Includes bibliographical references and index.

Preface to the first edition -- Preface to the second edition -- Introduction: Resistance, reform, and renewal in the black experience -- Foundations : slavery and abolition, 1768-1867. "On being brought from Africa to America" Equiano," / Phyllis Wheatley, 1768 -- "The interesting narrative of the life of Olaudah Equiano," / Olaudah Equiano, 1789 -- "Thus doth Ethiopia stretch forth her hand from slavery, to freedom and equality" / Prince Hall, 1797 -- The founding of the African Methodist Episcopal Church / Richard Allen, 1816 -- David Walker's "Appeal", 1829-1830 -- The statement of Nat Turner, 1831 -- Slaves are prohibited to read and write by law -- "What if I am a woman?" / Maria W. Stewart, 1833 -- A slave denied the rights to marry / letter of Milo Thompson, slave, 1834 -- The selling of slaves / advertisement, 1835 -- Solomon Northrup describes a New Orleans slave auction, 1841 -- Cinque and the Amistad revolt, 1841 -- "Let your motto be resistance!" / Henry Highland Garnet, 1843 -- "Slavery as it is," / William Wells Brown, 1847 -- "A'n't I a woman?" / Sojourner Truth, 1851 -- "A plea for emigration, or Notes of Canada West" / Mary Ann Shadd Cary, 1852 -- A black nationalist Manifesto / Martin R. Delany, 1852 -- "What to the slave is the Fourth of July?" / Frederick Douglass, 1852 -- "No rights that a white man is bound to respect": the Dred Scott Case and its aftermath -- "Whenever the colored man is elevated, it will be by his own exertions" / John S. Rock, 1858 -- The spirituals: "Go down, Moses" and "Didn't my Lord deliver Daniel."

Reconstruction and reaction : the aftermath of slavery and the dawn of segregation, 1861-1915. "What the black man wants" / Frederick Douglass, 1865 -- Henry McNeal Turner, Black Christian Nationalist -- Black urban workers during Reconstruction: Anonymous document on the National Colored Labor Convention, 1869 ; New York Tribune article on African-American workers, 1870 -- "Labor and capital are in deadly conflict" / T. Thomas Fortune, 1886 -- Edward Wilmot Blyden and the African diaspora -- "The Democratic idea is humanity" / Alexander Crummell, 1888 -- "A voice from the South" / Anna Julia Cooper, 1892 -- The National Association of Colored Women: Mary Church Terrell and Josephine St. Pierre Ruffin -- "I know why the caged bird sings" / Paul Laurence Dunbar -- Booker T. Washington and the politics of accomodation: "Atlanta Exposition address" ; "My view of segregation laws" -- William Monroe Trotter and the Boston Guardian -- Race and the Southern worker: "A Negro woman speaks" ; The race question a class question" ; "Negro workers!" -- Ida B. Wells-Barnett, crusader for justice -- William Edward Burghardt Du Bois: Excerpts from "The conservation of races" ; Excerpts from The souls of black folk -- The Niagara movement, 1905 -- Hubert Henry Harrison, black revolutionary nationalist.

From plantation to ghetto : the great migration, Harlem Renaissance, and World War, 1915-1954. Black conflict over World War I: W.E.B. Du Bois, "Close ranks" ; Hubert H. Harrison, "The descent of Du Bois" ; W.E.B. Du Bois, "Returning soldiers" -- "If we must die" / Claude McKay, 1919 -- Black Bolsheviks: Cyril V. Briggs and Claude McKay: "What the African Blood Brotherhood stands for" ; "Soviet Russia and the Negro" -- Marcus Garvey and the Universal Negro Improvement Association: "Declaration of rights of the Negro Peoples of the world" ; "An appeal to the conscience of the black race to see itself" -- "Women as leaders / Amy Euphemia Jacques Garvey, 1925 -- Langston Hughes and the Harlem Renaissance: "The Negro artist and the racial mountain" ; "My America" ; Poems -- "The Negro woman and the ballot" / Alice Moore Dunbar-Nelson, 1927 -- James Weldon Johnson and Harlem in the 1920s: "Harlem: the culture capital" -- Black workers in the Great Depression -- The Scottsboro Trials, 1930s -- "You cannot kill the working class" / Angelo Herndon, 1933: "Speech to the jury, January 17, 1933" ; Excerpt from "You cannot kill the working class -- Hosea Hudson, black Communist activist -- "Breaking the bars to brotherhood" / Mary McLeod Bethune, 1935 -- Adam Clayton Powell, Jr., and the fight for black employment in Harlem -- Black women workers during the Great Depression: Elaine Ellis, "Women of the cotton fields" ; Naomi Ward, "I am a domestic" -- Southern Negro Youth Conference, 1939 -- A. Philip Randolph and the Negro March on Washington Movement, 1941 -- Charles Hamilton Houston and the war effort among African Americans, 1944 -- "An end to the neglect of the problems of the Negro woman!" / Claudia Jones, 1949 -- "The Negro artist looks ahead" / Paul Robeson, 1951 -- Thurgood Marshall: The Brown decision and the struggle for school desegregation.

We shall overcome : the second reconstruction, 1954-1975. Rosa PArks, Jo Ann Robinson, and the Montgomery Bus Boycott, 1955-1956. Jo Ann Robinson's letter to Mayor of Montgomery ; Interview with Rosa Parks ; Excerpts from Jo Ann Robinson's account of the boycott -- Roy Wilkins and the NAACP -- The Southern Christian Leadership Conference, 1957 -- Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee and the sit-in movement, 1960 -- Freedom songs, 1960s: "We shall overcome" ; "Ain't gonna let nobody turn me 'round" -- "We need group-centered leadership" / Ella Baker -- Martin Luther King, Jr., and nonviolence: Excerpt from "Nonviolence and racial justice," 1957 ; "A have a dream," 1963 -- The revolution is at hand" / John R. Lewis, 1963 -- The salvation of American Negroes lies in Socialism" / W.E.B. Du Bois -- "The special plight and the role of black women" / Fannie Lou Hammer -- "SNCC position paper: Women in the Movement," 1964 -- Elijah Muhammad and the Nation of Islam -- Malcom X and Revolutionary Black Nationalism: "The ballot or the bullet" ; Statement of the Organization of Afro-American Unity" -- Black power: Stokely Carmichael, "What we want" ; SNCC, "Position paper on Black Power" ; Bayard Rustin, "'Black Power' and coalition politics" -- "CORE endorses Black Power" / Floyd McKissick, 1967 -- "To atone for our sins and errors in Vietnam" / Martin Luther King, Jr., 1967 -- Huey P. Newton and the Black Panther Party for Self-Defense -- "The people have to have the power" / Fred Hampton -- "I am a revolutionary black woman" / Angela Y. Davis, 1970 -- "Our thing is DRUM!" the League of Revolutionary Black Workers -- Attica: "The fury of those who are oppressed," 1971 -- The National Black political Convention, Gary, Indiana, March 1972 -- "There is no revolution without the people" / Amiri Baraka, 1972: "The Pan-African Party and the Black Nation" ; Poem -- "My sight is gone but my vision remains" / Menry Winston: "On returning to the struggle" ; "A letter to my brothers and sisters."

The future in the present : contemporary African-American thought, 1975-present. Black feminisms: The Combahee River Collective Statement, 1977 -- "Women in prison: how we are" / Assata Shakur, 1978 -- It's our turn" / Harold Washington, 1983 -- "I am your sister" / Audre Lorde, 1984 -- "Shaping feminist theory" / bell hooks, 1984 -- The movement against Apartheid: Jesse Jackson and Randall Robinson. Jesse Jackson: "Don't adjust to Apartheid" ; "State of the U.S. Anti-Apartheid movement: an interview with Randall Robinson" -- "Keep hope alive" / Jesse Jackson, 1988 -- Afrocentricity" / Molefi Asante -- The Anita Hill-Clarence Thomas controversy, 1991. "African-American women in defense of ourselves" ; June Jordan, "Can I get a witness?" -- "Race matters" / Cornel West, 1991 -- "Black anti-Semitism" / Henry Louis Gates, Jr., 1992 -- "Crime-- causes and cures" / Jarvis Tyner, 1994 -- Louis Farrakhan: The million man march, 1995 -- "A voice from death row" / Mumia Abu-Jamal -- "Let justice roll down like waters" / African-American Prisoners in Sing Sing, 1998. "Statement by Sing Sing Prisoners" ; Michael J. Love, "The prison-industrial complex: an investment in failure" ; Willis L. Steele, Jr. "River Hudson" -- Black Radical Congress, 1998: "Principles of unity" ; The struggle continues: setting a black liberation agenda for the 21st century" ; The freedom agenda" -- 2000 Presidential election. "Letter to Governor Bush from Chairperson Mary Frances Berry," 2001 -- Hip-hop activism. "What we want" statement from Hip-Hop Action Summit Network, 2001 ; "Tookie protocol for peace," 2004 -- World Conference Against Racism-- Durban, South Africa -- African Americans respond to terrorism and war. "Barbara Lee's stand," 2001 ; 10 points from Iraq Veterans agianst the War, 2001 -- The Cosby vs. Dyson Debate, 2004-2005. Summary of "Dr. Bill Cosby speaks at the 50th commemoration of the Brown vs. Tokepa Board of Education Supreme Court Decision" ; Excerpt from "Is Bill Cosby right?: or has the black middle class lost its mind?" -- U.S. Senate Resolution against lynching, 2005 -- Hurricane Katrina Crisis, 2005: "This is criminal": Malik Rahim reports from New Orleans, 2005 -- Barack Obama's Presidential campaign, 2007-2008: Excerpts from National Democratic Party Convention speech, 2004 ; "A more perfect union," 2008.

"This anthology of black writers traces the evolution of African-American perspectives throughout American history, from the early years of slavery to the end of the 20th century. The essays, manifestos, interviews, and documents assembled here, contextualized with critical commentaries from Marable and Mullings, introduce the reader to the character and important controversies of each period of black history." "The selections represent a broad spectrum of ideology. Conservative, radical, nationalistic, and integrationist approaches can be found in almost every period, yet there have been striking shifts in the evolution of social thought and activism. The editors judiciously illustrate how both continuity and change affected the African-American community in terms of its internal divisions, class structure, migration, social problems, leadership, and protest movements. They also show how gender, spirituality, literature, music, and connections to Africa and the Caribbean played a prominent role in black life and history."-- from jacket