The University of Idaho Argonaut

Editor’s Note: Check out the Arts section for a weekly close-up of upcoming events in celebration of Black History Month.

The month of February is a time to remember and celebrate Black History.

While several events have been planned throughout the month, there are ways to celebrate without even leaving one’s living room — or library.

“African American literature is a very important aspect of American culture,” said Bob Greene, employee at BookPeople of Moscow.

BookPeople offers a wide range of books and a plethora of black literature as well as history books that relate directly to black history.

“Slavery in America was unlike any other historical time,” said Janis Johnson, professor of American Indian Studies/English. “Slave narratives help us understand this past.”

Early slave narratives were the first published black literature in the states.
The slave narrative took on its classic form and tone between 1840 and 1860.

History books had barely begun covering black history when Black History Month was started in the 1970s.
One of the first U.S. history works at that time told from an African American perspective was W.E.B. DuBois’ 1935 work “Black Reconstruction.”

When “DuBois began writing about crime, mystery novels were more easily published at the time,” Greene said. “In the early 1900s there was no publisher who would work with DuBois.”

After receiving his Ph.D. from Harvard, (DuBois was the First African American to receive a Ph.D. from Harvard) he found it difficult to publish his works that dealt specifically with black history and civil rights.

“There is a wealth of great American fiction from African American authors, expatriates who moved to France to find open minds, Harlem renaissance and so on,” Greene said.

Great black authors like Alice Walker and Ralph Ellison offer classic works of fiction.
“African American literature is essential to understanding contemporary American culture,” Johnson said. “You can’t fully understand American history or culture without African American Literature.”

Colson, Whitehead and Sapphire, two authors featured in the list below, who are more contemporary fiction authors, both were influenced by the classics and have improvised and adapted their styles to create something very different.