Black History

Black History
Celebrate Black History all year!
February is Black History Month in the United States, a tradition imagined by Carter G. Woodson to celebrate the history of African people and the African Diaspora. At a recent event, we heard calls to move from "Black History Month" to "Black History Life." What would a Black History Life look like?
If you’ve been inspired by what you’re learning this month, ask yourself, how will you take action?
Here at maktaba.org we’re passionate about connecting scholars in Africa and around the world to study their history and reimagine the Black Future together. Join now
What can I do?
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Study the classics

Read African and Diaspora authors.

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Discuss with readers in Africa.

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Learn Swahili the Pan-African language.

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Keep in touch and support our work

Here at Maktaba.org we’ve put together a list of Black History classics that you can download, share, read and discuss all year long. Here are some highlights:
Black History Essentials:
The Mis-Education of the Negro by Carter G. Woodson and Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston are two classics that recently entered the Public Domain, now available copyright free for the first time on Maktaba.org.
Open access textbooks on African Art History, The Black Experience in America, The History of African Development, and UNESCO’s comprehensive General History of Africa Series (Also available in Kiswahili as Historia Kuu ya Afrika)
Classic autobiographies by African Americans including W.E.B. Du Bois, Solomon Northup, Henry Box Brown, Frederick Douglass, and Booker T. Washington
Rediscover the Pan-African Classics:
The compelling and heroic “Adventures of Mrs. Seacole in Many Lands,” is the autobiography of an Afro-Caribbean healer and entrepreneur known as the world’s first nurse-practitioner, from the cholera epidemic in Panama to the frontlines of the Crimean War. Also available on audio
Utendi wa Mwana Kupona, a Swahili epic poem written in 1858 as life advice from an ailing mother to her adolescent daughter. This bilingual edition includes English side-by-side with the original Swahili.
The Travels of Ibn Battuta, the 1322 account of a Berber scholar who traveled further than any other ancient explorer across Africa and beyond, including a visit to the Kilwa Sultanate in ancient Tanzania, described as one of the most beautiful cities in the world.
Two historic essays by Tanzanian statesman Julius “Mwalimu” Nyerere, available in both English and Kiswahili, Education for Self Reliance (Elimu ya Kujitegemea) and The Arusha Declaration (Azimio la Arusha)
Two timeless self-help books for young adults, How to Succeed and Benson’s Essays, rediscovered in the Library of Congress Rare Books Collection.
Four ebook collections of Swahili Proverbs with English translations. These are among our most popular downloads in the US and Tanzania!
A Treasury of 15 African Bilingual Picture Books for early readers sourced from Global Storybook and published for the first time on Maktaba.org with a new dual language audiobook
An introductory Swahili textbook and dictionary
Also check out our Bilingual book collection!

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