Portraits of African American Life since 1865 is an intimate study of 14 African Americans since the end of the Civil War. Written by established and rising scholars, these diverse biographies offer a rich portrayal of the African American experience over the last 150 years. Unlike many other similar books, this volume explores the lives of ordinary individuals who pursued a variety of endeavors from politics, labor reform, religion, medicine, sports, business, and, importantly, civil rights. Editor Nina Mjagkij includes the largely untold stories of the Highgate sisters, two Northern black teachers whose lives exemplify the African American thirst for education and penchant for racial uplift through schooling: Pan-African Congress member and international peace movement activist Addie Waites Hunton: and Lester A. Walton, a journalist, foreign minister, and political activist who fought tirelessly for the birthright of citizenship for African Americans in a country that systematically denied that claim. Compelling and informative, Portraits of African American Life since 1865 gives a heightened understanding of the evolution of what it has meant to be black and American through more than three centuries of U.S. history.