top of page
black 14.jpg

Black West Cultural Studies

The African American West in 20th and 21st Century History and Culture

Regional

  • Blake Allmendinger, Imagining the African American West (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2005)

  • Marta Effinger-Crichlow, Staging Migrations toward an American West: From Ida B. Wells to Rhodessa Jones (Boulder, CO: University Press of Colorado, 2014)

  • Bruce A. Glasrud and Cary D. Wintz (eds.), Harlem Renaissance in the West: The New Negro's Western Experiences (Boston: Pearson, 2012)

  • Lawrence D. Hogan and Jules Tygiel, Shades of Glory: The Negro Leagues and the Story of African-American Baseball (Washington, DC: National Geographic, 2006)

  • John B. Holway, Voices from the Great Black Baseball Leagues (New York: Dover Publications, 2012)

  • Michael K. Johnson, Black Masculinity and the Frontier Myth in American Literature (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 2002)

  • Michael E. Lomax, Sports and the Racial Divide: African American and Latino Sport Experience in the Era of Change (Jackson, MS: University Press of Mississippi, 2008)

  • Emily Lutenski, West of Harlem: African American Writers and the Borderlands (Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 2015)

  • Dave Zirin, What's My Name, Fool? Sports and Resistance in the United States (Chicago: Haymarket Books, 2005)

​

| Up | CA | KS-WY |

 

California

  • Lisa M. Anderson, Mammies No More: The Changing Image of Black Women on Stage and Screen (Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 1997)

  • Amy Bass, Not the Triumph But the Struggle: 1968 Olympics and the Making of the Black Athlete (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2004)

  • Larry Bird, Earvin Johnson Jr., and Jackie MacMullan, When the Game Was Ours (Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2010)

  • Donald Bogle, Hollywood Black: The Stars, the Films, the Filmmakers (Philadelphia: Running Press Adult, 2019)

  • Stephen Bourne, Ethel Waters: Stormy Weather (Lanham, MD: Scarecrow Press, 2007)

  • Tracy Callis, Boxing in the Los Angeles Area: 1880-2005 (Bloomington, IN: Trafford Pub., 2009)

  • Diahann Carroll, The Legs Are the Last to Go: Aging, Acting, Marrying, and Other Things I Learned the Hard Way (New York: Amistad, 2009)

  • Kevin Cook, Flip: The Inside Story of TV's First Black Superstar (New York: Viking, 2013)

  • Roger Craig, Tales from the San Francisco 49ers Sideline: A Collection of the Greatest 49ers Stories Ever Told (New York: Sports Publishing, 2012)

  • Thomas Cripps, Slow Fade to Black: The Negro in American Film, 1900-1942 (New York: Oxford University Press, 1993)

  • Jacqueline Cogdell DjeDje and Eddie S. Meadows (eds.), California Soul: Music of African Americans in the West (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1998)

  • Manthia Diawara (ed.), Black American Cinema (New York: Routledge, 1993)

  • Emory Douglas, Black Panther: The Revolutionary Art of Emory Douglas (New York: Rizzoli, 2007)

  • Stephane Dunn, “Baad Bitches” and Sassy Supermamas: Black Power Action Films (Urbana, IL: University of Illinois Press, 2008)

  • Michael Eric Dyson, Between God and Gangsta Rap: Bearing Witness to Black Culture (New York: Oxford University Press, 1998)

  • ___., Holler If You Hear Me: Searching for Tupac Shakur (New York: Basic Civitas Books, 2006)

  • Harry Edwards, The Revolt of the Black Athlete (New York: Free Press, 1970)

  • Allyson Nadia Field, Uplift Cinema: The Emergence of African American Film and the Possibility of Black Modernity (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2015)

  • James Gavin, Stormy Weather: The Life of Lena Horne (New York: Atria Books, 2010)

  • Nelson George, The Hippest Trip in America: Soul Train and the Evolution of Culture & Style (New York: HarperCollins, 2014)

  • Pam Grier, Foxy: My Life in Three Acts (New York: Springboard Press, 2010)

  • Ed Guerrero, Framing Blackness: The African American Image in Film (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1993)

  • Douglas Hartmann, Race, Culture, and the Revolt of the Black Athlete: The 1968 Olympic Protests and Their Aftermath (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2004)

  • David Henry and Joe Henry, Furious Cool: Richard Pryor and the World That Made Him (Chapel Hill, NC: Algonquin Books of Chapel Hill, 2013)

  • Josiah Howard, Blaxploitation Cinema (Godalming/Surrey, England: FAB Press, 2008)

  • Roger Kahn, Rickey & Robinson: The True, Untold Story of the Integration of Baseball (New York: Rodale, 2014)

  • Jeff Kaliss and Sly & The Family Stone, I Want to Take You Higher & Updated: The Life and Times of Sly & the Family Stone (Milwaukee, WI: Backbeat Books, 2009)

  • William C. Kashatus, Jackie and Campy: The Untold Story of Their Rocky Relationship and the Breaking of Baseball’s Color Line (Lincoln, NB: University of Nebraska Press, 2014)

  • Mikel J. Koven, Blaxploitation Films (Harpenden, Hertfordshire: Kamera, 2010)

  • Daniel J. Leab, From Sambo to Superspade: The Black Experience in Motion Pictures (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1975)

  • Dave Marsh, For the Record 4: Sly & the Family Stone (New York: Harper Perennial, 1998)

  • Larry Martin, The Life and Ministry of William J. Seymour: And a History of the Azusa Street Revival (Pensacola, FL: Christian Life Books, 1999)

  • Keith A. Mayes, Kwanzaa: Black Power and The Making of the African-American Holiday Tradition (New York: Routledge, 2009)

  • Audrey Thomas McCluskey (ed.), Richard Pryor: The Life and Legacy of a "Crazy" Black Man (Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 2008)

  • Paul Mooney and Dave Chappelle, Black Is the New White (New York: Simon Spotlight Entertainment, 2010)

  • Debbi Morgan, The Monkey on My Back: A Memoir (New York: Infinite Words, 2015)

  • Sean J. O'Connell, Los Angeles's Central Avenue Jazz (Charleston, SC: Arcadia Publishing, 2014)

  • Jeff Pearlman, Showtime: Magic, Kareem, Riley, and the Los Angeles Lakers Dynasty of the 1980s (New York, New York: Gotham, 2014)

  • Elizabeth Pepin and Lewis Watts, The Harlem of the West: The San Francisco Fillmore Jazz Era (San Francisco: Chronicle Books, 2006)

  • Sidney Poitier, The Measure of a Man: A Spiritual Autobiography (San Francisco: HarperCollins, 2007)

  • Stephen C. Propes, 77 Years of Southern California R&B & Vocal Group Harmony Records, 1934-2011 (Seattle: CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform, 2013)

  • Rain Pryor, Jokes My Father Never Taught Me: Life, Love, and Loss with Richard Pryor (New York: Regan, 2006)

  • Richard Pryor and Tod Gold, Pryor Convictions: And Other Life Sentences (New York: Pantheon Books, 1995)

  • Questlove, Soul Train: The Music, Dance, and Style of a Generation (New York: Harper Design, 2013)

  • Eithne Quinn, Nuthin' but a "G" Thang: The Culture and Commerce of Gangsta Rap (New York: Columbia University Press, 2004)

  • Charlene B. Regester, African American Actresses: The Struggle for Visibility, 1900-1960 (Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 2010)

  • Mark A. Reid, Redefining Black Film (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1993)

  • Jane Rhodes, Framing the Black Panthers: The Spectacular Rise of a Black Power Icon (New York: New Press, 2007)

  • Ronin Ro, Have Gun Will Travel: The Spectacular Rise and Violent Fall of Death Row Records (New York: Doubleday, 1999)

  • John Rosengren, The Fight of Their Lives: How Juan Marichal And John Roseboro Turned Baseball's Ugliest Brawl into a Story of Forgiveness and Redemption (Guilford, CT: Lyons Press, 2014)

  • Eddie Santiago, Sly: the Lives of Sylvester Stewart and Sly Stone (Raleigh, NC: Lulu.com, 2008)

  • Scott Saul, Becoming Richard Pryor (New York: HarperCollins, 2014)

  • Yvonne D. Sims, Women of Blaxploitation: How the Black Action Film Heroine Changed American Popular Culture (Jefferson, NC: McFarland, 2006)

  • R. J. Smith, The Great Black Way: L.A. in the 1940s and the Lost African American Renaissance (New York: PublicAffairs, 2007)

  • Michael Seth Starr, Black and Blue: the Redd Foxx Story (Milwaukee, WI: Applause Theatre & Cinema Books, 2011)

  • Tom Stoddard, Jazz on the Barbary Coast (Berkeley, CA: Heyday Books, 1998)

  • Horace Tapscott, Songs of the Unsung: The Musical and Social Journey of Horace Tapscott (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2001)

  • Bruce M. Tyler, From Harlem to Hollywood: The Struggle for Racial and Cultural Democracy (New York : Garland, 1992)

  • Peter Vacher, Swingin' on Central Avenue: African American Jazz in Los Angeles (Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 2015)

  • Mark Fainaru-Wada and Lance Williams, Game of Shadows: Barry Bonds, Balco, and the Steroids Scandal That Rocked Professional Sports (New York: Gotham Books, 2007)

  • David Walker and Andrew J. Rausch, Reflections on Blaxploitation: Actors and Directors Speak (Lanham, MD: Scarecrow Press, 2009)

  • Daniel Widener, Black Arts West: Culture and Struggle in Postwar Los Angeles (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2010)

  • Roland Leander Williams Jr., Black Male Frames: African Americans in a Century of Hollywood Cinema, 1903-2003 (Syracuse, NY: Syracuse University Press, 2015)

  • Don Yaeger, Sam Cunningham, and John Papadakis, Turning of the Tide: How One Game Changed the South (New York: Center Street, 2008)

​

| Up | CA | KS-WY |

​

Kansas

  • Janet Bruce, The Kansas City Monarchs: Champions of Black Baseball (Lawrence, KS: University Press of Kansas, 1986)

  • Stanley Crouch, Kansas City Lightning: The Rise and Times of Charlie Parker (New York: HarperCollins, 2014)

  • Phil S. Dixon, Wilber "Bullet" Rogan and the Kansas City Monarchs (Jefferson, NC: McFarland & Co., 2010)

  • Frank Driggs and Chuck Haddix, Kansas City Jazz: From Ragtime to Bebop—A History (New York: Oxford University Press, 2005)

  • Leslie A. Heaphy (Ed.), Satchel Paige and Company: Essays on the Kansas City Monarchs, Their Greatest Star and the Negro Leagues (Jefferson, NC: McFarland & Company, 2007)

  • Larry Lester, Baseball's First Colored World Series: The 1924 Meeting of the Hilldale Giants and Kansas City Monarchs (Jefferson, NC: McFarland, 2014)

  • Nathan W. Pearson, Goin' to Kansas City (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1994)

 

New Mexico

  • Laurie Champion and Bruce A. Glasrud, Unfinished Masterpiece: The Harlem Renaissance Fiction of Anita Scott Coleman (Lubbock, TX: Texas Tech University Press, 2008)

  • Cynthia Davis and Verner D. Mitchell (eds.), Western Echoes of the Harlem Renaissance: The Life and Writings of Anita Scott Coleman (Norman, OK: University of Oklahoma Press, 2008)

 

Oklahoma

  • Anita G. Arnold, Oklahoma City Music: Deep Deuce and Beyond (Chicago : Arcadia Publishing, 2010)

  • William W. Savage, Singing Cowboys and All That Jazz: A Short History of Popular Music in Oklahoma (Norman, OK : University of Oklahoma Press, 1983)

 

Texas

  • Dean Alger, The Original Guitar Hero and the Power of Music: The Legendary Lonnie Johnson, Music, and Civil Rights (Denton, TX: University of North Texas Press, 2014)

  • Rob Fink, Playing in Shadows: Texas and Negro League Baseball (Lubbock, TX: Texas Tech University Press, 2010)

  • Alan B. Govenar and Jay F. Brakefield, Deep Ellum: The Other Side of Dallas (College Station, TX: Texas A & M University Press, 2013)

  • Don Haskins and Daniel Wetzel, Glory Road: My Story of the 1966 NCAA Basketball Championship and How One Team Triumphed Against the Odds and Changed America Forever (New York: Hyperion, 2005)

  • Ray Sanchez, Basketball's Biggest Upset: Texas Western Changed The Sport With A Win Over Kentucky In 1966 (New York: Authors Choice Press, 2005)

  • Tyina L. Steptoe, Houston Bound: Culture and Color in a Jim Crow City (Oakland: University of California Press, 2016)

  • Bernice Love Wiggins, Tuneful Tales (Lubbock: Texas Tech University Press, 2002)

 

Utah

  • Newell Bringhurst, Saints, Slaves, and Blacks: The Changing Place of Black People Within Mormonism (Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1981)

  • Newell G. Bringhurst, Darron T. Smith (eds.), Black and Mormon (Urbana, IL: University of Illinois Press, 2004)

  • Jessie L. Embry, Black Saints in a White Church: Contemporary African American Mormons (Salt Lake City: Signature Books, 1994)

  • Matthew L. Harris and Newell G. Bringhurst (eds.), The Mormon Church and Blacks: A Documentary History (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2015)

  • W. Paul Reeve, Religion of a Different Color: Race and the Mormon Struggle for Whiteness (New York: Oxford University Press, 2015)

  • Darron T. Smith, When Race, Religion, and Sport Collide: Black Athletes at BYU and Beyond (Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 2015)

 

Washington

  • Charles R. Cross, Room Full of Mirrors: A Biography of Jimi Hendrix (New York: Hyperion, 2006)

  • Charles River Editors, Legends of Music: The Life and Legacy of Jimi Hendrix (Santa Barbara, CA: Praeger, 2013)

  • Kathy Etchingham, and Andrew Crofts, Through Gypsy Eyes (London: Gollancz, 2013)

  • Jimi Hendrix, Starting At Zero: His Own Story (New York: Bloomsbury, 2013)

  • Leon Hendrix and Adam Mitchell, Jimi Hendrix: A Brother's Story (New York: Thomas Dunne Books, 2012)

  • Quincy Jones, Q: The Autobiography of Quincy Jones (New York: Doubleday, 2002)

  • Quincy Jones, The Complete Quincy Jones: My Journey & Passions: Photos, Letters, Memories & More from Q’s Personal Collection (San Rafael, CA: Insight, 2008)

  • Sharon Lawrence, Betrayed: The True Story of Jimi Hendrix (London: Sidgwick & Jackson, 2004)

  • Lyle Kenai Wilson, Sunday Afternoons at Garfield Park: Seattle's Black Baseball Teams, 1911-1951 (Everett, WA: Lowell Printing & Pub., 1997)

  • Alexis Wolfe, Emerald City Hip Hop (Fresno, CA: Howl at the Moon Publishing, 2008)

​

Wyoming​

  • ​Phil White Jr., Wyoming in Mid-Century: Prejudice, Protest and "The Black 14" (Independently Published, 2018)

​

| Up | CA | KS-WY |

CA
KS
bottom of page