Black History Month
February is Black History Month, a time to acknowledge and celebrate the rich and varied lives that make up Black American History. For this list, we're spotlighting some of the most fascinating and inspiring stories of Black Americans in business available at Pardee. These histories honor people who demonstrated resilience in the face of injustice, broke glass ceilings and blazed new trails. Their stories are relevant any month of the year, and the lessons they teach carry lasting relevance to the present day.
This year's theme, appropriately enough, is African Americans in Labor, and the titles gathered here honor Black workers' contributions to every aspect of American society across the centuries. "Be it the traditional agricultural labor of enslaved Africans that fed Low Country colonies, debates among Black educators on the importance of vocational training, self-help strategies and entrepreneurship in Black communities, or organized labor’s role in fighting both economic and social injustice, Black people’s work has been transformational throughout the U.S., Africa, and the Diaspora."
For more information on Black History Month:
Featured Reading: Black History Month
The Real Pepsi Challenge: The Inspirational Story of Breaking the Color Barrier in American Business by Location: Pardee Stacks HD9349.S634 P462 2007Publication Date: 2007In the late 1940s and early 1950s, a group of African American businessmen changed the face of American business by being among the first Black Americans to work at professional jobs in Corporate America and to target Black consumers as a distinct market.
From Willard Straight to Wall Street: A Memoir by Location: OnlinePublication Date: 2019Thomas W. Jones tells his story as a campus revolutionary who altered his course and became a powerful leader in the financial industry. Jones gives a front row seat to his triumphs and struggles as he lives one of the most interesting American lives of the last half-century.
No Right to an Honest Living: The Struggles of Boston's Black Workers in the Civil War Era by Location: OnlinePublication Date: 2023Before, during, and after the Civil War, Boston's Black workers were barred from skilled trades, factories, and public works projects. Jacqueline Jones presents inspiring and heart-rending stories of people who ingeniously forged careers in spite of monumental obstacles.
Books for Black History Month
Aaron McDuffie Moore: An African American Physician, Educator, and Founder of Durham's Black Wall Street by Location: OnlinePublication Date: 2020Born in rural North Carolina during the Civil War, Aaron McDuffie Moore overcame Herculean odds to become his hometown's first practicing Black doctor, and later on working to establish Durham as an epicenter of the African American middle class in the 19th and 20th centuries.
Black Fortunes: The Story of the First Six African Americans Who Survived Slavery and Became Millionaires by Location: Pardee Stacks HC102.5.A2 W55 2019Publication Date: 2019Mary Ellen Pleasant. Robert Reed Church. Hannah Elias. Annie Turnbo-Malone. O. W. Gurley. Madam C. J Walker. Black Fortunes illuminates as never before the birth of the Black business titan.
Building the Black Metropolis by Location: OnlinePublication Date: 2017A collection of essays that place Chicago as the center of the Black business world in the United States. The scholars examine how factors like the influx of southern migrants and the city's unique segregation patterns made Chicago a prolific incubator of productive business development and made building a Black metropolis as much a necessity as an opportunity.
Cracking the Corporate Code: Revealing the Success Stories of 32 African American Executives by Location: Pardee Stacks HD38.25.U6 C63 2003Publication Date: 2003In exclusive, eye-opening interviews, these men and women recount their impressive and widely differing career trajectories, revealing what motivated and discouraged them, their sources of support and conflict, and the strategies they developed to excel.
John Hervey Wheeler, Black Banking, and the Economic Struggle for Civil Rights by Location: OnlinePublication Date: 2019This biography explores the Black freedom struggle through the life of North Carolina's most influential Black power broker; a banker, lawyer, and visionary who advocated for regional prosperity grounded in full citizenship and economic power for African Americans.
Lucean Arthur Headen: The Making of a Black Inventor and Entrepreneur by Location: OnlinePublication Date: 2021Determined and ambitious, Lucean Arthur Headen risked everything to pursue his dream. He eventually earned eleven patents, most for innovative engine designs and anti-icing methods for aircraft. Jill D. Snider recreates the life of this extraordinary man.
Philip Payton: The Father of Black Harlem by Location: OnlinePublication Date: 2021Philip Payton stood up for the right of Black people to live in Harlem in the face of vocal white resistance. Through skillful use of print media, he branded Harlem as a Black community and attracted interest from those interested in racial uplift. Yet while Payton “opened” Harlem streets, his business model depended on continued racial segregation.
Prince of Darkness: The Untold Story of Jeremiah G. Hamilton, Wall Street's First Black Millionaire by Location: Pardee Stacks HG172.H36 W45 2015Publication Date: 2015Jeremiah G. Harrison wheeled and dealed in the lily white business world, he married a white woman, he owned railroad stock on trains he was not legally allowed to ride, and generally set his white contemporaries' teeth on edge when he wasn't just plain outsmarting them.
Love Data Week: Feb. 10-14
February 10 - 14 is Love Data Week, an international celebration of data, taking place every year during the week of Valentine's Day.
The 2025 theme is “Whose Data Is It, Anyway?” Take a minute to think about who owns data compared to who uses data. Different groups - like researchers, the government, companies, or organizations - may collect data. They could own it, share it, publish it online, or combine it.
To learn more about Love Data Week events happening internationally and to get involved, visit ICPSR.
Featured Reading: Love Data Week
Fusion Strategy: How Real-Time Data and AI Will Power the Industrial Future by Location: Online and Pardee Stacks HD30.2 .G687 2024Publication Date: 2024A playbook that will help companies combine what they do best-create physical products-with what digitals do best-use algorithms and artificial intelligence to parse ginormous, interconnected datasets-to make strategic connections that would otherwise be impossible.
Data is Everybody's Business: The Fundamentals of Data Monetization by Location: OnlinePublication Date: 2023A guide for business leaders to understand the capabilities and strategies necessary to make money from their data.
How Data Happened: A History from the Age of Reason to the Age of Algorithms by Location: Pardee Stacks QA76.9.B45 W45 2023Publication Date: 2023From facial recognition to automated decision systems, we all move through a world determined by data-empowered algorithms. By understanding the trajectory of data, Wiggins and Jones argue that we can understand how to bend it to ends that we collectively choose.
Featured: Big Data is Big Business
Building a Data Culture: The Usage and Flow Data Culture Model by Location: OnlinePublication Date: 2023In today's fast-paced digital landscape, organizations face an ever-increasing volume of data that holds immense potential for driving business success. This book is a comprehensive guide that unveils the transformative power of data and provides actionable insights to cultivate a data-driven organizational culture.
Progressive Capitalism: Making Tech Work for All of Us by Location: OnlinePublication Date: 2022Unequal access to technology and the revenue it creates is one of the most pressing issues in the United States. Congressman Ro Khanna tackles these challenges head-on and imagines how the digital economy can create opportunities for people across the country without uprooting them.
Restoring the Soul of Business: Staying Human in the Age of Data by Location: OnlinePublication Date: 2020Many businesses are moving into uncharted territory as they determine how to move from an analog past to a digital future effectively. The startling and often unacknowledged truth is that the promise of digital transformation can only be realized when we find a way to balance it with the promise of people. Restoring the Soul of Business challenges you to move forward with the kind of balance that capitalizes transformation and produces one great success after another.
Reinventing Capitalism in the Age of Big Data by Location: Pardee Stacks HC79.I55 M3725 2018Publication Date: 2018Data is replacing money as the driver of market behavior. Big finance and big companies will be replaced by small groups and individual actors who make markets instead of making things: think Uber instead of Ford, or Airbnb instead of Hyatt. This is the dawn of the era of data capitalism, and this book provides the indispensable roadmap for securing a better future.
Don't Be Evil by Location: Pardee Stacks HD9696.8.U62 F67 2019Publication Date: 2019Foroohar tells the story of how Big Tech lost its soul--and ate our lunch. Through her skilled reporting and unparalleled access--won through nearly thirty years covering business and technology--she shows the true extent to which behemoths like Google, Facebook, Apple, and Amazon are monetizing both our data and our attention, without us seeing a penny of those exorbitant profits.
The Efficiency Paradox: What Big Data Can't Do by Location: Pardee Stacks T58.8 .T45 2018Publication Date: 2018Melding the long-term history of technology with the latest headlines and findings of computer science and social science, The Efficiency Paradox questions our ingrained assumptions about efficiency, persuasively showing how relying on the algorithms of digital platforms can in fact lead to wasted efforts, missed opportunities, and, above all, an inability to break out of established patterns
Big Data at Work by Location: Pardee Stacks HD38.7 .D379 2014Publication Date: 2014In clear, conversational language, Davenport explains what big data means--and why everyone in business needs to know about it. With dozens of company examples, including UPS, GE, Amazon, United Healthcare, Citigroup, and many others, this book will help you seize all opportunities--from improving decisions, products, and services to strengthening customer relationships.
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