Go There To Know There

Now available for your classroom, Jonathan Scott Holloway's new introduction to an iconic text of the 20th century paper $7.95 Request an  e-exam copy Request a  print exam copy The Souls of Black Folk by W. E. B. Du Bois; With an Introduction and Chronology by Jonathan Scott Holloway "Given that thousands of pages have been written on Du Bois and his magnum opus,  it is truly remarkable that Holloway manages to convey the richness and diversity of both man and text in so short a space ."—Nico Slate, Carnegie Mellon University " Jonathan Scott Holloway's graceful new introduction brings  Souls  forward to a new generation  as more than a primary source of our racial past, now serving as a scythe to help cut through the maddening claims of a post-racial present."—Davarian L. Baldwin, author of  Chicago's New Negroes A masterpiece in the African American canon—part prose poem, part sociological tract, part memoir, part ma...

In our text, Henry Louis Gates points out the nebulous line between the 'spiritual' and 'gospel' music. This line, according to Gates "is so slight that it seems contrived" (19). The Spirituals that are featured in our text represent the early modes of coping during the early days of slavery. Spirituals such as "Go Down Moses" were the means by which slaves articulated their earthly sufferings and covertly militated against the horrors of bondage. These songs were not restricted to the church, but were integrated into the daily life of the slave. For the slave of the plantation, there was no finite distinction between 'the sacred and the secular,' for spirituality was part of daily existence. Gates quotes Lawrence Levine who observed that for the slave, "the concept of the sacred signified a strong will to incorporate 'within this world all the elements of the divine'": a characteristic thread that connected the generations ...

Southwest’s Language s  and Literature Department    presents Samantha Thornhill Thornhill is a Brooklyn-based poet, educator, and curator from Trinidad and Tobago who will visit Southwest Tennessee Community College on  April 23  at 1 p.m. She will be presenting at the Union Avenue Campus, Parrish 101.  Thornhill has been invited to share her versatile works in a variety of contexts across the U.S., Europe, Africa, and the Caribbean. After graduating with her MFA in poetry from the University of Virginia, Thornhill moved to New York City, where for the past decade she’s been teaching poetry to actors at The Juilliard School. She teaches creative workshops to the elderly, as well as urban and rural youth. Seventeen literary journals and anthologies have featured her poems, and in 2010,  Scholastic Books  published her ode to the folk legend Odetta in picture book form. She is currently producing and co-directing a documentary...

Born in New Canton, Virginia in 1875, Carter G. Woodson, the son of former slaves, would become one of the most important figures in African American history. An historian and journalist, Woodson received his Ph.D. in history from Harvard in 1912, making him the second African American to earn a doctorate after W.E.B. DuBois.  Woodson eventually founded Negro History Week--which later evolved as African American History Month. He would also found The Journal of Negro History and the Association for the Study of African American Life and History. As a youngster, he came from a large, poor family who could not afford a formal education for their son. However, like many self-motivated and determined black leaders, Woodson became self-educated at a young age. By the time he reached his late teens, he had demonstrated his proficiency in elementary and secondary school subjects. Eager to learn more, he left for Fayette County to work and gradually earn his education. By the time ...

Image located at  this site Venture Smith (1729?-1805) "Compared to the internationally famous autobiography of Olaudah Equiano, A Narrative of the Life and Adventures of Venture, A Native of Africa drew little notice when it appeared in New London, Connecticut, in 1798. Equiano, whom his biographer Vincent Caretta called 'a master of self-promotion through the book trade' in Great Britain, was able to parlay his royalties from The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano (1789) into profits that made him probably the wealthiest man of African descent in England in the last decade of the eighteenth century. By contrast, Venture Smith seems to have realized little, if any, monetary gain from the publication of his narrative, which, unlike Equiano's, was never reprinted during Smith's lifetime. Surveying all his 'griefs,' 'pains,' and 'losses' at the hands of 'knaves,' 'false hearted friends,' and eve...