Understanding Black Lives Matter and The Black Experience in the United States

The Library aspires to be an organization that embraces diversity in all of its forms while supporting the research and learning functions of the Institute. To that end, we recommit ourselves to providing access to popular and academic materials centered on social justice, racial and ethnic histories in the United States, and LGBTQ+ stories, among other interconnected issues. We will also provide fictive works created by or concerning people of color, members of the LGBTQ+ community, and displaced or marginalized people. Popular books, movies, and music are windows into the full reality of the multicultural world and mirrors of an individual's experience. It is our duty to furnish both.

Special thanks to our contributors:
Isabel Altamirano, Eric Brower, Ameet Doshi, Jay Forrest, Katie Gentilello, Elizabeth Holdsworth, Shandra Jones, Lisha Li, Alexis Linoski, Amanda Pellerin, Kevin Quick, Stella Richardson, Sharon Riehl, Leslie Sharp and Joseph Zima.

Juneteenth Resources

Juneteenth, an annual holiday commemorating the end of slavery in the United States, has been celebrated by African-Americans since the late 1800s.

On June 19, 1865, about two months after the Confederate general Robert E. Lee surrendered at Appomattox, Va., Gordon Granger, a Union general, arrived in Galveston, Texas, to inform enslaved African-Americans of their freedom and that the Civil War had ended. General Granger’s announcement put into effect the Emancipation Proclamation, which had been issued more than two and a half years earlier on Jan. 1, 1863, by President Abraham Lincoln.

The holiday received its name by combining June and 19. The day is also sometimes called “Juneteenth Independence Day,” “Freedom Day” or “Emancipation Day.”

-- Excerpt from the New York Times' So You Want to Learn About Juneteenth?

By Derrick Bryson Taylor

Emancipation Day Parade, courtesy Florida State Archives

An Emancipation Day Parade in St. Augustine, Florida circa 1922. Courtesy State Archives of Florida.

Historical Articles

Remembering John Lewis

John Lewis receiving the Presidential Medal of Honor from President Barack Obama.

Photograph of the "Two-Minute Warning" on Bloody Sunday.

Starting Your Self-Education

In 2013, community organizers Alicia Garza, Opal Tometi, and Patrisse Khan-Cullors worked to create the hashtag for Black Lives Matter and the start of the social media discussion on how Black people experience violence in the United States. The now global organization brings awareness to issues that affect peoples of African descent, from systematic injustice to the disproportionate suffering from diseases, such as Covid-19.

Black Lives Matter journal articles provided by JSTOR

Articles concerning racial injustice from Sage Journals

The Black Lives Matter collection from Springer Nature

Further Critical Readings

Race without Racism: How Higher Education Researchers Minimize Racist Institutional Norms by Shaun R. Harper in The Review of Higher Education

White Fragility by Robin DiAngelo in the International Journal of Critical Pedagogy

White Privilege: Unpacking the Invisible Knapsack by Peggy McIntosh in the Independent School Journal

Georgia Tech Voices

The following selections represent work related to the Black experience created by Georgia Tech faculty.

Books & Reports from Tech Lecturers & Professors

Race and the Shaping of Twentieth-Century Atlanta by Ron Bayor

Distributed Blackness African American cybercultures by Andre Brock

Undisciplined: Science, Ethnography, and Personhood in the Americas, 1830-1940 by Nihad Farooq

Bound for Freedom: Black Los Angeles in Jim Crow America by Doug Flamming

Atlanta: Race, Class, and Urban Expansion by Larry Keating

Surrogate Suburbs Black Upward Mobility and Neighborhood Change in Cleveland, 1900–1980 by Todd Michney

The Crunk Feminist Collection, edited by Brittney C. Cooper, Susana Morris and Robin M. Boylornby

Close kin and distant relatives: The paradox of respectability in Black women's literature by Susana Morris

Changing the Face of Engineering: The African American Experience by Willie Pearson

Florynce "Flo" Kennedy: The Life of a Black Feminist Radical by Sherie M. Randolph

Calling Cards Theory and Practice in the Study of Race, Gender, and Culture by Jacqueline Jones-Royster and Ann Marie Mann Simpkins

Traces of a Stream Literacy and Social Change Among African American Women by Jacqueline Jones-Royster

Southern horrors and other writings: The anti-lynching campaign of Ida B. Wells, 1892-1900, edited by Jacqueline Jones-Royster

Students of the Dream: Resegregation in a Southern City by Ruth Carbonette Yow

Book Chapters

Public Housing Demolition and Neighborhood Revitalization by Thomas “Danny” Boston from Planning Atlanta: Ruins and Resurgence

Gender, (In)equity, and the Scientific Workforce by Mary Frank Fox, Kjersten Bunker Whittington, and Marcela Linková in The Handbook of Science and Technology Studies

Articles, Lectures & Presentations

Science Librarianship and Social Justice: Part One Foundational Concepts by Jeffra D. Bussmann, Isabel M. Altamirano, Samuel Hansen, Nastasha E. Johnson and Gr Keer

Diversity and Social Capital in the U.S.: A Tale of Conflict, Contact or Total Mistrust by Willie Belton, Ruth Uwaifo Oyelere, Yameen Huq in the Review of Economics and Institutions

Environmental Equity and Spatiotemporal Patterns of Urban Tree Canopy in Atlanta by Bon Woo Koo, Nico Boyd, Nisha Botchwey, and Subhrajit Guhathakurta in the Journal of Planning Education and Research

Impact of a Youth Advocacy Policy, Systems and Environmental Change Program for Physical Activity on Perceptions and Beliefs by Nisha Botchwey, Jasmine Jones-Bynes, Katie O'Connell, Rachel A. Millstein, Anna Kim, Terry L. Conway in Preventive Medicine.

Critical Technocultural Discourse Analysis by Andre Brock in New Media and Society

Black joy as a frame for digital practice by Andre Brock

Interrogating digital Blackness by Andre Brock

A Decade-Long View of Multidimensional Deprivation in the United States by Shatakshee Dhongde and Robert Haveman in SSRN

On the front lines of disclosure: A conceptual framework of disclosure events by Tiffany Johnson in Organizational Psychology Review

The Trigger Effect by Hallie Lieberman in The Atavist Magazine

When the First Voice You Hear Is Not Your Own by Jacqueline Jones-Royster in College Composition and Communication

The OUTKAST Imagination by Joycelyn Wilson

For those who love God ... and Trap Music by Joycelyn Wilson

The Music of the Murders by Joycelyn Wilson in The Bitter Southerner

Editorial Introduction to the Special Issue: The First Death of Afrofuturism by Lisa Yaszek and Isiah Lavender, III from Extrapolation

From the Archives

These lectures and presentations represent work recorded by the Georgia Tech Library for inclusion into the SMARTech digital repository. They are presented in playlist format.

An Assessment of Social and Health Equity in Atlanta Streets Alive Events by Katherine Perumbeti

Mirror, Mirror On the Wall Show Me Documents That Represent Us All: Using Archival Records To Create Inclusive Lessons in the Classroom by Amanda Pellerin and Miranda Westerman

Intertwined Integration: The Story of Desegregation at Three Major Georgia Universities by Amanda Pellerin, Steven Armour, Laurel Bowen and Katherine FIsher

Library Resources

The following resources are provided, free of charge, from the Georgia Tech Library for students, faculty and staff. Many of the articles require a Georgia Tech login.