Tag: Black Lives Matter

Celebrating Diversity: Black History Month Resources!

Resources for Black History Month by James Tasato Mellone, Historical Cultural and Social Sciences Librarian

The QC Library celebrates Black History Month this February 2022 by acknowledging ongoing African-American achievements despite the continuance of racial injustice and racism against the Black American community, both locally and nationally.

Our Black History Month 2022 guide shows several intellectual and artistic creations which, if knowledge is power, may offer some hope for future racial justice. Perhaps such creations can also help us see that the African-American experience is the American experience writ small and large, and that Black Lives Matter.

As part of our Africana Studies research guide, the Black History Month 2022 guide provides a selection of streaming videos, ebooks, as well as streaming music, performances & stories in African American studies. Here are a few highlights from the guide.

The Black Panthers Vanguard of the Revolution film poster

The Black Panthers: Vanguard of the Revolution (PBS, I hr 53 min) “Revisit the turbulent 1960s, when a new revolutionary culture emerged with the Black Panther Party at the vanguard. Stanley Nelson tells the vibrant story of a pivotal movement that feels timely all over again.”

MLK/FBI film poster

MLK/FBI (2020, 1hr 46min) “In this virtuosic film, award-winning editor, and director Sam Pollard lays out a detailed account of the FBI surveillance that dogged King’s activism throughout the ’50s and ’60s, fueled by the racist and red-baiting paranoia of J. Edgar Hoover…”

Half in Shadow The Life and Legacy of Nellie Y. McKay book cover

Half in Shadow: The Life and Legacy of Nellie Y. McKay by Shanna Greene Benjamin (Publication Date: 2021) “Nellie Y. McKay (1930-2006) was a pivotal figure in contemporary American letters…best known for co-editing the canon-making Norton Anthology of African American Literature with Henry Louis Gates Jr….After her passing, new details about McKay’s life emerged, surprising everyone who knew her…”

Armstrong Now 2022

Armstrong Now 2022: Artist-in-Residence Performances (Louis Armstrong House Museum, Queens College) “Features world renowned Black artists responding creatively to the newly digitized Armstrong Archives….”

Celebrating Diversity: Black History Month Resources!

Resources for African American Studies by James Tasato Mellone, Historical Cultural and Social Sciences Librarian

The QC Library is delighted to celebrate Black History Month (also known as African American History Month)! In this time of continuing struggle for racial justice we acknowledge the contributions to our global society made by African American culture and history!

When discussing diversity, we remember our African American fellow citizens, whether students or colleagues, or family or friends or neighbors, and recognize the centrality of the African American experience to the American experience. We also acknowledge the ongoing American civil rights movement led by African Americans past and present.

We present a new U. S. Civil Rights History research guide, and as part of our Africana Studies research guide we present a guide to celebrate Black History Month that provides a selection of films, books, and music,

Below are a few highlights!

BlacKKKlansman theatrical release poster

BlacKkKlansman (2018, 2h 15min) Directed by Spike Lee. “A black detective sets out to infiltrate the Colorado chapter of the Ku Klux Klan with the help of his Jewish colleague. In the midst of the 1970s civil rights movement, they risk their lives to obtain insider information on the violent organization” – Swank.

I Am Not Your Negro poster

I Am Not Your Negro; James Baldwin and Race in America (2013, 1hr 33min) Directed by Raoul Peck. “An Oscar-nominated documentary narrated by Samuel L. Jackson, I AM NOT YOUR NEGRO explores the continued peril America faces from institutionalized racism. In 1979, James Baldwin wrote a letter to his literary agent describing his next project, Remember This House. The book was to be a revolutionary, personal account of the lives and successive assassinations of three of his close friends–Medgar Evers, Malcolm X and Martin Luther King, Jr. At the time of Baldwin’s death in 1987, he left behind only thirty completed pages of his manuscript.” – Kanopy

Cover Art

Motherhood So White by Nefertiti Austin
ISBN: 9781492679011
Publication Date: 2019-09-20

“All moms have to deal with choosing baby names, potty training, finding your village, and answering your kid’s tough questions, but if you are raising a Black child, you have to deal with a lot more than that. Especially if you’re a single Black mom… and adopting. Nefertiti Austin shares her story of starting a family through adoption as a single Black woman. In this unflinching account of her parenting journey, Nefertiti examines the history of adoption in the African American community, faces off against stereotypes of single Black moms, and confronts the reality of what it looks like to raise children of color and answer their questions about racism in modern-day America…”

A Past That Won’t Rest by Jim Lucas (Photographer); Jane Hearn (Editor)
ISBN: 149681651X
Publication Date: 2018-03-22

“Collects never-before-published photographs taken by Jim Lucas (1944-1980), an exceptional documentary photographer. His black-and-white images, taken during 1964 through 1968, depict events from the civil rights movement including the search for the missing civil rights workers in Neshoba County, the Meredith March Against Fear, Senator Robert F. Kennedy’s visit to the Mississippi Delta, and more. The photographs exemplify Lucas’s technical skill and reveal the essential truth in his subjects and the circumstances surrounding them…”

Barbara Hendricks: Duke Ellington and Gershwin

Warner Classics, 2007, accessed in Naxos Music Library database

Wynton Marsalis: Jazz 6 1/2 Syncopated Movements and Jump Start

Sony Classical, 1997, accessed in Naxos Music Library database

E-Resources News: Novemeber 2020

QC Library is pleased to share a new database: Black Freedom Struggle in the United States: A selection of Primary Sources. It features over 2000 primary source documents, organized into 6 historical periods:

  • Slavery and the Abolitionist Movement (1790-1860)
  • The Civil War and the Reconstruction Era (1861-1877)
  • Jim Crow Era from 1878 to the Great Depression (1878-1932)
  • The New Deal and World War II (1933-1945)
  • The Civil Rights and Black Power Movements (1946-1975)
  • The Contemporary Era (1976-2000)

In addition to the OneSearch link above, the database can be accessed through:

Kindly note that due to a CUNY wide update in August, all electronic resources are now accessible remotely using your CUNY Login Credentials. For more information, please review our FAQ: https://qc-cuny.libanswers.com/faq/294864

Library Events on Activism and Social Justice Continue

On October 6, Norka Blackman-Richards, Director of the Percy E. Sutton Seek Program at Queens College, moderated Fighting for the Future: Political Engagement and Student Leadership, a passionate and intellectually vibrant conversation that could not have come at a better time. We thank her and each of our panelists: Aysa Gray, Carmine Couloute, Siddharth Malviya, and Zaire Couloute, who shared their personal journeys as student and community leaders and their hopes and strategies for the future.

A recording of the event is available here.
 

This event was Part 2 of the library’s series How Can We Do Better: Creating a More Just and Inclusive World. We hope you join us on November 17 for the final program, which will focus on issues of power, representation, and inclusion in archives.  

Fall Library Programs Will Explore Racial, Social Justice

QC Library is pleased to announce How Can We Do Better? Creating a More Just and Inclusive Future, a series of online programs to be held this fall which focus on issues of racial and social justice and their connections to higher education.

The events will be broadcast live on Queens Memory’s Facebook page:  https://www.facebook.com/queensmemory/ They are free and open to all, and no advance registration is required.

Co-sponsored by the Center for Ethnic, Racial, and Religious Understanding [CERRU], Queens Memory COVID-19 Project of Queens College and Queens Public Library, the Office of the Vice President for Student Affairs, Percy Ellis Sutton SEEK Program, and the Queens College Black Latinx Faculty Staff Association [BLFSA].

Schedule of Programs:

1. Black Lives Matter and Anti-racism in Higher Education. Moderated by Queens College President Frank Wu. Tuesday, September 22 at 4PM.

2. Fighting For the Future: Political Engagement and Student Leadership. Moderated by Norka Blackman-Richards. Director, Percy E. Sutton SEEK Program, Queens College, CUNY. Tuesday, October 6 at 4PM.

3. Power and Oppression in the Archive: Building a Diverse Historical Record Through Oral History. Moderated by James Lowry, PhD. Graduate School of Library and Information Studies, Queens College, CUNY. Tuesday, November 17 at 4PM.

Image credit: Jules Antonio. Used under Creative Commons license: https://www.flickr.com/photos/julesantonio/49992664316/ 10 June 2020.

Great Books for Black History Month

by Asif Alam | February 2020

Africana Studies Librarian and Professor James Tasato Mellone has curated a special display of important works on African-American history and culture. Check them out on Level 3, near the Research Office, and bring one home!

The Library has extensive collections in African-American studies. You can learn more about what’s available by visiting the Research Office, consulting the Africana Studies Guide, or contacting Prof. Mellone at james.mellone@qc.cuny.edu