Crossing the Danger Water: Three Hundred Years of African-American Writing

Introduction  THE FIRST AFRICANS IN NORTH AMERICA             from They Came Before Columbus  OLAUDAH EQUIANO              from The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah                  Equiano or Gustarus Vassa, the African (1789)  EARLY SLAVE REVOLTS             Report of Governor Hunter on the New York Slave Conspiracy                (1712)  LUCY TERRY                Bars Fight (1761)  JUPITER HAMMON             An Evening Thought: Salvation by Christ with Penitential                Cries (1761)  AFRICAN-AMERICANS IN THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION             Petition of the Africans, Living in Boston (1773)            The Declaration of Independence (1776)            Emancipation of Slaves for Military Service During the American                Revolution (1783) PHILLIS WHEATLEY             On Being Brought from AFRICA to AMERICA (1773)            On Imagination (1773)            To the Right Honourable WILLIAM, Earl of DARTMOUTH, His                Majesty’s Principal Secretary of State for North America (1773)            Letter to Samson Occom (1774) BENJAMIN BANNEKER             Letter to Thomas Jefferson (1791) SLAVE REVOLTS             Testimony on Gabriel’s Revolt (1800)            Testimony on the Vesey Conspiracy (1822)            Letter from a Slave Rebel (1793)            Letter from a Slave Rebel in Georgia (1810) THE FOUNDING OF THE AFRICAN-AMERICAN PRESS            Editorial from the First Edition of Freedom’s Journal (1827)  THE COLONIZATION DEBATE             The Argument For (1829)            The Argument Against (1827) DAVID WALKER             from Walker’s Appeal in Four Articles . . . (1829) NAT TURNER            from The Confessions of Nat Turner (1831) GEORGE MOSES HORTON              The Slave’s Complaint (1829)  THE AMISTAD CASE (1839)            United States Appallants v. the Libellants and Claimants of the                Schooner Amistad (1841)  THE CONVENTION MOVEMENT, 1830–1864             An Address to the Colored People of the United States, from the                Colored National Convention of 1848  HENRY HIGHLAND GARNET             An Address to the Slaves of the United States of America (1843)  MARTIN DELANY             from The Condition, Elevation, and Destiny of the Colored                People of the United States, Politically Considered (1852)             Declaration of the Principles of the National Emigration                Convention (1854)  THE CASE OF DRED SCOTT             Dred Scott’s Petition for Freedom (1847)             Reaction of the Dred Scott Decision (1857)  FREDERICK DOUGLASS             from Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass (1845)            Letter to Thomas Auld (1848)             What to the Slave Is the Fourth of July? (1852) HARRIET JACOBS             The Jealous Mistress             from Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl (1861)  WILLIAM WELLS BROWN             From Clotel: or, The President’s Daughter: A Narrative of                Slave Life in the United States (1853) HARRIET E. WILSON             from Our Nig (1859) SOJOURNER TRUTH             Address to the Ohio Women’s Rights Convention (1851)            Address to the First Annual Meeting of the American Equal Rights                Association (1867) HARRIET TUBMAN             from Harriet Tubman: The Moses of Her People (1886) FRANCES ELLEN WATKINS HARPER             Bury Me in a Free Land (1854)            The Slave Mother (1854)             A Double Standard  JOHN BROWN’S RAID AT HARPERS FERRY             Letter from John A. Copeland (1859)            Letter to John Brown for Frances Harper (1860)            On John Browns’s Raid (1859)  EMANCIPATION PROCLAMATION  THE NEW YORK DRAFT RIOTS             An Eyewitness Account (1863)  HENRY HIGHLAND GARNET             A Memorial Discourage Delivered in the Hall of the House of                Representatives (1865)  AFRICAN-AMERICANS IN THE CIVIL WAR             Men of Color, to the Arms! (1863)             Camp Diary (1863)             The Struggle for Pay (1864)             Farewell Address to the Troops (1866)  FOLK CULTURE AND LITERATURE             Slave Song             Promises of Freedom             Slave Marriage Ceremony Supplement             Plantation Proverbs             Aphorisms             All God’s Chillen Had Wings             John Henry             The Signifying Monkey             Stackalace             Shine and the Titanic             Easy Rider             Joe Turner             St. Louis Blues             Joe Turner Blues             Beale Street Blues  SPIRITUALS             Go Down, Moses            Who’ll Be a Witness for My Lord?            Joshua Fit de Battle ob Jerico             I Got a Home in Dat Rock             Roll Jordan, Roll             My Way’s Cloudy             Steal Away to Jesus             I Know Moon-Rise             Deep River             Down in the Valley             Swing Low Sweet Chariot             Ride In, Kind Savior            My Army Cross Over            Many Thousand Gone             We’ll Soon Be Free             I Thank God I’m Free at Las’  THE CIVIL WAR AMENDENTS             The Thirteenth Amendment (1865)            The Fourteenth Amendment (1868)             The Fifteenth Amendment (1870) RECONSTRUCTION             Freedman’s Bureau (1865)            South Carolina Black Code (1864-1865)            Frederick Douglass’s Speech to the Thirty-second Annual                Convention of the American Anti-Slavery Society (1865)            Blanche K. Bruce’s Speech to the United States Senate (1876)            Henry M. Turner’s Speech to the Georgia Legislature (1868)             Petition from Kentucky Citizens of Ku Klux Klan (1871) THE EXODUSTERS             News Accounts from the Black Press (1879–1886)  CHARLES W. CHESNUTT             Po’ Sandy                    The Wife of His Youth  PAUL LAURANCE DUNBAR             We Wear the Mask             Sympathy             A Negro Love Song             The Poet  BOOKER T. WASHINGTON             from Up from Slavery (1901)            The Atlanta Exposition Address (1895) W. E. B Du BOIS             from The Souls of Black Folk (1903)              The Talented Tenth (1903) IDA WELLS-BARNETT             from A Red Record (1895) MARY CHURCH TERRELL             What Role Is the Educated Negro Women to Play in the Uplifting                of Her Race? (1902) ANNA JULIA COPPER              from A Voice in the South (1892)  PLESSY V. FERGUSON (1896)  THE NIAGARA MOVEMENT (1905)  THE FOUNDING OF THE NAACP             Principles of the NAACP (1911)            The Crisis (1910)             Agitation (1910)  JACK JOHNSON                 The Prize Fighter (1941) JAMES WELDON JOHNSON             Lift Ev’ry Voice and Sing (1900)            from The Autobiography of an Ex-Coloured Man (1912)            O Black and Unknown Bards (1917) THE GREAT MIGRATION, 1910–1920            Letters and Articles from The Chicago Defender  RED SUMMER OF 1919            A Directive of French Troops (1918)             Returning Soldiers (1919)            Three Hundred Years (1919)            Claude McKay, If We Must Die! (1919) MARCUS GARVEY             Declaration of the Rights of the Negro Peoples of the World                (1920) ALAIN LOCKE             The New Negro (1925) CLAUDE McKAY             The Harlem Dancer             Spring in New Hampshire             The Lynching             Tiger             The White City             The Tropics in New York  LANGSTON HUGHES             I, Too (1925)             The Negro Speaks of Rivers (1926)            The Negro Artists and the Racial Mountain (1926)            Harlem (1951)  JEAN TOOMER             from Cane  COUNTEE CULLEN             Yet Do I Marvel (1925)             Heritage ( 1925)             From the Dark Tower (1925)  ZORA NEALE HURSTON             Sweat (1926)  THE SCOTTSBORO CASES            Appeal of the Scottsboro Boys (1932) JOE LOUIS             Joe Louis Uncovers Dynamite (1935) STERLING BROWN             Strong Men (1932) ROBERT HAYDEN             Frederick Douglass             Middle Passage  RICHARD WRIGHT             The Ethics of Living Jim Crow: An Autobiographical Sketch                (1937)  PHILLIP RANDOLPH AND THE MARCH ON WASHINGTON MOVEMENT             Program of the March on Washington Movement (1942)            Executive Order 8802 (1941) TRUMAN INTEGRATES THE MILITARY             Executive Order 9981 (1948) PAUL ROBESON             Statement to the House Un-American Activities Committee (1956)  GWENDOLYN BROOKS             The Mother             We Real Cool             The Chicago Defender Sends a Man to Little Rock  RALPH ELLISON             from Invisible Man (1952) JAMES BALDWIN             Notes of a Native Son (1955)  BROWN V. BOARD OF EDUCATION OF TOPEKA             NAACP Brief (1953)            Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka (1954) MARTIN LUTHER KING. JR            Letter from Birmingham City Jail (1963)            I Have a Dream (1963)            SONGS OF THE CIVIL RIGHTS MOVEMENT             We Shall Overcome             O Freedom             Keep Your Eyes on the Prize             Ain’t Gonna let Nobody Turn Me ‘Round  KWANZAA            MALCOLM X            from The Autobiography of Malcolm X (1965) ELDRIDGE CLEAVER             from Soul on Ice  THE BLACK PANTHER PARTY             Black Panther Party Platform (1966) AMIRI BARAKA             Preface to a Twenty Volume Suicide Note             State/ment             Ka ’Ba  THE KERNER COMMISSION             from The Kerner Commission Report (1968) AFRICAN AMERICANS IN THE VIETNAM WAR             Selections from Bloods  MAYA ANGELOU            from I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings (1970) ALICE WALKER             from In Search of Our Mother’s Gardens: Womanist Prose                (1974) JESSE JACKSON             Address to the Democratic National Convention (1984) RAP MUSIC  THE CLARENCE THOMAS CONFIRMATION HEARING             Clarence Thomas’s Second Statement to the Senate Judiciary                Committee (1991) THE L.A. RIOTS             Congresswomen Maxine Waters’s Testimony Before the Senate                Banking Committee (1992)  Selected BibliographyAcknowledgements Selected Index