Henry Clay (H.C.) Bruce was born in 1836 on a tobacco plantation in Prince Edward County, Virginia, owned by Lemuel Bruce. Actual birthdates of enslaved people were rarely recorded. But his mother knew his birth year because it was the same year as a national event—the election of Martin Van Buren as President of the United States. Over the 29 years of his enslavement, Bruce and his family were sold to Missouri and their labor and bodies rented out before gaining freedom following the Civil War. A brother, Blanche K. Bruce (who was produced after the rape of their mother by the plantation owner), became the first Black United States Senator, representing Mississippi from 1875-1881. Before the Senate, Blanche K. Bruce, was the Register of the United States Treasury and got H.C. a job in the Post Office Department at a salary of $720 a year. He chronicles his life in and out of bondage in Twenty-Nine Years a Slave, Twenty-Nine Years a Free Man, which was published in 1895.

The Souls of Black Folk: Essays and Sketches is a 1903 work of American literature by W. E. B. Du Bois. It is a seminal work in the history of sociology and a cornerstone of African-American literature.The book contains several essays on race, some of which had been published earlier in The Atlantic Monthly. To develop this work, Du Bois drew from his own experiences as an African American in American society. Outside of its notable relevance in African-American history, The Souls of Black Folk also holds an important place in social science as one of the early works in the field of sociology.  -- Wiki

Middle Egyptian introduces the reader to the writing system of ancient Egypt and the language of hieroglyphic texts. It contains twenty-six lessons, exercises (with answers), a list of hieroglyphic signs, and a dictionary. It also includes a series of twenty-six essays on the most important aspects of ancient Egyptian history, society, religion, literature, and language.