Research Guides: Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, and Social Justice: Black History Month & Juneteenth

Black History Month & Juneteenth

Black History Month
Juneteenth

Black History Month (also referred to as African-American History Month) is an annual observance that originates in the United States. It is commemorated in February. It started as a weekly celebration in the 1920s until it was expanded as a monthly one in 1976 (Library of Congress, n.d.). The celebration serves to honor the accomplishments of the African-Americans and the African diaspora. Black History Month has served as a way to advocate for the rights of African-Americans and Black communities, and recognize the contributions, claims to justice, and the need to bring forth Black history.

Juneteenth Flag: Navy Blue stripe on the top, red stripe at the bottom. A 5 pointed white start ornaments the flag inside the white outline of a 12 pointed star. On the right it reads June 19, 1865. Juneteenth (also known as Emancipation Day, Liberation Day, or Jubilee Day), is celebrated annually on June 19. This holiday commemorates the end of slavery in the United States. It originated in Galveston, Texas in 1865, when news of Lincoln's Emancipation of Proclamation (effective January 1st, 1863) reached the town. On this date, Union Major General Gordon Grander read a general order to the assembled people stating that all enslaved people (i.e., West and Central African diaspora) were now free (Lagasse & Columbia University, 2018).

Juneteenth is celebrated annually across all states with varying official recognitions. Activists, anti-racist, and civil rights groups have advocated making Juneteenth a national holiday. As of 2020, 48 states officially observe Juneteenth (Higgins, 2020). In 2020, Gov. Baker of Massachusetts initiated the process to make "Juneteenth Independence Day" (Office of Governor Charlie Baker and Lt. Governor Karyn Polito, 2020).

Educational Resources

PBS: What is Juneteenth?
A history about Juneteenth Celebration.
June 19, 1865: “Juneteenth” Emancipation Day
Article from the Zinn Education Project.
Freedom in the Black Diaspora: A Resource Guide for Ayiti Reimagined
Provides historical sources centering Haitian cultural and historical contributions to Black liberation movements in the United States and Latin America.
Teaching Tolerance: Teaching Juneteenth
Article about with resources about teaching Juneteenth.
17 Ways to Celebrate Juneteenth With Kids
Ideas, resources, and books on teaching Juneteenth to children.

Juneteenth Resources at NECC

This is a selection of items available through the NECC libraries, with many more available through our library networks: HELM and ComCat. Ask a librarian if you are looking for a specific title!

Contemporary Black Women Filmmakers and the Art of Resistance by Christina N. Baker
Call Number: PN1995.9.N4 B35 2018
ISBN: 0814213820
Publication Date: 2018-10-22
Available at NECC Lawrence.
Analysis of representations of Black femaleness in the feature films of Black women filmmakers. Addressing social issues such as the exploitation of Black women in the entertainment industry, the impact of mass incarceration on Black women, political activism, and violence, these films also engage with personal issues as complex as love, motherhood, and sexual identity.
Juneteenth by Ralph Ellison; John F. Callahan (Editor)
Call Number: PS3555.L625 J86 1999
ISBN: 0394464575
Publication Date: 1999-05-29
Available at NECC Haverhill and Lawrence.
The story of a black man who passes for white and becomes a race-baiting U.S. senator. When he is shot on the Senate floor, the first visitor in hospital is a black musician-turned-preacher who raised him. As the two men talk, their respective stories come out. An unfinished novel by the author of Invisible Man.
The 1619 Project by Nikole Hannah-Jones (Created by); The New The New York Times Magazine (Created by); Caitlin Roper (Editor); Ilena Silverman (Editor); Jake Silverstein (Editor)
Call Number: E441. A15 2021
ISBN: 9780593230572
Publication Date: 2021-11-16
The New York Times Magazine's award-winning "1619 Project" issue reframed our understanding of American history by placing slavery and its continuing legacy at the center of our national narrative. This new book substantially expands on that work, weaving together eighteen essays that explore the legacy of slavery in present-day America with thirty-six poems and works of fiction that illuminate key moments of oppression, struggle, and resistance.
Black AF History by Michael Harriot
Call Number: E185 .H37 2023
ISBN: 9780358439165
Publication Date: 2023-09-19
Available at NECC Haverhill.
Smart and bitingly hilarious retelling of American history that corrects the record and showcases the perspectives and experiences of Black Americans.

Black Women in Texas History by Bruce A. Glasrud
ISBN: 9781603444095
Publication Date: 2008-01-01
Available at NECC Online.
A multi-author narrative of the experiences and impact of black American women from the time of slavery until the recent past. Each chapter, written by an expert on the era, provides a readable survey and overview of the lives and roles of black Texas women during that period.
Downhome Gospel by Jerrilyn McGregory
ISBN: 9781604737837
Publication Date: 2010-10-05
Available at NECC Online.
Explores sacred music and spiritual activism in a little-known region of the South, the Wiregrass Country of Georgia, Alabama, and North Florida. She examines African American sacred music outside of Sunday church-related activities, showing that singing conventions and anniversary programs fortify spiritual as well as social needs.
Living Black History by Manning Marable
ISBN: 9780786722440
Publication Date: 2006-01-03
Available at NECC Online.
A fresh and personal look at the enduring legacy of such well-known figures as Malcolm X, Martin Luther King, Jr., Medgar Evers and W.E.B. Du Bois. Marable creates a "living history" that brings the past alive for a generation he sees as having historical amnesia.

The following NECC library databases contain information about Juneteenth, and African-American History from the beginning of the transatlantic slave trade to the present.

Biography in Context This link opens in a new window
Includes biographies of thousands of people, current and historic, from all eras and fields.
US History in Context This link opens in a new window
Information on the most significant people, events and topics in U.S. History with full-text magazines, academic journals and news articles.

Don't Touch My Hair! by Sharee Miller
Call Number: PZ7 .M6336 Don 2018
ISBN: 9780316562584
Publication Date: 2018-11-06
Available at NECC Haverhill.
Little Leaders: Bold Women in Black History by Vashti Harrison
Call Number: E185.96 .H338 2017
ISBN: 9780316475112
Publication Date: 2017-12-05
Available at NECC Haverhill.
March by John Lewis; Andrew Aydin; BookSource Staff (Compiled by)
Call Number: E840.8.L43 A3
ISBN: 0606324364
Publication Date: 2013-08-13
Available at NECC Haverhill & Lawrence.
On the Come Up by Angie Thomas
Call Number: PZ7.1.T448 On 2019
ISBN: 9780062498564
Publication Date: 2019-02-05
Available at NECC Haverhill and Lawrence.
The March Against Fear by Ann Bausum
Call Number: E185.93 .M6 B37 2017
ISBN: 1426326653
Publication Date: 2017-01-03
Available at NECC Haverhill.

A Kind of Freedom by Margaret Wilkerson Sexton
Call Number: PS3619.E9838 K56 2017
ISBN: 1619029227
Publication Date: 2017-08-15
Available at NECC Haverhill.
Evelyn is a Creole woman who comes of age in New Orleans at the height of World War II. In 1982, Evelyn's daughter, Jackie, is a frazzled single mother grappling with her absent husband's drug addiction. Jackie's son, T.C., loves the creative process of growing marijuana more than the weed itself. He was a square before Hurricane Katrina, but the New Orleans he knew didn't survive the storm. For Evelyn, Jim Crow is an ongoing reality, and in its wake new threats spring up to haunt her descendants.
Love by Toni Morrison
Call Number: PS3563.O8749 L68 2003
ISBN: 0375409440
Publication Date: 2003-10-28
Available at NECC Haverhill.
May, Christine, Heed, Junior, Vida--even L: all women obsessed with Bill Cosey. The wealthy owner of the famous Cosey's Hotel and Resort, he shapes their yearnings for father, husband, lover, guardian, and friend, yearnings that dominate the lives of these women long after his death. Yet while he is either the void in, or the center of, their stories, he himself is driven by secret forces--a troubled past and a spellbinding woman named Celestial.
Song yet Sung by James McBride
Call Number: PS3613.C28 S66 2008
ISBN: 1594489726
Publication Date: 2008-02-05
Available at NECC Haverhill.
A rich historical novel, set in the slave-owning period in the US. Liz, a young runaway with odd dreams, accidentally inspires a breakout from the prison of a notorious slaver, Patty Cannon. As Cannon stalks revenge, Liz flees into the nefarious world of the underground railroad with its unspoken clues to freedom known as The Code'. Denwood Long, a troubled slave catcher, is coaxed out of retirement to break 'The Code' and track Liz down.
The Underground Railroad by Colson Whitehead
Call Number: PS3573.H4768 U53 2016
ISBN: 0385542364
Publication Date: 2016-08-02
Available at NECC Haverhill.
Cora is a slave on a cotton plantation in Georgia. Life is hell for all the slaves, but especially bad for Cora; an outcast even among her fellow Africans, she is coming into womanhood--where even greater pain awaits. When Caesar, a recent arrival from Virginia, tells her about the Underground Railroad, they decide to take a terrifying risk and escape.

The Autobiography of Malcolm X by Malcolm X
ISBN: 9781101967805
Publication Date: 2015-08-25
Available at OverDrive.
Originally published in 1964, Malcolm X, the Muslim leader, firebrand, and anti-integrationist, tells the extraordinary story of his life and the growth of the Black Muslim movement. His fascinating perspective on the lies and limitations of the American Dream, and the inherent racism in a society that denies its nonwhite citizens the opportunity to dream, gives extraordinary insight into the most urgent issues of our own time.
Come Juneteenth by Ann Rinaldi
ISBN: 9780547351704
Publication Date: 2009-05-04
Available at Overdrive.
Sis Goose is a beloved member of Luli's family, despite the fact that she was born a slave. But the family is harboring a terrible secret. And when Union soldiers arrive on their Texas plantation to announce that slaves have been declared free for nearly two years, Sis Goose is horrified to learn that the people she called family have lied to her for so long. She runs away--but her newly found freedom has tragic consequences.
Four Hundred Souls by Ibram X. Kendi (Editor); Keisha N. Blain (Editor)
ISBN: 9780593134054
Publication Date: 2021-02-02
Available at Overdrive.
The story begins in 1619--a year before the Mayflower--when the White Lion disgorges "some 20-and-odd Negroes" onto the shores of Virginia, inaugurating the African presence in what would become the United States. It takes us to the present, when African Americans, descendants of those on the White Lion and a thousand other routes to this country, continue a journey defined by inhuman oppression, visionary struggles, stunning achievements, and millions of ordinary lives passing through extraordinary history.
Let the Trumpet Sound by Stephen B. Oates
ISBN: 9780061952180
Publication Date: 2009-06-30
Available at OverDrive.
The definitive one-volume life of Martin Luther King, Jr., this brilliant examination of the great civil rights icon and the movement he led provides a lasting portrait of a man whose dream shaped American history, drawing on interviews with those who knew King, previously unutilized material at Presidential libraries, and the holdings of the Martin Luther King Jr. Center in Atlanta.
On Juneteenth by Annette Gordon-Reed
ISBN: 9781631498848
Publication Date: 2021-05-04
Available in Overdrive.
Provides a historian's view of the country's long road to Juneteenth, recounting both its origins in Texas and the enormous hardships that African-Americans have endured in the century since, from Reconstruction through Jim Crow and beyond.
The Three Mothers by Anna Malaika Tubbs
ISBN: 9781250756114
Publication Date: 2021-02-02
Available at OverDrive.
Much has been written about Berdis Baldwin's son James, about Alberta King's son Martin Luther, and Louise Little's son Malcolm. But virtually nothing has been said about the extraordinary women who raised them. In her groundbreaking and essential debut The Three Mothers, scholar Anna Malaika Tubbs celebrates Black motherhood by telling the story of the three women who raised and shaped some of America's most pivotal heroes.

This is a selection of items available through the NECC libraries, with many more available through our library networks: HELM and ComCat. Ask a librarian if you are looking for a specific title!

Blackballed by Lawrence Ross
Call Number: LC212.42.R67 2016
ISBN: 125007911X
Publication Date: 2016-02-02
Available at NECC Lawrence.
Blackballed is an explosive and controversial book that argues America's colleges have fostered a racist environment that makes them a hostile space for African American students. Blackballed exposes the white fraternity and sorority system, with traditions of racist parties, songs, and assaults on black students; and the universities themselves, who name campus buildings after racist men and women. It also takes a deep dive into anti-affirmative action policies, and how they effectively segregate predominately white universities, providing ample room for white privilege.
Jim Crow's Legacy by Ruth Thompson-Miller; Joe R. Feagin; Leslie H. Picca
Call Number: E185.61 .T465 2015
ISBN: 1442241632
Publication Date: 2014-11-20
Available at NECC Haverhill.
Draws on interviews with elderly African American southerners whose stories poignantly show the devastation of racism not only in the past, but also in the present. The book introduces readers to the realities of the Jim Crow era for African Americans--from life at home to work opportunities to the broader social context in America.
The New Jim Crow by Michelle Alexander
Call Number: HV9950 .A437 2012
ISBN: 1595581030
Publication Date: 2010-01-05
Available at Haverhill.
Despite the triumphant dismantling of the Jim Crow Laws, the system that once forced African Americans into a segregated second-class citizenship still haunts America, the US criminal justice system still unfairly targets black men and an entire segment of the population is deprived of their basic rights. Outside of prisons, a web of laws and regulations discriminates against these wrongly convicted ex-offenders in voting, housing, employment and education. Alexander here offers an urgent call for justice.
Teaching White Supremacy by Donald Yacovone
Call Number: LC212.2.Y33 2022
ISBN: 9780593316634
Publication Date: 2022-09-27
Available at NECC Lawrence.
Examines evidence of white supremacy's deep-seated roots in our nation's educational system through a fascinating, in-depth examination of America's wide assortment of texts, from primary readers to college textbooks, from popular histories to the most influential academic scholarship.

From Jim Crow to Jay-Z by Miles White
ISBN: 9780252093678
Publication Date: 2011-11-01
Available at NECC Online.
This multilayered study of the representation of black masculinity in musical and cultural performance takes aim at the reduction of African American male culture to stereotypes of deviance, misogyny, and excess. Miles White examines how these representations have both encouraged the demonization of young black males in the United States and abroad and contributed to the construction of their identities.
The Jim Crow Routine: Everyday Performances of Race, Civil Rights, and Segregation in Mississippi by Stephen A. Berrey
ISBN: 9781469623115
Publication Date: [2015]
Available at NECC Online.
The South's system of Jim Crow racial oppression is usually understood in terms of legal segregation that mandated the separation of white and black Americans. Yet, as this work shows, it was also a high-stakes drama that played out in the routines of everyday life, where blacks and whites regularly interacted on sidewalks and buses and in businesses and homes.
Making Black History by Jeffrey Aaron Snyder
ISBN: 9780820351841
Publication Date: 2018-02-01
Available at NECC Online.
Making Black History focuses on the engine behind the early black history movement, showing how the study and celebration of black history became an increasingly important part of African American life over the course of the early to mid-twentieth century.
Not Free, Not for All by Cheryl Knott
ISBN: 1613763743
Publication Date: 2015-12-31
Available at NECC Online.
Tracing the establishment, growth, and eventual demise of separate public libraries for African Americans in the South, disrupting the popular image of the American public library as historically welcoming readers from all walks of life. Using primary sources together with scholarly work in the fields of print culture and civil rights history, Knott tells a complex story involving both animosity and cooperation among whites and blacks who valued what libraries had to offer.
To Live and Dine in Dixie by Angela Jill Cooley
ISBN: 9780820347608
Publication Date: 2015-05-15
Available at NECC Online.
Explores the changing food culture of the urban American South during the Jim Crow era by examining how race, ethnicity, class, and gender contributed to the development and maintenance of racial segregation in public eating places.

Black Lives Matter Resources at NECC

Books
Ebooks

This is a selection of items available through the NECC libraries, with many more available through our library networks: HELM and ComCat. Ask a librarian if you are looking for a specific title!

The Making of Black Lives Matter by Christopher J. Lebron
Call Number: E185.615 .L393 2017
ISBN: 0190601345
Publication Date: 2017-06-01
Available at NECC Haverhill
Started in the wake of George Zimmerman's 2013 acquittal in the death of Trayvon Martin, the #BlackLivesMatter movement has become a powerful and incendiary campaign demanding redress for the brutal and unjustified treatment of black bodies by law enforcement in the United States. The movement is only a few years old, but as this book argues, the sentiment behind it is not; the plea and demand that "Black Lives Matter" comes out of a much older tradition arguing for the equal dignity - and not just equal rights - of black people.
#SayHerName by Kimberle Crenshaw
Call Number: HV6250.4.W65 S29 2023
ISBN: 9781642594522
Publication Date: 2023-07-18
Available at NECC Lawrence.
Black women, girls, and femmes as young as seven and as old as ninety-three have been killed by the police, though we rarely hear their names or learn their stories. #SayHerName provides a framework for understanding Black women's susceptibility to police brutality and state-sanctioned violence, and it explains how--through black feminist storytelling and ritual--we can effectively mobilize various communities and empower them to advocate for racial justice.
The Ground Breaking by Scott Ellsworth
Call Number: F704.T92 E443 2021
ISBN: 9780593182987
Publication Date: 2021-05-18
Available at NECC Haverhill.
Over the course of less than twenty-four hours in the spring of 1921, Tulsa's infamous "Black Wall Street" was wiped off the map--and erased from the history books. Official records were disappeared, researchers were threatened, and the worst single incident of racial violence in American history was kept hidden for more than fifty years. Ellsworth tells the long-suppressed story of the notorious Tulsa race massacre, and unearths the lost history of how the massacre was covered up, and of the courageous individuals who fought to keep the story alive.
The Trayvon Generation by Elizabeth Alexander
Call Number: E185.86 .A37945 2022
ISBN: 9781538737897
Publication Date: 2022-04-05
A galvanizing meditation on the power of art and culture to illuminate America's unresolved problem with race. In the midst of civil unrest in the summer of 2020 and following the murders of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, and Ahmaud Arbery, Elizabeth Alexander wrote a celebrated and moving reflection on the challenges facing young Black America, incisively and lovingly observing the experiences, attitudes, and cultural expressions of what she referred to as the Trayvon Generation, who even as children could not be shielded from the brutality that has affected the lives of so many Black people.

'Black lives matter': Cross-Media Resonance and the Iconic Turn of Language by Lucia Abbamonte
ISBN: 152752146X
Publication Date: 2018
Available at NECC Online
Focuses on the ongoing protest in the US against racial discrimination and racial profiling, which often result in the loss of black lives at the hands of police agents, a phenomenon that has recently attracted unprecedented media attention.
Black Against Empire by Joshua Bloom; Waldo E. Martin
ISBN: 9780520966451
Publication Date: 2016-10-25
In Oakland CA, in 1966, community college students Bobby Seale and Huey Newton armed themselves, began patrolling the police, and promised to prevent police brutality. Unlike the Civil Rights Movement that called for full citizenship rights for blacks within the US, the Black Panther Party rejected the legitimacy of the US government and positioned itself as part of a global struggle against American imperialism. In the face of intense repression, the Party flourished, becoming the center of a revolutionary movement with offices in 68 US cities and powerful allies around the world.
Black Power: Radical Politics and African American Identity by Jeffrey O. G. Ogbar
ISBN: 9781421429779
Publication Date: 2019-03-19
Available at NECC Online
In the 1960s and 70s, the two most important black nationalist organizations, the Nation of Islam and the Black Panther Party, gave voice and agency to the most economically and politically isolated members of black communities outside the South. Though vilified as fringe and extremist, these movements proved to be formidable agents of influence during the civil rights era, ultimately giving birth to the Black Power movement.