Celebrate African American History Month by Andrea D.

Each February, we celebrate African American History Month in honor of the efforts of people of African descent to end slavery and to inaugurate universal freedom in the United States. This year's theme is "African Americans and the Civil War.” The theme, chosen by the Association for the Study of African American Life and History urges all Americans to study and reflect on the value of the contribution of these Americans.

If you would like to read about the efforts of these Americans, the library has many titles that reflect their efforts and contributions as well as books that specifically address African Americans’ role during the Civil War. “The Slave’s War: The Civil War in the Words of Former Slaves” by Andrew Ward is a groundbreaking historical account that uses hundreds of interviews, diaries, letters, and memoirs that offer an entirely new perspective of the war, through the silenced voices of the slaves.

“We Ain’t What We Ought to Be: the Black Freedom Struggle from Emancipation to Obama” by Stephen G. N. Tuck explores the dynamic relationships between those seeking new freedoms and those looking to preserve racial hierarchies, and between grassroots activists and national leaders. This book captures an extraordinary journey that speaks to all Americans—both past and future.

“Democracy Reborn: the Fourteenth Amendment and the Fight for Equal Rights in Post-Civil War America” by Garrett Epps. This is a valuable history of the fourteenth Amendment’s adoption.  Epps describes this amendment as the most far sweeping and complex change ever made in the original Constitution.

Come by the library and check out one of these works about this incredibly complex period of history and read about some of these great Americans and their contributions.

Stillwater, OK