Yonkers Public Library System

"From Juneteenth to the Tulsa Race Massacre, many important moments in Black American history have not been taught in schools or covered in the media. Discover these events and how they are remembered in the Black community today." --

A prize-winning scholar draws on astonishing new research to demonstrate how Black people used the law to their advantage long before the Civil Rights Movement. The familiar story of civil rights goes like this: once, America's legal system shut Black people out and refused to recognize their rights, their basic human dignity, or even their very lives. When lynch mobs gathered, police and judges often closed their eyes, if they didn't join in. For...

The familiar story of civil rights goes like this: once, America's legal system shut Black people out and refused to recognize their rights, their basic human dignity, or even their very lives. When lynch mobs gathered, police often closed their eyes, if they didn't join in. For Black people, law was a hostile, fearsome power to be avoided whenever possible. Then, starting in the 1940s, a few brave lawyers ventured south, bent on changing the law....

"Economy Hall: The Hidden History of a Free Black Brotherhood tells the story of the Société d'Economie et d'Assistance Mutuelle, a New Orleans mutual aid society founded by free men of color in 1836. The group was one of the most important multiethnic, intellectual communities in the US South: educators, world-traveling merchants, soldiers, tradesmen, and poets who rejected racism and colorism to fight for suffrage and education rights for all....