Introduction: These truly are the brave
Part 1. Freedom, democracy, and equality? From colonies to a nation divided / Alexander T. Augusta
"Colored men have their rights that white men are bound to respect" (1863) / James Madison Bell
From a poem entitled, The Day and the War (1864) / Benjamin Griffith Brawley
My hero (To Robert Gould Shaw) (1915) / William Wells Brown
From Clotelle; or the colored heroine (1867) / Olivia Ward Bush-Banks
Crispus attucks (1899) / Samuel Cabble
"I look forward to a brighter day" (1863) / Frederick Douglass
"What country have I?" (1847), The War with Mexico (1848), Peace! Peace! Peace! (1848), Fellow citizens: On slavery and the Fourth of July (1852), From How to End the War (1861) / Lewis Henry Douglass
"If I die tonight I will not die a coward" (1863) / Paul Laurence Dunbar
Black Samson of Brandywine (1903), The Colored Soldiers (1895), Robert Gould Shaw (1900), Lincoln (1903), / Olaudah Equiano [Gustavus Vassa]
Life at sea during the French and Indian War (Seven Years? War) (1789) / James Forten
From letters from a man of colour on a late bill before the Senate of Pennsylvania (1813) / Charlotte Forten Grimk℗¿
"True manhood has no limitations of color" (1864) / Sarah Louisa Forten Purvis
My country (1834) / Vievee Francis
Frederick Douglass speaks before the Anti-Mexican War Abolitionists (2006), South of Houston (2006) / Freedom petition to the Massachusetts Council and House of Representatives
Black abolitionists declare rights to revolutionary freedom (1777) / Henry Highland Garnet
From an address to the slaves of the United States of America (1843) / Shirley Graham Du Bois
It's morning (1940) / Frances Ellen Watkins Harper
An appeal to my countrywomen (1871) / George Moses Horton
Jefferson in a tight place (1865) / Fenton Johnson
De Ol? Sojer (1916) / Boston King
From "Freedom and fear fighting for the Loyalists" (1798) / Dudley Randall
Memorial wreath (1962) / Henrietta Cordelia Ray
Robert G. Shaw (1910) / George Clinton Rowe
The reason why (1887) / Sarah E. Shuften
Ethiopia's dead (1865) / Joshua McCarter Simpson
Song of the "Aliened American" (1852) / Robert Smalls
Commandeering freedom: Robert Smalls pilots the Confederate ship Planter (1864) / George E. Stephens
"How dare I be offered half the pay of any man, be he white or red?" (1864) / Susie Baker King Taylor
A nurse for the 33rd USCT (1902) / Lucy Terry Prince
Bars fight (1855) / Natasha Trethewey
Elegy for the Native Guards (2006) / James Monroe Trotter
The Fifty-Fourth at Wagner (1883) / Sojourner Truth
The valiant soldiers (1878) / David Walker
From Walker's appeal, in four articles: Together with a preamble to the coloured citizens of the world, but in particular, and very expressly, to those of the United States of America (1829) / Phillis Wheatley
Letter accompanying a poem to General George Washington (1776) / His Excellency Gen. Washington (1776), On the death of General Wooster (1980), Liberty and peace, a poem (1784) / James Monroe Whitfield
America (1853) / Albery Allson Whitman
From hymn to the nation (1877), From the end of the whole matter (1877), From Twasinta's Seminoles; or, Rape of Florida (1884) / John A. Williams
Part 2. The United States enters the global stage: Empire, worldwide war, and democracy / A.M.E. Church: Voice of Missions
The negro should not enter the army (1899), A black soldier in the Philippine Islands: "We don't want these islands" (1900) / Samuel Alfred Beadle
Lines (1899) / Mary Burrill
Aftermath: a one-act play of negro life (1919) / Olivia Ward Bush-Banks
A hero of San Juan (1899) / Charles Waddell Chesnutt
Acquit yourselves like men: An address to colored soldiers at Grays Armory, Cleveland, Ohio (1917) / Joseph Seamon Cotter Jr.
Moloch (1921) / W. A. Domingo
From If we must die (1919) / W.E.B. Du Bois
My country {ap}tis of thee (1907), Close ranks (1918), A philosophy in time of war (1918), Our special grievances (1918), Returning soldiers (1919) / Paul Laurence Dunbar
The conquerors: the black troops in Cuba (1898) / Alice Ruth Moore Dunbar-Nelson
Mine eyes have seen (1918), I sit and sew (1920) / F. Grant Gilmore
A battle in the Philippines (1915) / Presley Holliday
"The colored soldier . . . properly belongs among the bravest and most trustworthy in the land" (1899) / Roscoe Conkling Jamison
The negro soldiers (1917) / Fenton Johnson
The new day (1919) / James Weldon Johnson
To America (1917) / John F. Matheus
{ap}Cruiter (1927) / Claude McKay
If we must die (1919) / Niagara Movement
Address to the Country (1906) / Chandler Owen
From the failure of negro leadership (1918) / Anne Bethel Spencer
The Wife-Woman (1922) / Melvin Beaunorus Tolson Sr.
A legend of Versailles (1944) / Lucian Bottow Watkins
The negro soldiers of America: What we are fighting for (1918)
Part 3. The Double-V Campaign challenges Jim Crow: World War II / Aeron D. Bells
"Local prejudice, or an official order from Washington" (1982) / Gwendolyn Brooks
Negro Hero (1945), The white troops had their orders but the negroes looked like men (1945) / Ruby Berkley Goodwin
Guilty (1948) / Shirley Graham Du Bois
Tar (1945) / Langston Hughes
Beaumont to Detroit: 1943 (1943) / Georgia Douglas Johnson
Black recruit (1948) / Bob Kaufman
War memoir: jazz, Don't listen to it at your own risk (1981) / Cora Ball Moten
Negro mother to her soldier son (1943) / Ann Lane Petry
In darkness and confusion (1947) / Soldiers at Ft. Logan, Colorado
"We'd rather die on our knees as a man, than to live in this world as a slave" (1943) / Gladys O. Thomas-Anderson
"An honor to be in the Army and be black, too. We were the beginning." (2004) / John Edgar Wideman
Valaida (1989) / Gwendolyn Williams
Heart against the wind (1944)
Part 4. Battles at home and abroad from Montgomery to Afghanistan / Ella Baker
From The black woman in the Civil Rights Struggle (1969) / James Baldwin
My dungeon shook: letter to my nephew on the one hundredth anniversary of the emancipation (1962) / Toni Cade Bambara
The sea birds are still alive (1977) / Amiri Baraka
From somebody blew up America (2001) / Julius W. Becton Jr.
"We were pioneers" (2004) / Julian Bond
I too, hear America singing (1960) / Lucille Clifton
From September song: a poem in 7 days (2002) / Junius Edwards
Liars don't qualify (1961) / Michael S. Harper
American history (1970) / Robert E. Holcomb
"I was sworn into the Army in manacles" (1984) / Stephen Hopkins
"Uncle Sam didn't do much for me. I am proud of my service." (2004) / John Oliver Killens
God Bless America (1952) / Martin Luther King Jr.
Strange liberators: A speech at Riverside Church, 4 April 1967 (1967) / Yusef Komunyakaa
Re-creating the scene (1988), The one-legged stool (1988) / Allia Abdullah Matta
From Mymerica (2006) / Eric Mitchell
"Pray 4 a quick ending to this" (2004) / Janet Pennick
"Everything about war was horrible" (2004) / Marie Rodgers
"I asked to go to Vietnam" (2004) / Sonia Sanchez
From reflections after the June 12th March for Disarmament (1984) / John A. Williams.
