionist and activist for civil rights, was a gifted writer and orator. [Read more…] about Frederick Douglass and the Mass Meeting for Civil Rights

Filed Under: Authors, Research + Teaching Tagged With: abolition, abolitionist, African American History Month, African-American, biography, Black History Month, Civil Rights, Civil Rights Act, Civil Rights Mass Meeting, Danielle Brune Sigler, Frederick Douglass, Fugitive Slave Act, My Bondage and My Freedom, prejudice, slavery, Supreme Court

Claude McKay and “The White House”

February 16, 2017 - Danielle Sigler

Photograph of Claude McKay, taken for 'Home to Harlem' promotion, c. 1928.
Explore the Harry Ransom Center, search digital collections, or plan your visit.

This February saw the release of a previously unpublished Claude McKay novel, Amiable with Big Teeth (Penguin Classics). [Read more…] about Claude McKay and “The White House”

Filed Under: Authors, Books + Manuscripts Tagged With: A Long Way from Home, African American History Month, Black History Month, Claude McKay, Danielle Brune Sigler, Harlem Renaissance, Harlem Shadows, Home to Harlem, Max Eastman, poem, poetry, Survey magazine, The Liberator, The New Negro, The White House, White Houses, William A. Bradley Literary Agency collection

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