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Black History Month is an opportunity for each of us to engage with others about and more fully appreciate this important part of our country's history — something that is essential to understanding the present.

African American Health Pioneers in Maryland

Learn more about these African American health care leaders who have significantly impacted the Maryland communities we serve.

  • Dr. Elijah Saunders - an internationally known expert in treating, and providing education about, hypertension in African Americans
  • Esther McCready - a civil rights pioneer, helping to pave the way for increased educational opportunities for African Americans in Maryland and around the world.
  • Vivien Thomas - a cardiac surgery pioneer who trained a generation of surgical residents in his Johns Hopkins surgical lab
  • Dr. Donald Wilson - the nation's first African American dean of a non historically black college or university medical school when he became the dean of the University of Maryland School of Medicine in 1991

Reading and Viewing Suggestions

These links to historical content, local and national virtual events and programs, books, movies and more can be a starting point for creating a dialogue.

Non-Fiction Book Suggestions

  • Alexander, Michelle – The New Jim Crow
  • Baldwin, James – The Fire Next Time
  • Callahan, Allen Dwight – The Talking Book - African Americans and the Bible
  • Coates, Ta-Nehisi – Between the World and Me
  • DiAngelo, Robin – White Fragility
  • Gates, Henry Louis – Stony the Road: Reconstruction, White Supremacy, and the Rise of Jim Crow
  • Glaude, Jr., Eddie – Begin Again
  • Kendall, Mikki – Hood Feminism
  • Kendi, Ibram X. – How to Be an Antiracist
  • Kendi, Ibram – Stamped from The Beginning
  • Obama, Barack – A Promised Land
  • Obama, Michelle – Becoming
  • Perkins, John – Let Justice Roll Down
  • Peterson, Carla – Black Gotham
  • Pietila, Antero – Not in My Neighborhood
  • Robinson, Rachel – Jackie Robinson - An Intimate Portrait
  • Schwartz, Alison M. – A Century of Great African-Americans
  • Skloot, Rebecca – The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks
  • Smithsonian American Art Museum – African-American Masters
  • Stevenson, Bryan – Just Mercy
  • Sturkey, William – Hattiesburg
  • Tatum, PhD, Beverly Daniel – Why Are All the Black Kids Sitting Together in the Cafeteria? – and other Conversations About Race
  • Taylor, Keeanga-Yamagata – Race for Profit
  • The Studio Museum in Harlem/Abradale, Harlem Renaissance Art of Black America
  • Wilkerson, Isabel – Caste - The Origins of Our Discontents

Film Suggestions

  • 42
  • The African Americans: Many Rivers to Cross (PBS 6-part series available on Amazon Prime)
  • The Best of Enemies
  • African American Lives (2006–08), Faces of America (2010), and Finding Your Roots (2012- ). (PBS television series hosted by Henry Louis Gates, Jr.)
  • The Great Debaters
  • The Green Room
  • Hidden Figures
  • I am Not Your Negro
  • The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks
  • Just Mercy
  • Ma Rainey's Black Bottom
  • Ruby Bridges (Disney movie)
  • Selma
  • When They See Us

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