A Child's Introduction to African American History ─ The Experiences, People, and Events That Shaped Our Country

Jabari Asim goes beyond what's taught in the classroom and tells a fact-filled history of African Americans through politics, activism, sports, entertainment, music, and much more. You'll follow the road to freedom beginning with the slave trade and the middle passage through the abolitionist movement and the Civil War where many African Americans fought as soldiers. You'll learn how slave songs often contained hidden messages and how a 15-year-old Jamaican-born young man named Clive Campbell helped to create hip-hop in the early 1970's.
You'll experience the passionate speeches, marches, and movements of the Civil Rights era along with and the sacrifices of Martin Luther King, Rosa Parks, Medgar Evers, and many others.
Along the way there are dozens of profiles of political trailblazers like Shirley Chisholm, the first black women elected to Congress in 1968; dominants athletes like Tiger Woods who, in 1995, was only the second African American to play in a Master's Golf Tournament which he went on to win in 1997; popular musicians like Miles Davis, one the most influential artists of the twentieth century; and inspiring writers like Toni Morrison, the first African American to win the Nobel Prize in literature.
Filled with beautiful illustrations that bring these figures and events to life, plus a removable historical timeline, A Child's Introduction to African American History is a fascinating and comprehensive guide to this often overlooked yet immensely important part of American history.

Jabari Asim is the author of several adult and children's books, including Preaching to the Chickens which was named one of the New York Times Best Illustrated Books of 2016 and Fifty Cents and a Dream-an NAACP Image Award Nominee, CCBC Choice, School Library Journal Editor's Choice, and Kirkus Best Book. He is an associate professor at Emerson College in Boston and the former executive editor of The Crisis, the magazine of the NAACP. He recently was honored with a Guggenheim Fellowship. He lives in Newton, Massachusetts.


Lynn Gaines is a graduate of the Cleveland Institute of Art and has been illustrating greeting cards for more than 20 years. She lives in Northeast Ohio with her husband, mother, and two crazy cats. This is her first picture book.