African American Biographies

Selected Books - Websites

Selected Books

For additional books, browse the library catalog under the subject heading African Americans -- Biography.

	Cross, Charles R. Room Full of Mirrors: a Biography of Jimi Hendrix Drawing on never-before-seen documents, private letters, and more than three hundred interviews, Room Full of Mirrors unlocks the vast mystery of one of rock's most enduring legends -- a man who, in twenty-seven short years, managed to rise from poverty, set the world aflame, and inadvertently extinguish his own burning talent. ML410.H476 C76 2005
	Hilliard, David Huey: Spirit of the Panther Huey Newton (1942–1989) founded the Black Panther Party in Oakland, California in 1966. In this first authorized biography, Newton's former chief of staff David Hilliard and authors Keith and Kent Zimmerman team up to tell the whole story of the man behind the organization that FBI director J. Edgar Hoover infamously dubbed "the greatest threat to the internal security of the country." E185.97.N48 H55 2006x
	Nelson, Scott Reynolds Steel Drivin' Man: John Henry, the Untold Story of an American Legend In Steel Drivin' Man, Scott Reynolds Nelson recounts the true story of the man behind the iconic American hero, telling the poignant tale of a young Virginia convict who died working on one of the most dangerous enterprises of the time, the first rail route through the Appalachian Mountains. E185.97.H455 N45 2006
	Obama, Barack Dreams from my Father: a Story of Race and Inheritance Illinois Senator Obama, the son of a white American mother and a black African father, writes an elegant and compelling biography that powerfully articulates America's racial battleground and tells of his search for his place in black America.
	Schaap, Jeremy Triumph: the Untold Story of Jesse Owens and Hitler's Olympics
	Raum, Elizabeth Louis Armstrong: Jazz Legend ML3930.A75 R37 2007
	Williams, Rita If the Creek Don't Rise: My Life Out West with the Last Black Widow of the Civil War Writer Rita Williams tells of her own life growing up with her cantankerours Aunt Daisy. E185.97.W73 A3 2006

Websites

Pittsburgh Region

• Pittsburgh Post-Gazette Kids' Corner
  http://www.post-gazette.com/blackhistorymonth/kids.asp
  Short biographies from Black History Month, February 1998. Some of the featured individuals are Black Pittsburghers.
• August Wilson
  A collection of websites and articles at the time of his death October 2, 2005.

United States - Collections

• African American Women Writers of the 19th Century
  This Digital Library project from the New York Public Library includes a digital collection of some 52 published works by 19th-century black women writers.
• Black Collegian: Profiles of Great African Americans You Should Know
  Short biographies of 23 African Americans that played an important role in African American history.
• The Faces of Science: African Americans in the Sciences
  Profiled here are African American men and women who have contributed to the advancement of science and engineering.
• Gale Research: Black History Month
  Offers biographies of sixty men and women
• The Internet African American History Challenge
  Biographical Profiles of Some Important 19th Century African Americans, including Alexander Crummell, FrederickDouglass, Henry Highland Garnet, Harriet Tubman, Henry McNeal Turner, John Mercer Langston, Mary Elizabeth Boswer, Mary Church Terrell, Mary Ann Shadd, Nat Turner, Richard Allen, Sojourner Truth. From the 1998 Black Fax Calendar.
• PBS: Jazz: A History of America's Music
  http://www.pbs.org/jazz/
  This is the website to go with Ken Burns' ten-part epic series which aired on PBS January 8, 2001
  • Biographies
    Learn about the Jazz greats with information from the New Grove Dictionary of Jazz

Last updated Monday February 18 2008.