This impressive collection, drawn from a wealth of original research into previously untapped sources,including letters, diaries, memoirs, speeches, poems, songs, newspaper articles, advertisements, a ship's log, and official documents,allows African Americans to speak afresh across more than two centuries. Besides the expected voices of Frederick Douglass and Sojourner Truth, this book makes vivid the experiences and views of a diverse range of lesser-known but equally fascinating personalities: Ira Aldridge, one of the great Shakespearean actors of his day William Allen, the first black college professor in the country the astronomer and mathematician Benjamin Banneker Paul Cuffe, owner of a fleet of merchant ships Martin R. Delany, the father of black nationalism James Forten, war veteran, inventor, and one of the wealthiest men in America the militant Henry Highland Garnet, who urged slaves to revolt the poet Phillis Wheatley, as well as ordinary free blacks, fugitive slaves, soldiers, wives, mothers, pioneers, sailors, and numerous others. The editor has forged her material into a documentary history as dramatic as it is memorable.

Book Information
ISBN 9780306808203
Author Dorothy Sterling
Format Paperback
Page Count 416
Imprint Da Capo Press Inc
Publisher INGRAM PUBLISHER SERVICES US