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.

• 

  1 of 15

  African Words

  Photo Courtesy of The Black Book

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

  
  [11]

  Read Felicia Pride's tribute to The Black Book. [11]

• 

  2 of 15

  Amistad

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

• 

  3 of 15

  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.

• 

  4 of 15

  Underground Railroad Revised

  Photo Courtesy of W.H. Siebert

  A map illustrating parts of the underground railroad around Pennsylvania.

• 

  5 of 15

  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.”

• 

  6 of 15

  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.

• 

  7 of 15

  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.

• 

  8 of 15

  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.

• 

  9 of 15

  "So Clean and White"

  Photo Courtesy of Clarence Robinson

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

• 

  10 of 15

  Aunt Jemima Blackfaced

  Photo Courtesy of Clarence Robinson

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

• 

  11 of 15

  Man in the Moon

  Composed and written by Fred Fischer

  Sheet music for a “coon song” that allegedly sold 3 million copies.

• 

  12 of 15

  Use These for Whiter Skin

  Photo Courtesy of The Black Book

  An assortment of cosmetics featuring skin whiteners, bleach creams and pomades.

• 

  13 of 15

  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.

• 

  14 of 15

  "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.

• 

  15 of 15

  The Role of the "Negro"

  Photo Courtsey of Henry Dumas

  A quote by writer Henry Dumas.