You can find books by searching by keyword, keeping in mind that the words people use to talk about relevant topics will vary greatly depending on their group identity, academic training, language, context and perspective! Using one simple example, African American, Black, Afro-American -- all are used in different contexts by different people or within different timespans in history. Words carry meaning and reflect both power dynamics and the identities of those creating and organizing information.
Pro tip: Find books by subject headings in our catalog, OneSearch! Subject headings are specific words or phrases used to find and organize books and articles by topic. If you find one relevant book in the catalog, check its subject headings and select one to find other books that have been tagged with the same subject heading!
Here are some examples of subject headings that you can use to find books about the political history of Black Americans:
The way information is organized often reflects the prejudices of those that create the system. The Library of Congress, the organization that develops subject headings, has used many outdated and offensive terms to refer to groups of people. Some have been updated, while others remain.
A good example of this is an absence of a subject term for Black Latinos - books or other material often use two separate subject headings (Hispanic Americans) and Black people--United States.