Sponge fishermen and houses, Cuba, ca. 1850. [Album Pintoresco de la Isla de Cuba (Havana [?], 1851
This short story by Haitian/American author and National Book Award Finalist Edwidge Danticant focuses on the lives Guy, his son Little Guy, and his wife Lili, as they struggle to survive poverty in Haiti.
Derek Walcott: “Names”, from Sea Grapes (1976)
In his poem “Names”, poet, playwright, 1992 Noble Peace Prize winner Derek Walcott explores the concept of identity in a post-colonial Caribbean while grappling with his own European and African ancestry.
Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture: “Black New Yorkers,” (2017)
This online digital collection of essays, prints, photographs, manuscripts, tables, and newspapers compiled by the Schomberg Center tells the story of how African-American New Yorkers have helped develop the complex culture of the city of New York over the past 400 years.
Henry Louis Gates, Jr.: “Black in Latin America,” a PBS Series (2011)
Black in Latin America is a four-part television series produced by Harvard scholar Henry Louis Gates Jr. that focuses on African descent and its influence on Latin American culture.
Olaudah Equiano: “The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano, or Gustavus Vassa,
the African. Written by Himself,” (1789)
Olaudah Equiano’s narrative offers a firsthand account of the complex culture of the Black Atlantic by chronicling his experience kidnapped as a young boy in Africa and sold into slavery.