Civil Rights

When her parents decide they can no longer live in Nixon's US, Bliss is shipped off to Atlanta to live with her grandmother while her parents flee to Canada in Bliss (2008) by Lauren Myracle. The year is 1969 and after spending most of her life living on a commune, or wherever else her parents decided to hang their hats, Bliss is ill-prepared for conventional life in a big city.

Bliss isn't too worried when she starts at the prestigious Crestview High School though because she's spent a lot of time watching TV. Surely The Andy Griffith Show will tell her everything she needs to know about life in the "civilized" world of non-hippies, right?  read more »

The New York Public Library, especially the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, joins millions of Americans in honoring the pioneering, purposeful, immensely productive life of Dr. John Hope Franklin (1915–2009). The preeminent scholar of the African American experience, he was a leading authority on Southern American history, a distinguished educator, and an uncompromising advocate for equality and justice in American society.

A New York Public Library Lion (2007), a co-chair of the Schomburg Center's first private fundraising campaign, member of the Schomburg Center's National Advisory Council, and recipient of the Schomburg Center's Africana Heritage Award (2006), Dr. Franklin was a passionate supporter of the Schomburg Center and The New York Public Library for more than 35 years. He also brought respect and dignity to the study of American history, having devoted his life to rescuing, reconstructing, and reinterpreting African American and American history.

For more than 60 years, Dr. Franklin's From Slavery to Freedom has been the definitive, authoritative text on African American history. First published in 1947, it has sold more than 3 million copies and been translated into several languages. In addition to documenting and interpreting the African American experience, From Slavery to Freedom challenged many of the dominant assumptions and interpretations of American history. Dr. Franklin's autobiography, Mirror to America (2005), received critical acclaim for its unflinching honesty and candor and its transcendent insights into America's national character. His biography, George Washington Williams (1985), rescued one of the pioneer American historians from obscurity and anonymity and reminded the world that his own achievements in the field rested on the shoulders of his ancestors. Williams's 1,000-page History of African Americans from 1619 to 1880 was published in 1882.  read more »