Happy 35th Birthday, Black Book!

The scrapbook of African-American history that Toni Morrison calls “a requirement for our national health” is still as beautiful and maddening as ever.

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African Words

Photo Courtesy of The Black Book

A chart outlining the translations and different dialects of African words.

Read Felicia Pride's tribute to The Black Book.
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Amistad

Joseph Cinque, a leader of the Amistad revolt that eventually became a legal case tried in the U.S. Supreme Court.
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Caution Colored People of Boston

Photo Courtesy of Middleton Harris / Negro History Associates

An 1851 notice cautioning black people who lived in Boston to avoid police officers because they had the authority to act as slave catchers.
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Underground Railroad Revised

Photo Courtesy of W.H. Siebert

A map illustrating parts of the underground railroad around Pennsylvania.
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Public Sale

Photo Courtesy of The Black Book

An advertisement for a slave sale in Charleston, S.C., of “mostly house servants, some for field work.”
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Priscilla Wharfield's 'Jungle Fever'

News clipping from a Pennsylvania newspaper about the violent punishment of a married woman who allegedly committed “adultery with a negro man” in 1885.
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John Brown Escorted to Lynching

Photo Courtesy of Middleton Harris / Negro History Associates

Abolitionist John Brown as he’s escorted by police to his hanging in 1859.
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Southern Disturbances

Photo Courtesy of Chicago Daily Tribune, August 27, 1874

A news roundup of “disturbances” in the south including the lynching of six “Negroes,” published in an 1874 edition of the Chicago Daily Tribune.
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"So Clean and White"

Photo Courtesy of Clarence Robinson

An advertisement for soap that promises to turn dirty items “so clean and white.”
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Aunt Jemima Blackfaced

Photo Courtesy of Clarence Robinson

A 1933 photo of white actress Tess Gardella in blackface as Aunt Jemima.
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Man in the Moon

Composed and written by Fred Fischer

Sheet music for a “coon song” that allegedly sold 3 million copies.
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Use These for Whiter Skin

Photo Courtesy of The Black Book

An assortment of cosmetics featuring skin whiteners, bleach creams and pomades.
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Granville T. Woods Telephone Patent

A patent for “new and useful improvements” to the telephone by black inventor Granville T. Woods, a contemporary of Thomas Edison.
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"I'm Just Wild about Harry"

Photo Courtesy of Middleton Harris / Negro History Associates

Sheet music for “I'm Just Wild about Harry,” a song written by Noble Sissle and Eubie Blake for the 1921 groundbreaking Broadway musical Shuffle Along.
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The Role of the "Negro"

Photo Courtsey of Henry Dumas

A quote by writer Henry Dumas.