Best of
African-American

1986

Homemade Love


J. California Cooper - 1986
    California Cooper tells exuberant tales full of wonder at the mystery of life and the hardness of fate. Awed, bedeviled, bemused, all of Cooper's characters are borne up by the sheer power of life itself.

Writings: The Suppression of the African Slave-Trade / The Souls of Black Folk / Dusk of Dawn / Essays and Articles


W.E.B. Du Bois - 1986
    This Library of America volume presents his essential writings, covering the full span of a restless life dedicated to the struggle for racial justice.The Suppression of the African Slave-Trade to the United States 1638–1870 (1896), his first book, renders a dispassionate account of how, despite ethical and political opposition, Americans tolerated the traffic in human beings until a bloody civil war taught them the disastrous consequences of moral cowardice.The Souls of Black Folk (1903), a collection of beautifully written essays, narrates the cruelties of racism and celebrates the strength and pride of black America. By turns lyrical, historical, and autobiographical, Du Bois pays tribute to black music and religion, explores the remarkable history of the Reconstruction Freedman’s Bureau, assesses the career of Booker T. Washington, and remembers the death of his infant son.Dusk of Dawn (1940) was described by Du Bois as an attempt to elucidate the “race problem” in terms of his own experience. It describes his boyhood in western Massachusetts, his years at Fisk and Harvard universities, his study and travel abroad, his role in founding the NAACP and his long association with it, and his emerging Pan-African consciousness. He called this autobiography his response to an “environing world” that “guided, embittered, illuminated and enshrouded my life.”Du Bois’s influential essays and speeches span the period from 1890 to 1958. They record his evolving positions on the issues that dominated his long, active life: education in a segregated society; black history, art, literature, and culture; the controversial career of Marcus Garvey; the fate of black soldiers in the First World War; the appeal of communism to frustrated black Americans; his trial and acquittal during the McCarthy era; and the elusive promise of an African homeland.The editorials and articles from The Crisis (1910–1934) belong to the period of Du Bois’s greatest influence. During his editorship of the NAACP magazine that he founded, Du Bois wrote pieces on virtually every aspect of American political, cultural, and economic life. Witty and sardonic, angry and satiric, proud and mournful, these writings show Du Bois at his freshest and most trenchant.

Flossie and the Fox


Patricia C. McKissack - 1986
    A wily fox, notorious for stealing eggs, meets his match when he encounters a bold little girl in the woods who insists upon proof that he is a fox before she will be frightened.

Eroding Witness


Nathaniel Mackey - 1986
    African American Studies. Back in stock in limited quantities. "Eroding Witness" was selected by Michael S. Harper as one of five volumes published in 1985 in the National Poetry Series. "I wake up mumbling, I'm / not at the music's / mercy think damned / if I'm not, but / keep the thought / to myself" ("Capricorn Rising"). Nathaniel Mackey, a native of Miami, Florida, currently teaches at UC Santa Cruz. He edits the magazine Hambone which is available from SPD. Many other publications by Mackey are also available from SPD, including Whatsaid Serif (City Lights), Djbot Baghostus's Run (Sun & Moon) and the CD Strick: Song of Andoumboulou 16-25 (Spoken Engine).

A True Likeness: The Black South of Richard Samuel Roberts, 1920-1936


Richard Samuel Roberts - 1986
    When his studio was closed down shortly thereafter, his negatives were stored under the family home. Not until 1977 did a chance visit by a field archivist from the South Caroliniana Library at the University of South Carolina reveal the fact that Roberts's negatives still existed. Almost miraculously, most were still in good condition. In their scope and camera artistry they constitute an eloquent pictorial record, documenting the life and times of the black inhabitants of a southern city from just after the First World War until well into the Depression. Especially noteworthy is Roberts's depiction of the black middle-class community. Those unfamiliar with the South of the 1920s and 1930s are unaware that there was a flourishing black middle-class in the southern cities. Here, captured by Roberts's camera, is ample evidence of its existence. Some 200 of his best pictures have been chosen for publication in A True Likeness. They show men, women, and children in the studio and elsewhere, people at work and at play, their homes, automobiles, and other possessions. Roberts also traveled to other cities and into rural South Carolina, always with camera and film.