Showing results by narrator "Rodney Louis Tompkins" in All Categories

In Democracy and Education: An Introduction to the Philosophy of Education (1916), John Dewey contends that the primary facts of the birth and death of each of the members of a social group determine the necessity of education. Dewey viewed the mind and its formation as a communal process, so that the individual is a meaningful concept only when regarded as an inextricable part of their society, whilst the society has no meaning apart from its realization through the lives of individual members. 

Booker T. Washington’s 1901 autobiography can be read as a redemption story echoing many similar voices of its time. Starting from the humiliation he experienced as a slave, he ponders the meaning of identity in a situation that seeks to dehumanize. He furthers his story by expanding on his difficulties in obtaining an education and the need for change in our minds as well as societal structures. 

 The Souls of Black Folk by W. E. B. Du Bois is a landmark in sociology and a cornerstone of African American literature. The book comprises various essays on race, some of which had previously appeared in The Atlantic Monthly. As an uncompromising advocate of civil rights, Du Bois stated that through work, culture, and liberty, the dual heritage of African Americans could be melded into a force for positive social and cultural change. 

Metals and How to Weld Them (1954) by T.B. Jefferson and Gorham Woods is a practical manual which describes the structure of various metals used in industry, their mechanical and physical properties, and the processes and procedures necessary for welding them.  

Robert Benjamin Lewis (1802 - 1858) was an African American and Native American author, inventor, and entrepreneur. In the ethnological work Light and Truth, Lewis claims that Adam and Eve were people of color, as were the Egyptians and many great figures of the ancient world, including Julius Caesar and Plato. Denouncing notions of white superiority, he asserts that all humans have a common origin, and pointed to a shared cultural history between Africans and Native Americans.

The Rev. Calvin Dill Wilson (1857-1946) was an author and Presbyterian minister. In Black Masters of 1904, he discusses the little-known history of the free African-Americans that bought and sold slaves just like Southern white planters. Free colored men and women could own their families and in this way protect them against oppressive local laws. There was also the desire to attain a position of superiority over other blacks, an ambition to rise to the class of the masters and to be on the same level as white men. 

In this work published in 1888, the author recounts the history of the Edomites as gathered from the Bible. It examines the history of the Edomites in detail, from Esau to the siege of Jerusalem by Titus.

Carter Godwin Woodson (1875-1950) is best known as the "father of Black history". Woodson was a teacher, scholar, publisher, historian, and pioneer in the field of Black studies who popularized the subject in the schools and colleges of Black people.  

Marcus Garvey (1887-1940) was an orator of Black Nationalism, and founder of the Universal Negro Improvement Association and African Communities League. He advanced a Pan-African philosophy which inspired a global movement, known as Garveyism. This book, The Philosophy and Opinions of Marcus Garvey (1923) was compiled by his wife, Amy Euphemia Jacques Garvey, mainly from his speeches. Promoting unity between Africans and the African diaspora, he campaigned for an end to European colonial rule in Africa and encouraged the political unification of the continent. 

Drusilla Dunjee Houston (1876-1941) was a teacher, journalist, and self-taught historian. Inspired by the works of WEB DuBois, Houston undertook a quest to discover African history from an African American perspective. In Wonderful Ethiopians of the Ancient Cushite Empire, Houston identifies the Kushite civilization of Sudan, with its capital city Meroe, to be the cradle of humanity.  

Marcus Mosiah Garvey Jr. (1887-1940) was a Jamaican political activist, publisher, journalist, entrepreneur, and orator. The Philosophy and Opinions of Marcus Garvey (1923) is a collection of his speeches, setting out his vision of a united Africa. As an early proponent of the Back-to-Africa movement, he encouraged a sense of pride and self-worth among Africans and the African diaspora. Garvey deplored the view of poverty as a virtue and encourages Blacks to be empowered in every sphere of their lives. 

"The Heroic Slave" is the only work of fiction by the eminent abolitionist Frederick Douglass. The narrative was inspired by Madison Washington, a slave on the Creole who led a rebellion on the ship in November 1841, and had it sail to Nassau in the Bahamas instead of New Orleans. The short story appeared in the collection Autographs for Freedom (1852).   

John Newton was the master of a slave ship, later becoming a beloved Anglican priest and an ardent abolitionist. His conversion to Christianity began in 1748, and in 1764 he was accepted in the priesthood. However, it took him a while to denounce the slave trade as the pamphlet "Thoughts upon the African Slave Trade" was only published in 1787. Its impact was immediate and it became quite influential. Graphically describing the horrors of the slave trade, the publication is a moving confession of repentance for the author’s part in the hideous trade in human beings.

First published in 1907, My Life as an Indian is the memoir of James Willard Schultz and tells the story of his first year living with the Pikuni tribe in Montana. It includes accounts of religious customs and ceremonies, hunting, raids, food preparation, child-rearing and more, and is thus of great interest to anthropologists and students of Native American history. 

Twelve Years a Slave is the 1853 narrative of former slave Solomon Northup. He was born free in New York and kidnapped and sold into slavery. It was famously adapted for film in 2013. 

Carter G. Woodson (1875-1950) has been called the Father of African American Studies. In The Education of the Negro Prior to 1861 (1919), he documents the ways that education took place among African Americans from the beginning of slavery to the Civil War.  

Life and Times of Frederick Douglass covers the life of the prominent abolitionist during and after the Civil War. Here, Douglass provides a fuller account of his escape from slavery and the underground railway to freedom. It includes his recollections of presidents Garfield and Lincoln, Johnson and Garfield, and an account of his service as Marshall of the District of Columbia.

Booker T. Washington (1856-1915) was an American educator, author, orator, and adviser to multiple presidents of the United States. Washington came from the last generation of black American leaders born into slavery and became the leading voice of the former slaves and their descendants. Character Building (1902) is a collection of talks on self-development given to students and faculty at the Tuskegee Institute, of which he was leader. The author stresses the importance of developing oneself for life-long success. 

Martin Robison Delany (1812-1885) was an African-American abolitionist, journalist, physician, and author. He was one of the first three black people admitted to Harvard Medical School. Delany dreamed of establishing a settlement in West Africa and visited Liberia, a United States colony founded by the American Colonization Society. He was a prolific writer, and his book The Origin and Objects of Ancient Freemasonry, Its Introduction Into the United States, and Legitimacy Among Colored Men was published 1853. 

In his 1920 book The Jews of Africa, Mendelssohn attempts to chart the separate and progressive histories of the Jews in the different parts of Africa where they lived since their expulsion from the land by the Romans. He succeeds in compiling a narrative of a large part of the histories of the Jews of Africa during the centuries following the Romans’ destruction of Jerusalem.