African-American Books

Race Distinctions in American Law

Gilbert Thomas Stephenson

A race distinction in the law is a requirement imposed by statute, constitutional enactment, or judicial decision, prescribing for a person of one race a rule of conduct different from that prescribed..

Working With the Hands

Booker T. Washington

The effort to make an industry profitable should not be the aim of first importance. The teaching should be most emphasised. Our policy at Tuskegee is to make an industry pay its way if possible, but ..

The Escape

William Wells Brown

This play was written for my own amusement, and not with the remotest thought that it would ever be seen by the public eye. I read it privately, however, to a circle of my friends, and through them wa..

The Southern Case for School Segregation

James Jackson Kilpatrick

When this book was conceived, it was intended to be titled “U.S. v. the South: A Brief for the Defense,” but it seemed a cumbersome title and the finished work is not, of course, a brief for the South..

Nat, The Trapper and Indian-Fighter

Paul J. Prescott

He turned his horse toward a small clump of trees about half a mile distant, and rode rapidly forward. As he neared the grove, his former appearance of carelessness gave place to one of intense watchf..

Sorrow in Sunlight

Ronald Firbank

It was the hour when, fortified by a siesta, Mrs. Ahmadou Mouth was wont to approach her husband on general household affairs, and to discuss, in particular, the question of their removal to the town;..

The Negro And American Liberty

John Moore

Generally the Negro troops acquitted themselves most creditably as soldiers. Stanton, Secretary of War, said of them at Petersburg: “The hardest fighting was done by the black troops. The parts they s..

The Gift of Black Folk

W.E.B. Du Bois

This essay is an attempt to set forth more clearly than has hitherto been done the effect which the Negro has had upon American life. Its thesis is that despite slavery, war and caste, and despite our..