Social Movements from Downtown Brown Books, ABAA

London: William Tweedie, 1860. First Edition. Hardcover. The first book on the Underground Railroad, published only in England while the fabled escape route for enslaved Americans was still active. William Mitchell was the son of an enslaved man and a Native American woman in North Carolina. According to the introduction by W. H. Bonner, a British abolitionist who encouraged… Read more about this item

New York: World Publishing Company, 1971. First Edition. Hardcover. Very good/Very good. The memoirs of the brother of the assassinated civil rights leader Medgar Evers. xii, 196 pages. First edition (stated first printing). Some spotting to the front board, else very good in a very good dust jacket with shallow chipping to the top of the spine.… Read more about this item

London: Archibald Constable & Co, 1905. First British edition. Hardcover. Very good. The first British edition (two years after the American) of one of the Library of Congress's 88 Books that Shaped America: "'Few books make history and fewer still become foundational texts for the movements and struggles of an entire people. The Souls of Black Folk occupies… Read more about this item

Detroit: Randall, Photographer, 1881. Ephemera. Very good. A full-length cabinet card portrait of Sojourner Truth with the caption, "I sell the shadow to support the substance." This is one of Truth's last portraits, taken when she was in her eighties and purchased in bulk to sell at events, hence the caption. During the Civil War, Truth took the… Read more about this item

Boston: Published in Aid of the Festival and Bazaar, December 13-19, 1886. First Edition. Hardcover. Very good. The first edition of the first American woman's suffrage movement cookbook, printed for sale during the woman suffrage bazaar held in Boston on six days in 1886. Harriet "Hattie" Burr, who was active in suffrage and other community causes,… Read more about this item

1969. Ephemera. Fine. A poster publicizing the grape boycott led by Cesar Chavez and the United Farm Workers by one of the best-known graphic designers of the era. The artwork depicts a bunch of grapes in the shape of a skull with a Chavez quote at the bottom taken from the Plan of Delano: "We are… Read more about this item

San Francisco: Los Siete de La Raza, 1970. Ephemera. Very good. A single issue of this short-lived community newspaper which sprang up in San Francisco's Mission District to gather support for Los Siete, a group of Latinos who were then under arrest for the murder of a police officer. The men were ultimately acquitted. This issue includes interviews… Read more about this item

London: Herbert Jenkins, 1924. First Edition. Hardcover. Near fine/Very good. The title of this novel is taken from H. G. Wells' The Time Machine, in which the Morlocks are the workers of the world, who live underground. In Welsh's novel, "the Morlocks are unofficial secret organizations within the trade unions whose purpose is to stir up revolution. Their… Read more about this item

New York: Abrams Books for Young Readers, 2014. First Edition. Hardcover. Fine/Fine. A picture book, winner of many awards, including the Pura Belpré, Tomás Rivera, Jane Addams, and the Américas award. The author-artist was born in Mexico to American and Mexican parents; he attended high school and college in the US and now lives in Mexico. This… Read more about this item

1980. An original black-and-white gelatin silver print photograph of Audre Lorde speaking, pictured in three-quarters profile. Lorde (1934-1992) is an influential and popular writer, a self-described, "black, lesbian, mother, warrior, poet." The image is inscribed on the back (verso) and signed "Audrey Lorde." Printed on 8 by 10 inch Kodak paper, with the image slightly smaller. The… Read more about this item

1967. Ephemera. Near fine. The editor of the Nation responds to a reader who suggested articles on I. F. Stone and on the Sobel case (Morton Sobel was a Soviet spy during the Second World War; he was released from prison in 1969, two years after these letters were written). Both notes are on Nation letterhead; one… Read more about this item

Pasadena, CA: Pacific Coast Committee on American Principles and Fair Play, Pasadena Chapter, 1943. First Edition. Pamphlet. Very good. A reprint of an article from Harper's Magazine by a Navy doctor stationed in Hawaii who describes the response of the Japanese-American community to the attack on Pearl Harbor and to the internment of Japanese Americans on the West… Read more about this item

Washington, DC: Library of Congress, 1980. Photograph. Fine. In this Lange image, a man and woman, both African American, stand in a field holding hoes or other farming implements. Lange took this image while working for the Resettlement Administration and the Farm Security Administration (two WPA agencies). The most famous image from this period in her career is… Read more about this item

Washington, DC: Library of Congress, 1980. Photograph. Fine. In this widely reproduced Lange image, a bulky white man appears to hold court while standing with one foot on the bumper of a car; five thin black men sit and stand behind him on the steps of a clapboard store. In the years immediately after she made the negative,… Read more about this item

Waco, Texas: Word Books, 1978. First Edition. Hardcover. Near fine/Very good. A memoir of Cleaver's growing up, the Black Panthers, his time in Algiers, and his conversion to Christianity. Illustrated with halftone photographs. First edition (first printing, with no indication of later printings). A near fine copy in a dust jacket showing light wear along the top edge.… Read more about this item

Washington, DC: Library of Congress, 1980. Photograph. Fine. A copy print, made from a photograph of the original print (see below). In this Lange image, six people wearing long shirts and hats are bent over at the waist tending to rows of lettuce. A dried and cracked furrow fills the left foreground. Lange took this image while… Read more about this item

[North Hollywood, CA]: L'Imagerie Editions Fine Art, 1990. First Edition. Ephemera. Fine. Four 20 by 20 inch single color (black) serigraphs / screenprints of cover art designs Crumb made for the Winds of Change environmental newspaper in the early 1980s. Crumb joined the staff as an art director and drew many covers, spot drawings, and cartoons, but ultimately… Read more about this item

Berkeley: Ecology Center, 1969. First Edition. Pamphlet. Near fine. An offprint from the Ecology Center magazine and a very uncommon stand-alone Huxley publication, an essay that explores the connections between population growth, contraception, war, and democracy. 7 pages. 8-1/2 by 11 inches. First edition. Near fine in stapled wrappers.

Washington, DC: Library of Congress, 1980. Photograph. Near fine. A portrait of an unidentified migrant farm worker on the edge of the California desert, just north of the Mexican border. He sits on a dirt berm, in a row of other men, suggested only by their elbows, which are visible at the edges of the image. Lange took… Read more about this item

Washington, DC: Library of Congress, 1980. Photograph. Near fine. One of Lange's powerful portraits of destitute farmworkers taken in California in 1936 while she was working for the Resettlement Administration and the Farm Security Administration (two WPA agencies). The most famous image from this period in her career is Migrant Mother, the iconic Depression-era photograph. This image… Read more about this item