NEGRO AMERICANS, WHAT NOW

New York: The Viking Press, 1935.. viii,103pp. Original blue cloth, printed paper labels. Spine sunned, endpapers tanned. Very clean internally. Near fine. A presentation copy of the second edition of James Weldon Johnson's important work, inscribed by Johnson to City College president and prominent scholar of race relations, Buell G. Gallagher. This second edition was published in February 1935, four months after the first. Johnson was a leading African-American writer, civil rights activist, and executive secretary of the NAACP; in 1934, he also became the first African-American professor at New York University. In the present work, Johnson considers the options afforded to African Americans in the 1930s and advocates for aggressive but nonviolent use of local and national organizations, both secular and religious, alongside public institutions to agitate for racial equality. The year after the first edition was published, Johnson's fiery essay made it on to the Tennessee Division of School Libraries' list of recommended books by and about African Americans (in the "Social and Economic Problems" category), with the warning that it was "Considered by some to be quite radical." Johnson ends this work with the following bold statement, printed in all capital letters:

"I WILL NOT ALLOW ONE PREJUDICED PERSON OR ONE MILLION OR ONE HUNDRED MILLION TO BLIGHT MY LIFE. I WILL NOT LET PREJUDICE OR ANY OF ITS ATTENDANT HUMILIATIONS AND INJUSTICES BEAR ME TO DOWN TO SPIRITUAL DEFEAT. MY INNER LIFE IS MINE, AND I SHALL DEFEND AND MAINTAIN ITS INTEGRITY AGAINST ALL THE POWERS OF HELL."

This copy is inscribed by Johnson to Buell G. Gallagher. Gallagher was at the time president of Talladega College and later served as president of City College of New York. As a scholar, Gallagher was one of the most avid, educated, and fiercely critical antiracist writers of the period. A significant presentation copy of this important work. BLOCKSON 3454.