100 amazing facts about the Negro / Henry Louis Gates, Jr.
"From one of our premier writers, scholars, and public intellectuals: a surprising, inspiring, often boldly infuriating, highly instructive and entertaining compendium of curiosities regarding African Americans. In 1934, 100 Amazing Facts About the Negro With Complete Proof: A Short Cut to the World...
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| Language: | English |
| Published: |
New York :
Pantheon Books,
[2017]
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| Edition: | First edition. |
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| Physical Description: | xii, 476 pages : illustrations (some color) ; 24 cm |
| Variant Title: |
One hundred amazing facts about the Negro |
| Format: | Book |
Contents:
- 1. Which journalist was among the first to bring black history facts to the masses?
- 2. How many Africans were taken to the United States during the entire history of the slave trade?
- 3. Who was the first African to arrive in America
- 4. Who was the first black saint?
- 5. Who was the first black president in North America?
- 6. Who were Africa's first ambassadors to Europe?
- 7. Who was the first black explorer of the North American Southwest?
- 8. Which slave literally wrote his way to freedom?
- 9. What was the first black town in North America?
- 10. Who was George Washington's runaway slave?
- 11. Who was the first black person in the United States to lead a "back to Africa" effort?
- 12. Who was the first black person to see the baby Jesus?
- 13. Where was the first black town in what is now the United States?
- 14. What happened to the "forty acres and a mule" that former slaves were promised?
- 15. Were slaves actually eaten by dogs?
- 16. Where was the first Underground Railroad?
- 17. What was the second Middle Passage?
- 18. How much did the cotton industry shape American history and the lives of enslaved Africans?
- 19. How much African ancestry does the average African American have?
- 20. Who originated the concept of the "talented tenth" black leadership class?
- 21. Who was the first African-American fighter pilot?
- 22. Did black people own slaves? If so, why?
- 23. How did Harriet Tubman become a legend?
- 24. When did black literature begin to address African-American sexuality?
- 25. Is most of what we believe about the Underground Railroad true?
- 26. Did Russia's Peter the Great adopt an African man as his son?
- 27. Were Alexander Pushkin's African roots important to him?
- 28. Was Jackie Robinson court-martialed?
- 29. What were the largest slave rebellions in America?
- 30. What were the biggest acts of betrayal within the enslaved community?
- 31. What is one of the most novel ways a slave devised to escape bondage?
- 32. Who was the first black head of state in modern Western history?-- 33. Were there any successful slavery escapes by sea?
- 34. How was black support enlisted for World War II, when the armed services were segregated?
- 35. How did the Black Sambo memorabilia that is collected today come to be?
- 36. Who was Plessy in the Plessy v. Ferguson Supreme Court case?
- 37. What is Juneteenth?
- 38. Who was the first black American woman to be a self-made millionaire?
- 39. Did black combatants fight in the Battle of Gettysburg?
- 40. Before Emancipation, didn't most free blacks live in the northern half of America?
- 41. Why did free black people living in the South before the end of the Civil War stay there?
- 42. How did the son of a former slave defy the color bar to become a wealthy fixture of European nightlife during the Jazz Age?
- 43. Which massacre resulted in a Supreme Court decision limiting the federal government's ability to protect black Americans from racial targeting?
- 44. Which episode of racial violence destroyed the community known as the "Black Wall Street"?
- 45. How could integrating information about the fight for civil rights into K-12 curricula better to educate our children and foster a real conversation on race?
- 46. Which civil rights leader and gay barrier-breaker was kept in the shadows by the civil rights movement establishment?
- 47. Did Martin Luther King, Jr., improvise in the "Dream" speech?
- 48. Which enslaved African managed to press his case for freedom all the way to the White House?
- 49. Who was history's wealthiest person?
- 50. Who was the first black poet in the Western world?
- 51. Who was the founder of Chicago?
- 52. What's the real story of the legendary mixed-race slave trader Joel Rogers called "Mongo John"?
- 53. How did the story of Solomon Northup, the author of Twelve Years a Slave, first become public?
- 54. Who was the first black man to serve in the U.S. Senate?
- 55. Which black governor was almost a senator?
- 56. Which regiment of black soldiers returning after World War I received a hero's welcome in New York City?
- 57. Who were the African Americans in the Kennedy administration?
- 58. When did African-American women hit their stride in professional achievement?
- 59. Who were the black passengers on the doomed Titanic voyage?
- 60. Which former slave became a deputy U.S. marshal and a renowned symbol of law and order in the wild west?
- 61. Who were the black people killed in the raid on Harpers Ferry?
- 62. What myth of eternal youth in Africa inspired Europeans for centuries?
- 63. How did black soldiers come to fight in the American Civil War?
- 64. Which black man engaged a Founding Father in a debate about racial equality?
- 65. How were Martin Luther King, Jr., and Nelson Mandela linked?
- 66. Did Lincoln really free the slaves?
- 67. How did Black History Month come into being?
- 68. What was the original color of the mythical beauty Andromeda?
- 69. How often were enslaved Americans about to tell their stories?
- 70. What started the black newspaper industry in America?
- 71. What percentage of white Americans have recent African ancestry?
- 72. Who was the first American-born black person to draw crowds using sleight of hand - and voice?
- 73. Who was the first black actor to play the role of Shakespeare's tortured Moor?
- 74. Who was the patron saint of African slaves and their descendants?
- 75. Was a black slave to blame for the Salem witch trials?
- 76. What's the truth about many African-American families having a Native American ancestor?
- 77. Which pioneering play introduced mainstream American audiences to the dynamics undergirding the civil rights movement?
- 78. What role did Lord Mansfield's mixed-race great-niece, Dido Elizabeth Belle, play in his famous decision on slavery in England?
- 79. Who was the first African-American writer to investigate and report the wrongdoings of a world leader?
- 80. Who were the first notable African Americans who stepped into America's institutions of higher learning?
- 81. What was Freedom's Fort, and how does it relate to Memorial Day?
- 82. Which French general under Napol̕eon had African ancestry and was a forebear to two French literary greats?
- 83. Which famous nineteenth-century French author had African ancestry?
- 84. Which Zula king led his men to victory over British invaders and mounted warfare that killed a French "prince"?
- 85. Why was the summer of 1964 pivotal in the fight for civil rights?
- 86. Which civil rights warrior received numerous telephone calls from the U.S. president during the fight to pass the Civil Rights Act of 1964?
- 87. What happened to Argentina's black population?
- 88. Which event in black history took place in what is now Iraq?
- 89. Did black people engage in piracy during its heyday in the Americas?
- 90. How did the shattering of the color barrier for Rhodes scholarships forever change the black arts movements?
- 91. Which black female poet owned a garden house that became a popular home-away-from-home down south for the leading lights of the Harlem Renaissance?
- 92. When President Abraham Lincoln met with free black leaders in 1862, what did he propose?
- 93. Which black justices broke the color barrier at the federal court level?
- 94. Who buried the war dead from the Battle of Gettysburg? - 95. What did Malcolm X do at Oxford University? - 96. Which black man made many of our favorite household products better? - 97. Which twentieth-century black actor played roles of all races during a time when Hollywood had few roles for black actors? - 98. Who were the first black boxing champions? - 99. Who were the key scholars responsible for the discipline of black history?
- 100. What are the most important facts to know about American slavery?