A progressive blog addressing topics such as affordable housing, urban planning, zoning, and public transportation.

Our Teacher's Guide offers a collection of lessons and resources for K-12 social studies, literature, and arts classrooms that center around the achievements, perspectives, and experiences of African Americans across U.S. history. Below you will find materials for teaching and learning about the perspectives of slaves and free African Americans during the American Revolution, the work of the Freedman’s Bureau during and after Reconstruction, the artistry of Jacob Lawrence, the reality faced by African American soldiers returning home after fighting in WWI, the songs and efforts of the Freedom Riders during the long civil rights movements, and the works of Lorraine Hansberry, Langston Hughes, Zora Neale Hurston, and Maya Angelou.

AAS 267, African American Literature, is a survey course that will take us from the early days of enslavement to the present. We will read, analyze, and discuss literary texts written by African Americans, paying particular attention to the political, historical and social context that informs these texts.

"African American Perspectives" gives a panoramic and eclectic review of African American history and culture and is primarily comprised of two collections in the Rare Book and Special Collections Division: the African American Pamphlet Collection and the Daniel A.P. Murray Collection with a date range of 1822 through 1909. Most were written by African-American authors, though some were written by others on topics of particular importance in African-American history. Among the authors represented are Frederick Douglass, Ida B. Wells-Barnett, Benjamin W. Arnett, Alexander Crummel, Emanuel Love, Lydia Maria Child, Kelly Miller, Charles Sumner, Mary Church Terrell, and Booker T. Washington, among others.

The 800 + titles in the collection include sermons on racial pride and political activism; annual reports of charitable, educational, and political organizations; and college catalogs and graduation orations from the Hampton Institute, Morgan College, and Wilberforce University. Also included are biographies, slave narratives, speeches by members of Congress, legal documents, poetry, playbills, dramas, and librettos. Other materials focus on segregation, voting rights, violence against African Americans, the colonization of Africa by freed slaves, anti-slavery organizations and investigative reports. Several of the items are illustrated with portraits of the authors.

Given the secondary position of persons of African descent throughout their history in America, it could reasonably be argued that all efforts of creative writers from that group are forms of protest. However, for purposes of this discussion, Defining African American protest poetrysome parameters might be drawn. First—a definition. Protest, as used herein, refers to the practice within African American literature of bringing redress to the secondary status of black people, of attempting to achieve the acceptance of black people into the larger American body politic, of encouraging practitioners of democracy truly to live up to what democratic ideals on American soil mean. Protest literature consists of a variety of approaches, from the earliest literary efforts to contemporary times. These include articulating the plight of enslaved persons, challenging the larger white community to change its attitude toward those persons, and providing specific reference points for the nature of the complaints presented. In other words, the intention of protest literature was—and remains—to show inequalities among races and socio-economic groups in America and to encourage a transformation in the society that engenders such inequalities. For African Americans, Some of the questions motivating African American protest poetrythat inequality began with slavery. How, in a country that professed belief in an ideal democracy, could one group of persons enslave another? What forms of moral persuasion could be used to get them to see the error of their ways? In addition, how, in a country that professed belief in Christianity, could one group enslave persons whom Christian doctrine taught were their brothers and sisters? And the list of “hows” goes on. How could white Americans justify Jim Crow? Inequalities in education, housing, jobs, accommodation, transportation, and a host of other things? In response to these “hows,” another “how” emerged. How could writers use their imaginations and pens to bring about change in the society? Protest literature, therefore, focused on such issues and worked to rectify them. Poetry is but one of the media through which writers address such issues, as there are forms of protest fiction, drama, essays, and anything else that African Americans wrote—and write.

The African elephant is the heaviest land mammal. Its most striking features are its trunk and its tusks.

The African forest elephant is much smaller than the African and the Asian Elephant.

This short commentary about the African Health OER Network was published by the African Journal of Health Professions Education, December 2010, Vol. 2, No. 2.

The African Storybook (ASb) is a literacy initiative that provides openly licensed picture storybooks for early reading in the languages of Africa. Developed and hosted by Saide, the ASb has an interactive website that enables users to read, create, download, translate, and adapt stories. The initiative addresses the dire shortage of children’s storybooks in African languages, crucial for children’s literacy development.

This paper discusses Afro-Caribbean labor in Cuba in the 1920s, 1930s, and 1940s

This resource provides access to information related to the implementation of Extended Foster Care in California (formerly known as AB 12).

In the wake of the tragic school shooting in Newtown, CT, students learn about and discuss renewed calls for gun control and the National Rifle Association's history of successfully resisting such reforms.

This site offers 12 hours of interviews recorded in the days and months following the bombing of Pearl Harbor from more than 200 individuals in cities and towns across the U.S. Audio and transcripts of the interviews are provided.

After the Ice: Our Food discusses changes in historic food sources for Arctic Native Americans. Global climate change is altering yearly cycles of both ice coverage and depth in the Bering Sea. Changes in the ice affect the way local native groups hunt in order to feed their community.

This 7-minute video illustrates how the historic homeland for Arctic Native Americans is being affected by climate change. Shorefast ice and pack ice are present for a shorter part of the year. This has profound affects on the way of life in the Bering Sea region, to the point where the community may have to relocate.

This video discusses how the historic way of life for Arctic Native Americans has changed. Global climate change is altering the ice cycle (yearly coverage, depth, and persistence) in the Bering Sea and weather patterns. Changes in the ice affect the way local native groups are able to hunt for food, and maintain their community.

In this book Jo Littler argues that meritocracy is the key cultural means of legitimation for contemporary neoliberal culture – and that whilst it promises opportunity, it in fact creates new forms of social division. Against Meritocracy is split into two parts. Part I explores the genealogies of meritocracy within social theory, political discourse and working cultures. It traces the dramatic U-turn in meritocracy’s meaning, from socialist slur to a contemporary ideal of how a society should be organised. Part II uses a series of case studies to analyse the cultural pull of popular ‘parables of progress’, from reality TV to the super-rich and celebrity CEOs, from social media controversies to the rise of the ‘mumpreneur’. Paying special attention to the role of gender, ‘race’ and class, this book provides new conceptualisations of the meaning of meritocracy in contemporary culture and society.