To Make Our World Anew: Volume I: A History of African Americans to 1880 - Paperback

by Robin D. G. Kelley (Author), Earl Lewis (Author), Robin D. G. Kelley (Editor)

The two volumes of Kelley and Lewis's To Make Our World Anew integrate the work of eleven leading historians into the most up-to-date and comprehensive account available of African American history, from the first Africans brought as slaves into the Americas, right up to today's black filmmakers and politicians. This first volume begins with the story of Africa and its origins, then presents an overview of the Atlantic slave trade, and the forced migration and enslavement of between ten and twenty million people. It covers the Haitian Revolution, which ended victoriously in 1804 with the birth of the first independent black nation in the New World, and slave rebellions and resistance in the United States in the years leading up to the Civil War. There are vivid accounts of the Civil War and Reconstruction years, the backlash of the notorious "Jim Crow" laws and mob lynchings, and the founding of key black educational institutions, such as Howard University in Washington, D.C. Here is a panoramic view of African-American life, rich in gripping first-person accounts and short character sketches that invite readers to relive history as African Americans have experienced it.

Author Biography

Robin D. G. Kelley is Professor of African-American Studies at Columbia University and author of several books, most recently Freedom Dreams: The Black Radical Imagination. He lives in New York City. Earl Lewis is Provost and the Asa G. Candler Professor of History and African-American Studies at Emory University. He is the author of several books including In Their Own Interests, Love On Trial (with Heidi Ardizzone) and Defending Diversity (with Patricia Gurin and Jeffrey Lehman). He lives in Atlanta, Georgia.