Books like Gee's Bend by John Beardsley

The Warmth of Other Suns is a non‑fiction study of the Great Migration, tracing the journey of nearly six million African Americans from the South to northern and western cities between 1915 and 1970.

Douglas A. Blackmon exposes a hidden chapter of American history—an "Age of Neoslavery" that subjected African Americans to forced labor and debt slavery from the late 19th century through the 1940s.

A group of women in California weave an extraordinary quilt while sharing the stories of their lives—successes, failures, love, and hope—revealing the surprising joy of living.

A collection of photographs featuring nineteenth-century American women quilting and recording their experiences as a way of preserving history and politics during the 19th century.

For over two centuries, in the North as well as the South, both within their own community and in the public arena, African Americans have presented their bodies in culturally distinctive ways. Shane White and Graham White consider the deeper significance of the ways in which African Americans have dressed, walked, danced, arranged their hair, and communicated in silent gestures. They ask what elaborate hair styles, bright colors, bandanas, long watch chains, and zoot suits, for example, have really meant, and discuss style itself as an expression of deep-seated cultural imperatives. Their wide-ranging exploration of black style from its African origins to the 1940s reveals a culture that differed from that of the dominant racial group in ways that were often subtle and elusive. A wealth of black-and-white illustrations show the range of African American experience in America, emanating from all parts of the country, from cities and farms, from slave plantations, and Chicago beauty contests. White and White argue that the politics of black style is, in fact, the politics of metaphor, always ambiguous because it is always indirect. To tease out these ambiguities, they examine extensive sources, including advertisements for runaway slaves, interviews recorded with surviving ex-slaves in the 1930s, autobiographies, travelers' accounts, photographs, paintings, prints, newspapers, and images drawn from popular culture, such as the stereotypes of Jim Crow and Zip Coon.

A spirited 1932 story of a young girl who leaves her Alabama hometown of Gee's Bend to secure medicine for her ailing mother, weaving resilience, quilting craft, and community into her daring journey.