Pamphlets of Protest: An Anthology of Early African American Protest Literature, 1790 - 1860

Richard S. Newman, Patrick Rael, Philip Lapsansky

Routledge Chapman & Hall, 2001 - Social Science - 326 pages

Between the Revolution and the Civil War, African-American writing became a prominent feature of both black protest culture and American public life. Although denied a political voice in national affairs, black authors produced a wide range of literature to project their views into the public sphere. Autobiographies and personal narratives told of slavery's horrors, newspapers railed against racism in its various forms, and poetry, novellas, reprinted sermons and speeches told tales of racial uplift and redemption.
The editors examine the important and previously overlooked pamphleteering tradition and offer new insights into how and why the printed word became so important to black activists during this critical period. An introduction by the editors situates the pamphlets in their various social, economic and political contexts. This is the first book to capture the depth of black print culture before the Civil War by examining perhaps its most important form, the pamphlet.

About the author

Richard Newman is Assistant Professor of History at the Rochester Institute of Technology; Patrick Rael is Assistant Professor of History at Bowdoin College; and Phillip Lapsansky is an archivist at the Library Company of Philadelphia.

Bibliographic information

• Title: Pamphlets of Protest: An Anthology of Early African American Protest Literature, 1790 - 1860
• Editors: Richard S. Newman, Patrick Rael, Philip Lapsansky
• Contributor: Richard S. Newman
• Edition: illustrated
• Publisher: Routledge Chapman & Hall, 2001
• ISBN: 0415924448, 9780415924443
• Length: 326 pages
• Subjects: History / United States / General; Literary Criticism / American / African American; Social Science / Ethnic Studies / African American Studies