we would like to highlight key resources that celebrate Black culture and scholarly contributions. This will also include a few sample resources from our Library Collection.
Toronto Public Library celebrates Black History year-round with programs, reading lists, podcast episodes and videos that honour Black heritage and culture, and consider the historical significance and contemporary contributions of Black activists and artists from around the world. Click here to review resources.
A selected list of titles in celebration of Black History Month, where Canadians honour the legacy of Black Canadians, past and present. Click here to review the list of resources
Here are a few samples from our library collection: A Handbook on Counseling African American Women: Psychological Symptoms, Treatments, and Case Studies
YU’s own Dr. Kimber Shelton co-edited this book with Michelle King Lynn and Mahlet Endale. This text details mental health needs and treatment interventions for Black women. It provides a historical context of how the lived experiences of Black women contribute to mental wellness, identifies effective psychological practices in working with Black women, and challenges readers to advance their cultural competence while providing culturally affirming care to Black women.
Raphael Njoku explores the transnational connections between masquerade narratives and memory over the past four centuries to show how enslaved Africans became culture carriers of inherited African traditions. In doing so, he questions the scholarly predisposition toward ethnicization of African cultural artifacts in the Americas.. Cultural modeling is dynamic, and the inheritors of West African traditions often adapted their customs to their circumstances–altering and transforming the meaning and purpose of the customs they initially represented.
Pauulu’s Diaspora is a sweeping story of black internationalism across the Atlantic, Indian, and Pacific Ocean worlds, told through the life and work of twentieth-century environmental activist Pauulu Kamarakafego. Challenging U.S.-centered views of Black Power, Quito Swan offers a radically broader perspective, showing how Kamarakafego helped connect liberation efforts of the African diaspora throughout the Global South. By highlighting a global leader who has been absent from scholarship, it brings to light little-known relationships among Black Power, pan-Africanism, and environmental justice.
Amy Absher’s The Black Musician and the White City tells the story of African American musicians in Chicago during the mid-twentieth century. Absher offers a history that goes beyond the retelling of the achievements of the famous musicians by discussing musicians as a group. In The Black Musician and the White City, black musicians are the leading actors, thinkers, organizers, and critics of their own story.
