Black History Resources

New Hampshire, despite its small size, played a significant role in the American Revolution. The deeds of the state's soldiers and other notable citizenry have been well documented but the contributions of the black population have never been fully explored until now. The largest part of this book consists of the service records of all known black soldiers with ties to New Hampshire: 139 who served in New Hampshire's forces, 34 who served in New Hampshire and another colony's forces, and 51 who served in another colony's forces but lived in New Hampshire at some point in their lives. The work also provides information on life for blacks in New Hampshire before, during and after the American Revolution, and information on campaigns and engagements that blacks from New Hampshire were known to have taken part in.

Few people think of a rich Black heritage when they think of New England. In the pioneering book Black Portsmouth, Mark J. Sammons and Valerie Cunningham celebrate it, guiding the reader through more than three centuries of New England and Portsmouth social, political, economic, and cultural history as well as scores of personal and site-specific stories. Here, we meet such Africans as the likely negro boys and girls from Gambia, who debarked at Portsmouth from a slave ship in 1758, and Prince Whipple, who fought in the American Revolution. We learn about their descendants, including the performer Richard Potter and John Tate of the People's Baptist Church, who overcame the tragedies and challenges of their ancestors' enslavement and subsequent marginalization to build communities and families, found institutions, and contribute to their city, region, state, and nation in many capacities. Individual entries speak to broader issues--the anti-slavery movement, American religion, and foodways, for example. We also learn about the extant historical sites important to Black Portsmouth--including the surprise revelation of an African burial ground in October 2003--as well as the extraordinary efforts being made to preserve remnants of the city's early Black heritage.

In the summer of 1957 the Ward family moved from Brooklyn, New York to Lee, New Hampshire to escape gang violence. It was an era when racial tensions were high and they were the first "colored family" in the area. Needless to say, over the years they encountered many interesting experiences and created a storied life. They also became respected members of the community, led by parents, Harold and Virginia Ward, a couple with strong convictions and compassion. Harold, Michael Cameron Ward's 94-year-old father, was hospitalized in the beginning of May 2015 with only weeks to live. On the 20th he made a request of his son: "Michael, I want you to write the stories of our existence. I want my great grandchildren to know where they came from." Then, as Michael sat beside his father's bed on the 4th floor at Exeter Hospital, his father recounted stories of his life that had never been told before. If not captured, they would be lost forever. On June 9th, 2015 Harold died, and Michael has been fulfilling his father's request ever since. The Sketches of Lee collection is not just the tale of a family's relocation in the summer of 1957 from Brooklyn, N.Y. to Lee, N.H. Rather, it's a chronicle of family life as the "Index of Integration" for Lee and other New Hampshire towns. This first volume, "A Colored Man in Exeter," recounts some of Harold's experiences in the Exeter, NH area from 1959 until 1975.

This new combined edition of We Shall Overcome and Freedom Is A Constant Struggle weaves together the leadsheets of 115 songs, 135 moving documentary photos, and stirring firsthand accounts. Grouped together in chapters on each of the key stages of the U.S. Civil Rights Movement, they create a stunning vision of this critical moment in world history. Includes an introduction by the editors, Guy and Candie Carawan. The book is arranged chronologically and fully indexed.

From the plaintive tunes of woe sung by exiled kings and queens of Africa to the spirited worksongs and "shouts" of freedmen, enslaved people created expansive forms of music from the United States to the West Indies and South America. Dena J. Epstein's classic work traces the course of early black folk music in all its guises. Anchored by groundbreaking scholarship, it redefined the study of black music in the slavery era by presenting the little-known development of black folk music in the United States. Her findings include the use of drums, the banjo, and other instruments originating in Africa; a wealth of eyewitness accounts and illustrations; in-depth look at a wide range of topics; and a collection of musical examples.

This early work by Miles Mark Fisher is both expensive and hard to find in its first edition. It details the importance and meaning of slave songs in America. As decoded by Dr. Fisher, the spirituals reveal data respecting their authors, their dates, their places of origin, their plans to escape, and their protest against slavery.

Growing up in the rural South, Bessie Jones sang her way through long hours of field work and child tending, entertaining her young companions with chants and riddles or joining them for a rousing evening of ring dances and singing plays. These songs and games, recorded in Step It Down by folklorist Bess Lomax Hawes, capture the shape and color of the crowded, impoverished, life-demanding, and life-loving days of the black family of sixty years ago, revealing the strength and vitality of African and slave traditions in black American life. Step It Down weaves together the lyrics, music, and description of traditional Afro-American children's songs as well as Jones's comments on their meaning and "feel." Whether reciting "Tom, Tom, Greedy Gut" or demonstrating the more complex steps of "Ranky Tank" and "Buzzard's Lope," Bessie Jones always viewed the amusements of the young as preparation for adult roles and relationships, and as a teacher, she developed her own philosophy of how a black child is socialized into the larger community. Grounded in the values of black society, her songs taught children about cooperative interaction and mutual concern, not about competition and individual achievement, showing them how to create fun out of nothing more than their hands, feet, voices, and imaginations.

Making it in Hell, says Bruce Jackson, is the spirit behind the sixty-five work songs gathered in this eloquent dispatch from a brutal era of prison life in the Deep South. Through engagingly documented song arrangements and profiles of their singers, Jackson shows how such pieces as "Hammer Ring," "Ration Blues," "Yellow Gal," and "Jody's Got My Wife and Gone" are like no other folk music they are distinctly African in heritage, diminished in power and meaning outside their prison context, and used exclusively by black convicts.The songs helped workers through the rigors of cane cutting, logging, and cotton picking. Perhaps most important, they helped resolve the men's hopes and longings and allowed them a subtle outlet for grievances they could never voice when face-to-face with their jailers.

This stirring collection of Negro spirituals, edited by the great Negro poet James Weldon Johnson and arranged for voice and piano by his brother J. Rosamond Johnson, presents 120 of these melodic -- and intensely moving -- religious folk songs for contemporary performance. The original language has been faithfully preserved in this convenient performing edition, so that the spirituals can be sung today exactly as they were more than a hundred years ago. Included in this special, two-volumes-in-one publication are such perennial favorites as Swing Low Sweet Chariot, Deep River, Joshua Fit de Battle of Jericho, and Go Down Moses -- songs handed down from generation to generation in a rich oral tradition, and painstakingly assembled and edited for the enjoyment of future generations. The songs are prefaced by James Weldon Johnson's masterful discussions of their origins, musical quality, and historical significance. Above all, he stresses the essential dignity of the Negro spirituals, which, though no doubt inspired by the religious faith of their masters, -- are purely and solely the creation of the American Negro.

Published in 1914, this is a study in racial and national music. Includes folk songs, religion, modal characteristics, music among Africans, variations from the major and minor scales, dances, songs of black creoles and more.

"Black Song" is a literary tribute to the power and beauty of the timeless musical tradition of Afro-American spirituals. The author charts the evolution and development of the Black spiritual, and presents hundreds of examples of the more than 6,000 remaining songs. This is the definitive history of a simple musical form in all its complexities -- music, religion, philosophy, poetry, and politics. The book's first part, "The Forge," presents the authentic "story of how the songs were hammered out." In the second part, "The Slave Sings Free," the author examines the creators and their communities, and interprets the meanings and implications of the songs that have passed into, and have become part of, our society. The development of the spiritual as a world phenomenon is traced in the final part, "The Flame." "Black Song" will remain in the literature of our musical, cultural, and social heritage as a fascinating reader and essential reference book.

The remarkable story of the Fisk University chorus and their popular performances of Negro folksongs and spirituals.

On the Trail of Negro Folk-Songs is a non-fiction book by Dorothy Scarborough. It was first published in 1925. The book, a survey of African American folk songs, has been reprinted several times.

The book focuses on secular songs, that is, songs without any kind of religious message or origin. It was one of the first studies to focus solely on secular songs and weaves between analysis of the music and anecdotes from Scarborough and the people who introduced the songs to her.

Available for the first time in paperback and at an affordable price, an inspiring and practical collection that celebrates the history and significance of the African-American gospel music tradition.