The books in the Florida and the Caribbean Open Books Series demonstrate the University Press of Florida’s long history of publishing Latin American and Caribbean studies titles that connect in and through Florida, highlighting the connections between the Sunshine State and its neighboring islands. Books in this series show how early explorers found and settled Florida and the Caribbean. They tell the tales of early pioneers, both foreign and domestic. They examine topics critical to the area such as travel, migration, economic opportunity, and tourism. They look at the growth of Florida and the Caribbean and the attendant pressures on the environment, culture, urban development, and the movement of peoples, both forced and voluntary. The Florida and the Caribbean Open Books Series gathers the rich data available in these architectural, archaeological, cultural, and historical works, as well as the travelogues and naturalists’ sketches of the area in prior to the twentieth century, making it accessible for scholars and the general public alike. The Florida and the Caribbean Open Books Series is made possible through a grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities and the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, under the Humanities Open Books program.

The Encyclopedia of African Cultural Heritage in North America provides an accessible ready reference on the retention and continuity of African culture within the United States. Our conceptual framework holds, first, that culture is a form of self-knowledge and knowledge about self in the world as transmitted from one person to another. Second, that African people continuously create their own cultural history as they move through time and space. Third, that African descended people living outside of Africa are also contributors to and participate in the creation of African cultural history. Entries focus on illuminating Africanisms (cultural retentions traceable to an African origin) and cultural continuities (ongoing practices and processes through which African culture continues to be created and formed). Thus, the focus is more culturally specific and less concerned with the broader transatlantic demographic, political and geographic issues that are the focus of similar recent reference works. We also focus less on biographies of individuals and political and economic ties and more on processes and manifestations of African cultural heritage and continuity. FEATURES: A two-volume A-to-Z work, available in a choice of print or electronic formats 350 signed entries, each concluding with Cross-references and Further Readings 150 figures and photos Front matter consisting of an Introduction and a Reader’s Guide organizing entries thematically to more easily guide users to related entries Signed articles concluding with cross-references

This book shows African heritage to be a mode of political organisation - where heritage work has a uniquely wide currency.

Organized by major themes—such as creation stories, and resistance to oppression—this collection gather works of imagination, politics and history, religion, and culture from many societies and across recorded time. Asante and Abarry marshal together ancient, anonymous writers whose texts were originally written on stone and papyri and the well-known public figures of more recent times whose spoken and written words have shaped the intellectual history of the diaspora. Within this remarkably wide-ranging volume are such sources as prayers and praise songs from ancient Kemet and Ethiopia along with African American spirituals; political commentary from C.L.R. James, Malcolm X, Mary McLeod Bethune, and Joseph Nyerere; stirring calls for social justice from David Walker, Abdias Nacimento, Franzo Fanon, and Martin Luther King, Jr. Featuring newly translated texts and ocuments published for the first time, the volume also includes an African chronology, a glossary, and an extensive bibliography. With this landmark book, Asante and Abarry offer a major contribution to the ongoing debates on defining the African canon. Author note:Molefi Kete Asanteis Professor and Chair of African American Studies at Temple University and author of several books, includingThe Afrocentric Idea(Temple) andThe Historical and Cultural Atlas of African Americans.Abu S. Abarryis Assistant Chair of African American Studies at Temple University.

First in a series of African history books, this volume examines the changes in Africa from the earliest people to the development of the slave trade.

Compiles information and interpretations on the past 500 years of African American history, containing essays on historical research aids, bibliographies, resources for womens' issues, and an accompanying CD-ROM providing bibliographical entries.

To Tell A Free Story traces in unprecedented detail the history of black America's most innovative literary tradition -- the autobiography -- from its beginnings to the end of the slavery era.