Introduction
THE FIRST AFRICANS IN NORTH AMERICA
from They Came Before Columbus
OLAUDAH EQUIANO
from The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah
Equiano or Gustarus Vassa, the African (1789)
EARLY SLAVE REVOLTS
Report of Governor Hunter on the New York Slave Conspiracy
(1712)
LUCY TERRY
Bars Fight (1761)
JUPITER HAMMON
An Evening Thought: Salvation by Christ with Penitential
Cries (1761)
AFRICAN-AMERICANS IN THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION
Petition of the Africans, Living in Boston (1773)
The Declaration of Independence (1776)
Emancipation of Slaves for Military Service During the American
Revolution (1783)
PHILLIS WHEATLEY
On Being Brought from AFRICA to AMERICA (1773)
On Imagination (1773)
To the Right Honourable WILLIAM, Earl of DARTMOUTH, His
Majesty’s Principal Secretary of State for North America (1773)
Letter to Samson Occom (1774)
BENJAMIN BANNEKER
Letter to Thomas Jefferson (1791)
SLAVE REVOLTS
Testimony on Gabriel’s Revolt (1800)
Testimony on the Vesey Conspiracy (1822)
Letter from a Slave Rebel (1793)
Letter from a Slave Rebel in Georgia (1810)
THE FOUNDING OF THE AFRICAN-AMERICAN PRESS
Editorial from the First Edition of Freedom’s Journal (1827)
THE COLONIZATION DEBATE
The Argument For (1829)
The Argument Against (1827)
DAVID WALKER
from Walker’s Appeal in Four Articles . . . (1829)
NAT TURNER
from The Confessions of Nat Turner (1831)
GEORGE MOSES HORTON
The Slave’s Complaint (1829)
THE AMISTAD CASE (1839)
United States Appallants v. the Libellants and Claimants of the
Schooner Amistad (1841)
THE CONVENTION MOVEMENT, 1830–1864
An Address to the Colored People of the United States, from the
Colored National Convention of 1848
HENRY HIGHLAND GARNET
An Address to the Slaves of the United States of America (1843)
MARTIN DELANY
from The Condition, Elevation, and Destiny of the Colored
People of the United States, Politically Considered (1852)
Declaration of the Principles of the National Emigration
Convention (1854)
THE CASE OF DRED SCOTT
Dred Scott’s Petition for Freedom (1847)
Reaction of the Dred Scott Decision (1857)
FREDERICK DOUGLASS
from Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass (1845)
Letter to Thomas Auld (1848)
What to the Slave Is the Fourth of July? (1852)
HARRIET JACOBS
The Jealous Mistress
from Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl (1861)
WILLIAM WELLS BROWN
From Clotel: or, The President’s Daughter: A Narrative of
Slave Life in the United States (1853)
HARRIET E. WILSON
from Our Nig (1859)
SOJOURNER TRUTH
Address to the Ohio Women’s Rights Convention (1851)
Address to the First Annual Meeting of the American Equal Rights
Association (1867)
HARRIET TUBMAN
from Harriet Tubman: The Moses of Her People (1886)
FRANCES ELLEN WATKINS HARPER
Bury Me in a Free Land (1854)
The Slave Mother (1854)
A Double Standard
JOHN BROWN’S RAID AT HARPERS FERRY
Letter from John A. Copeland (1859)
Letter to John Brown for Frances Harper (1860)
On John Browns’s Raid (1859)
EMANCIPATION PROCLAMATION
THE NEW YORK DRAFT RIOTS
An Eyewitness Account (1863)
HENRY HIGHLAND GARNET
A Memorial Discourage Delivered in the Hall of the House of
Representatives (1865)
AFRICAN-AMERICANS IN THE CIVIL WAR
Men of Color, to the Arms! (1863)
Camp Diary (1863)
The Struggle for Pay (1864)
Farewell Address to the Troops (1866)
FOLK CULTURE AND LITERATURE
Slave Song
Promises of Freedom
Slave Marriage Ceremony Supplement
Plantation Proverbs
Aphorisms
All God’s Chillen Had Wings
John Henry
The Signifying Monkey
Stackalace
Shine and the Titanic
Easy Rider
Joe Turner
St. Louis Blues
Joe Turner Blues
Beale Street Blues
SPIRITUALS
Go Down, Moses
Who’ll Be a Witness for My Lord?
Joshua Fit de Battle ob Jerico
I Got a Home in Dat Rock
Roll Jordan, Roll
My Way’s Cloudy
Steal Away to Jesus
I Know Moon-Rise
Deep River
Down in the Valley
Swing Low Sweet Chariot
Ride In, Kind Savior
My Army Cross Over
Many Thousand Gone
We’ll Soon Be Free
I Thank God I’m Free at Las’
THE CIVIL WAR AMENDENTS
The Thirteenth Amendment (1865)
The Fourteenth Amendment (1868)
The Fifteenth Amendment (1870)
RECONSTRUCTION
Freedman’s Bureau (1865)
South Carolina Black Code (1864-1865)
Frederick Douglass’s Speech to the Thirty-second Annual
Convention of the American Anti-Slavery Society (1865)
Blanche K. Bruce’s Speech to the United States Senate (1876)
Henry M. Turner’s Speech to the Georgia Legislature (1868)
Petition from Kentucky Citizens of Ku Klux Klan (1871)
THE EXODUSTERS
News Accounts from the Black Press (1879–1886)
CHARLES W. CHESNUTT
Po’ Sandy
The Wife of His Youth
PAUL LAURANCE DUNBAR
We Wear the Mask
Sympathy
A Negro Love Song
The Poet
BOOKER T. WASHINGTON
from Up from Slavery (1901)
The Atlanta Exposition Address (1895)
W. E. B Du BOIS
from The Souls of Black Folk (1903)
The Talented Tenth (1903)
IDA WELLS-BARNETT
from A Red Record (1895)
MARY CHURCH TERRELL
What Role Is the Educated Negro Women to Play in the Uplifting
of Her Race? (1902)
ANNA JULIA COPPER
from A Voice in the South (1892)
PLESSY V. FERGUSON (1896)
THE NIAGARA MOVEMENT (1905)
THE FOUNDING OF THE NAACP
Principles of the NAACP (1911)
The Crisis (1910)
Agitation (1910)
JACK JOHNSON
The Prize Fighter (1941)
JAMES WELDON JOHNSON
Lift Ev’ry Voice and Sing (1900)
from The Autobiography of an Ex-Coloured Man (1912)
O Black and Unknown Bards (1917)
THE GREAT MIGRATION, 1910–1920
Letters and Articles from The Chicago Defender
RED SUMMER OF 1919
A Directive of French Troops (1918)
Returning Soldiers (1919)
Three Hundred Years (1919)
Claude McKay, If We Must Die! (1919)
MARCUS GARVEY
Declaration of the Rights of the Negro Peoples of the World
(1920)
ALAIN LOCKE
The New Negro (1925)
CLAUDE McKAY
The Harlem Dancer
Spring in New Hampshire
The Lynching
Tiger
The White City
The Tropics in New York
LANGSTON HUGHES
I, Too (1925)
The Negro Speaks of Rivers (1926)
The Negro Artists and the Racial Mountain (1926)
Harlem (1951)
JEAN TOOMER
from Cane
COUNTEE CULLEN
Yet Do I Marvel (1925)
Heritage ( 1925)
From the Dark Tower (1925)
ZORA NEALE HURSTON
Sweat (1926)
THE SCOTTSBORO CASES
Appeal of the Scottsboro Boys (1932)
JOE LOUIS
Joe Louis Uncovers Dynamite (1935)
STERLING BROWN
Strong Men (1932)
ROBERT HAYDEN
Frederick Douglass
Middle Passage
RICHARD WRIGHT
The Ethics of Living Jim Crow: An Autobiographical Sketch
(1937)
PHILLIP RANDOLPH AND THE MARCH ON WASHINGTON MOVEMENT
Program of the March on Washington Movement (1942)
Executive Order 8802 (1941)
TRUMAN INTEGRATES THE MILITARY
Executive Order 9981 (1948)
PAUL ROBESON
Statement to the House Un-American Activities Committee (1956)
GWENDOLYN BROOKS
The Mother
We Real Cool
The Chicago Defender Sends a Man to Little Rock
RALPH ELLISON
from Invisible Man (1952)
JAMES BALDWIN
Notes of a Native Son (1955)
BROWN V. BOARD OF EDUCATION OF TOPEKA
NAACP Brief (1953)
Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka (1954)
MARTIN LUTHER KING. JR
Letter from Birmingham City Jail (1963)
I Have a Dream (1963)
SONGS OF THE CIVIL RIGHTS MOVEMENT
We Shall Overcome
O Freedom
Keep Your Eyes on the Prize
Ain’t Gonna let Nobody Turn Me ‘Round
KWANZAA
MALCOLM X
from The Autobiography of Malcolm X (1965)
ELDRIDGE CLEAVER
from Soul on Ice
THE BLACK PANTHER PARTY
Black Panther Party Platform (1966)
AMIRI BARAKA
Preface to a Twenty Volume Suicide Note
State/ment
Ka ’Ba
THE KERNER COMMISSION
from The Kerner Commission Report (1968)
AFRICAN AMERICANS IN THE VIETNAM WAR
Selections from Bloods
MAYA ANGELOU
from I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings (1970)
ALICE WALKER
from In Search of Our Mother’s Gardens: Womanist Prose
(1974)
JESSE JACKSON
Address to the Democratic National Convention (1984)
RAP MUSIC
THE CLARENCE THOMAS CONFIRMATION HEARING
Clarence Thomas’s Second Statement to the Senate Judiciary
Committee (1991)
THE L.A. RIOTS
Congresswomen Maxine Waters’s Testimony Before the Senate
Banking Committee (1992)
Selected Bibliography
Acknowledgements
Selected Index
