In celebration of Black History Month, we invite you to browse some of the rarest, earliest, and most important works of African American literature currently in our collection.

 

 

The earliest book published by an African American, Phillis Wheatley’s Poems on Various Subjects, Religious and Moral, was published in 1773, three years before American independence. Wheatley was not only the first African American to publish a book, but the first to achieve an international reputation as a writer. Born in Senegal or The Gambia, Wheatley was captured and sold into slavery at around the age of seven. Kidnapped to Massachusetts, she was purchased and owned by a Boston merchant. By the time she was 16, she had mastered her new language of English. Her poetry was praised by many of the leading figures of the American Revolution, including George Washington, who thanked her for a poem written in his honor.

 

 

An integral part of African American literature, the slave narrative emerged in the mid 19th century. Some 6,000 former slaves from North America and the Caribbean wrote accounts of their lives, with about 150 of these published as separate books or pamphlets. Penned to inspire the abolitionist struggle, the narratives are now broadly categorized into three distinct forms: tales of religious redemption, tales to inspire the abolitionist struggle, and tales of progress.

 

 

Perhaps the most famous slave narrative, the Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, became one of the most influential pieces of literature to fuel the abolitionist movement. Within four months of publication, five thousand copies were sold and, by 1860, almost 30,000 copies were sold. Following publication, Douglass fled Lynn, Massachusetts and sailed to England and Ireland for two years in fear of being recaptured by his legal owner in the United States. While in Britain and Ireland, he gained supporters who paid $710.96 to purchase his emancipation from slavery.

 

 

Another rare and remarkable narrative is that of Sojourner Truth, who escaped servitude shortly before the mandated New York State emancipation took effect on July 4, 1827. “I did not run off, for I thought that wicked, but I walked off, believing that to be all right.” In 1843 she renamed herself “Truth” for God, and “Sojourner” because she intended to “travel up and down the land,” preaching and testifying. She became associated with such renowned abolitionists as William Lloyd Garrison, Frederick Douglass, and David Ruggles, and toured the country speaking out against slavery. Her Narrative, dictated to her friend Olive Gilbert and subsidized by Garrison, gave Sojourner an income and increased her speaking engagements, where she sold copies of the book.

 

 

Born in Virginia in 1856, Booker T. Washington was of the last generation born into slavery. After emancipation, Washington attended college in Virginia, and gained fame as a result of his 1895 speech about the importance of educating African Americans and his belief that African Americans were capable of great feats through education. His landmark autobiography, Up From Slavery was originally published as a serial in the Outlook Magazine and went on to be published in book form in more than 12 languages. “It remains one of the most important works on such an influential African-American leader” (Delia Crutchfield Cook).

 

 

Arguably the founding text of the Harlem Renaissance, James Weldon Johnson’s Autobiography of an Ex-Colored Man is widely considered the link between the 19th century slave narrative and 20th century work of African American protest fiction, later mastered by Langston Hughes and James Baldwin, among others. First published anonymously in 1912, the work “interweaves personal experience, sociological observation and social protest… When the text was reissued as fiction in 1927—at the height of the Harlem Renaissance—it carried his name and had a cover designed by Aaron Douglas and an introduction by Van Vechten… In the 1970s critics attempting to articulate a black literary tradition considered the novel a link between 19th and 20th African American narratives. Both Houston Baker and Robert Stepto hailed it as an important revision of the slave narrative and a forerunner of black protest fiction” (Encyclopedia of the Harlem Renaissance, 69, 88-89).

 

 

One of the most celebrated figures of the Harlem Renaissance, poet, novelist and social activist Langston Hughes is widely considered one of the most important American writers of the 20th century. Through his poetry and fiction, Hughes sought not only to portray the experience of working-class blacks in America, but redefine, expand, and celebrate African American identity. This purpose he summed up in a one-sentence summary of his life’s goal in response to a request from Who’s Who in America: “My seeking has been to explain and illuminate the Negro condition in America and obliquely that of all human kind” (Rampersand, 418).

 

 

Another key figure in the Harlem Renaissance, James Baldwin‘s deeply personal and provocative stories examined both the African American and homosexual experience when neither identity was accepted by American culture. His works would come to galvanize the nation and give a passionate voice to the emerging civil rights movement and his influence on the development of a number of fellow emerging African American authors was unprecedented.

 

 

In addition to the rare first editions featured above, our collection currently includes works by Betty Smith, Nella Larsen, Martin Luther King, Jr., Ralph Ellison, and Toni Morrison among many other important African American historical figures and authors.