You can read this quote by Hoyt W. Fuller, from his essay “Towards a Black Aesthetic” (1968), in Bartlett’s Familiar…
Editor's note: For those who are wondering about the retro title of this black-history series, please take a moment…
You can read this quote from Fred Shuttlesworth, as quoted in Martin Luther King Jr.’s Why We Can’t Wait (1964), in B…
“ … literature is an affirmative act, but, being specifically concerned with moral values and reality, it has to…
You can read this lyric from Lord Kitchener’s 1953 song “Black or White” in Bartlett’s Familiar Black Quotations. Lis…
“You may remember, as I well do … there were, on board, ten or a dozen slaves, shackled together with irons. That…
You can read this quote by Dorothy Dandridge, from a 1954 interview with the New York Post, in Bartlett’s Familiar…
My last name is Stradwick. However, my late grandfather, Thomas Stradwick, said that was not our family’s original…

This week marks the 49th anniversary of one of the most important events in American history. It began on March 7,…
You can read this quote by Jackie Robinson, from an interview with Time magazine, in Bartlett’s Familiar Black…
You can read this quote, from Nat King Cole’s statement about the cancellation of his TV show in 1957, in Bartlett’s…
This image is part of a weekly series that The Root is presenting in conjunction with the I…
You can read this quote by Nelson Mandela, from a statement he gave while in prison in 1985, in Bartlett’s Familiar…
Editor's note: For those who are wondering about the retro title of this black-history series, please take a moment…
You can read this quote by Thelonious Monk, from an interview with Down Beat in 1971, in Bartlett’s Familiar Black…
You can read this quote from Billie Holiday, from her book Lady Sings the Blues (1956), in Bartlett’s Familiar Black…
You can read this quote by Ralph Ellison, from his book of essays Shadow and Act (1964), in Bartlett’s Familiar…
I have reason to believe that I can connect myself to the Daughters of the American Revolution. I am just having the…
You can read this quote by Gwendolyn Brooks, from her poem “A Song in the Front Yard” (1945), in Bartlett’s Familiar…
It has been more than a half-century since the African continent began freeing itself from the scourge of…