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Few people think of a rich Black heritage when they think of New England. In the pioneering book Black Portsmouth, Mark J. Sammons and Valerie Cunningham celebrate it, guiding the reader through more than three centuries of New England and Portsmouth social, political, economic, and cultural history as well as scores of personal and site-specific stories. 

Here, we meet such Africans as the likely negro boys and girls from Gambia, who debarked at Portsmouth from a slave ship in 1758, and Prince Whipple, who fought in the American Revolution. We learn about their descendants, including the performer Richard Potter and John Tate of the People's Baptist Church, who overcame the tragedies and challenges of their ancestors' enslavement and subsequent marginalization to build communities and families, found institutions, and contribute to their city, region, state, and nation in many capacities. Individual entries speak to broader issues—the anti-slavery movement, American religion, and foodways, for example. We also learn about the extant historical sites important to Black Portsmouth—including the surprise revelation of an African burial ground in October 2003—as well as the extraordinary efforts being made to preserve remnants of the city's early Black heritage.

Tracing the development of Berlin as a center of music from the eighteenth century to the present, examining how its music survived despite its turbulent history.

Berlin is a music-lover’s paradise, offering up everything from operas to raves. Yet unlike Vienna, Leipzig, or even Nashville, Berlin does not immediately come to mind as a city of music. Instead, its turbulent history evokes images of industry, commerce, militarism, destruction, division, and resurrection. Over the past three centuries, Berlin was the capital of a kingdom, an empire, a republic, and a dictatorship; it was ravaged by war and occupied by foreign powers; and its division and reunification made it a powerful symbol of the Cold War. Through all these highs and lows, the music played on. Music Metropolis Berlin is the first full-length exploration of how Berlin became a city of music against all odds. 

Unlike the other European music centers that stake their reputations on the fame of composers like Bach or Beethoven, Berlin is known for its ensembles, artists, theaters, organizers, intellectuals, and media stars. This is because Berlin took a very different, and almost accidental, route to becoming a city of music. Hampered for centuries by rulers who were more focused on military and industrial expansion than on cultural prestige, Berlin’s musical life prospered thanks to the ambitions of entrepreneurs and politicians who saw the value in serving the ever-changing music public in an expanding urban landscape. By focusing on Berlin as a rapidly developing global capital, Music Metropolis Berlin looks beyond the music, its creators, and its institutions to reveal how political, economic, and social forces fueled the creation of the Berlin metropolis and continue to nurture a vibrant and diverse musical life. 
 

Three centuries of faith, leadership, and community building in Alabama's Black Baptist tradition.

Uplifting the People is a history of the Alabama Missionary Baptist State Convention—its origins, churches, associations, conventions, and leaders. Fallin demonstrates that a distinctive Afro-Baptist faith emerged as slaves in Alabama combined the African religious emphasis on spirit possession, soul-travel, and rebirth with the evangelical faith of Baptists. The denomination emphasizes a conversion experience that brings salvation, spiritual freedom, love, joy, and patience, and also stresses liberation from slavery and oppression and highlights the exodus experience. In examining the social and theological development of the Afro-Baptist faith over the course of three centuries, Uplifting the People demonstrates how black Baptists in Alabama used faith to cope with hostility and repression.

Fallin reveals that black Baptist churches were far more than places of worship. They functioned as self-help institutions within black communities and served as gathering places for social clubs, benevolent organizations, and political meetings. Church leaders did more than conduct services; they protested segregation and disfranchisement, founded and operated schools, and provided community leaders for the civil rights movement of the mid-20th century.

Through black churches, members built banking systems, insurance companies, and welfare structures. Since the gains of the civil rights era, black Baptists have worked to maintain the accomplishments of that struggle, church leaders continue to speak for social justice and the rights of the poor, and churches now house day care and Head Start programs. Uplifting the People also explores the role of women, the relations between black and white Baptists, and class formation within the black church.