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.

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.

Introduction,1. Absalom Jones and Richard Allen,A Narrative of the Proceedings of the Black People During the Late Awful Calamity in Philadelphia (1794),2. Prince Hall,A Charge (1797),3. Daniel Coker,A Dialogue Between a Virginian and an African Minister (1810),4. James Forten,Series of Letters by a Man of Color (1813),5. Russell Parrott,An Oration on the Abolition of the Slave Trade (1814),6. Prince Saunders,An Address to the Pennsylvania Augustine Society (1818),7. Robert ALexander Young,Ethiopian Manifesto (1829),8. David Walker,Appeal to the Colored Citizens of the World (1829, 1830),9. William Hamilton,Address to the National Convention of 1834 (1834),10. Elizabeth Wicks,Address Delivered Before the African Female Benevolent Society of Troy (1834),11. Maria W. Stewart,Productions (1835),12. Robert Purvis,Appeal of Forty Thousand Citizens, Threatened with Disenfranchisement, to the People of Pennsylvania (1837),13. David Ruggles,New York Committee of Vigilance for the Year 1837, together with Important Facts Relative to Their Proceedings (1837),14. Henry Highland Garnet,Address to the Slaves of America (1848),15. Proceedings of the National Convention of Colored People (1847),16. Report of the Proceedings of the Colored National Convention (1848),17. John W. Lewis,Essay on the Character and Condition of the African Race(1852),18. Mary Ann Shadd,A Plea for Emigration, or Notes of Canada West (1852),19. Frederick Douglass, Et Al. ,Address to the People of the United States (1853),20. Martin Delany,Political Destiny of the Colored Race, on the American Continent (1854),21. William Wells Brown,The History of the Haitian Revolution (1855),22. Mary Still,An Appeal to the Females of the African Methodist Episcopal Church (1857),23. Theodore Holly,A Vindication of the Capacity of the Negro for SElf-Government and Civilized Progress (1857),24. Alexander Crummel ,The English Language in Liberia (1861),25. T. Morris Chester,Negro Self-Respect and Pride of Race (1862),