12 Books ’bout Savannah’s Black History

One for every month of the year 🙂 This list ain’t by no means ALL the books on Savannah’s black history. It’s just the ones that I found most useful in my research or I enjoyed reading or it’s super high up on my to-read list. Feel free to add more in the comment section below.

1. W.W. Law and His People

While Charles Hoskins discusses W. W. Law, there’s so much more. It’s a timeline, starting with “Creating Black Savannah in 1492” and ending with a biography of Floyd Adams, Jr. Most of my research for Krak Teet came out this book.

2. Drums and Shadows

I’ve read this book about three times already. This is the style I was going for with Krak Teet. I wanted stories straight from the mouths of those I interviewed while also including some research/observations of my own. That’s how this book is written. A classic.

3. From N-Word to Mr. Mayor

Dr. Otis Johnson got down with this one. It’s packed with so much history, I imagine him struggling to figure out how to finally stop adding content. It’s about his life, which is hella interesting in and of itself, but it’s even mores about the city. It’s like listening to your uncle who made it talk about his life coming up.

4. Savannah, Georgia

The author, Charles Elmore, is a historian of black history and jazz history. That’s so dope to me. I first saw this book in a gift shop of a museum in Savannah. I don’t remember which one (my bad), but it was the only book that was specifically about the city’s black history. Plenty good stuff in here.

5. Slavery and Freedom in Savannah

I found this book while researching Mother Mathilda Beasley (Georgia’s first black nun who was born in New Orleans but made her name in Savannah). I found what I was looking for and so much more in this book. Much love to Leslie Harris and Daina Berry for birthing this baby.

6. The Negro in Savannah

I came across this book while interning at the Library of Congress. It’s no longer being printed, so it’s rare. Some of the wording had me side-eyeing like a mf (it was written by Robert Eugene Purdue, a white man), but it’s data and stories in here I have yet to find anywhere else.

7. Savannah’s Black First Ladies

There are two volumes to this book. Brenda L. Roberts, one of my old school counselors, co-edited it along with Pamela Howard-Oglesby. It’s been on my people’s bookshelf. I ain’t pick it up ’til I was grown tho…and fell in love.

8. A Black Woman’s Civil War Memoirs

Susie King Taylor reminds me in so many ways of myself. This book ain’t just about the war. A lot of it is, but you get her story before the war and after it too, when she used her home on South Broad Street (now Oglethorpe Ave) as a schoolhouse for freed slaves.

9. The Weeping Times

This one’s on my to-read list. I’m familiar with The Weeping Times (the largest known slave sale in U.S. history), but this book’s table of contents let me know that there’s a whole buncha lotta more to learn. Big ups to Anne Bailey for putting so much love and time in it.

10. African American Life in the Lowcountry

I read this line in the book and was hooked: “Lowcountry Georgia, and Savannah in particular, was thus a place where blacks chose to identify themselves and their institutions as ‘African.'” The whole book basically explains how and why that statement is true. Philip Morgan did a phenomenal job with it.

11. Out of Yamacraw and Beyond

Father Charles Hoskins wrote this one too. When I went to interview Curt for Krak Teet, he handed me a copy of this book. Told me to read it and it’ll tell me everything I needed to know. I read it, LOVED it, brought it back to him, and we talked for hours on hours about it.

12. Krak Teet

Last but never least. I did this one for my people and, most importantly, with my people. Plenty of research and conversations with over 19 elders who are either from Savannah or lived here for at least 20+ years. And I didn’t use textbook talk, so it’s easy to hear. Get your copy here.

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