The Black South, areas chock-full of historical and cultural landmarks of African-American significance, should not be considered just offbeat, road-less-travelled sections of the more traditional South, but the foundation of its very existence. The purpose of this book is to document and highlight the significant contributions that Southern blacks have made to their country. The Historic Black South includes historic sites, churches, museums, art galleries, festivals, restaurants, nightclubs, jazz joints, birthsites, gravesites, radio programs, record stores, barbershops, beaches, parks, schools, and markets -- the essence of the black communities.

From the use of Florida as a center for the smuggling of slaves and the massacre in the town of Rosewood to the founding of the country's first free community if ex-slaves and the Civil Rights demonstrations in Tampa and Tallahassee, the history of African Americans in Florida has mirrored their history across the U.S.-painful and triumphant. This city-by-city guide introduces the reader to churches, schools, homes and other significant sites in more than 70 different towns across Florida, providing information on their historical importance, present condition, and availability for visiting. Included are the memorial to a slave shipwrecked in 1701 off the coast of Key West and locations associated with famous personalities like Ray Charles (st. Augustine and Greenville), the author Zora Neale Hurston (Eatonville and Fort Pierce), Daniel "Chappie" James, Jr., the nations first black four-star general (Pensacola), and the Civil Rights activist Mary McLeod Bethune (Daytona Beach). Highlighting over 450 years of contributions by African Americans to the rich culture of Florida, this volume is an excellent resource for visitors to Florida, as well as its residents.

This guidebook addresses all those wishing to experience the near west as it was. The twenty-two sites, throughout the Plain states of Iowa, Minnesota, Kansas, Nebraska and the Dakotas, and the South western states of Arkansas, Oklahoma and Texas, depict the history of the region in all its variety: frontier forts built to keep out British traders, the coming of the railroad, the Indian wars, and the ceaseless trek of the indomitable pioneers...The spirit of the West rides on!