The Negro In Revelation, In History and in Citizenship. What the Race Has Done and is Doing in Arms, Arts, Letters, The Pulpit, the Forum, The School, The Marts of Trade and With Those Mighty Weapons in the Battle of Life the Shovel and the Hoe. A Message to All Men That He is in the Way to Solve the Race Problem for Himself.

New York: N. D. Thompson Publishing Co., 1902. 8vo (9” x 6.5”), dark green cloth front cover, marbled paper back cover, black cloth spine, corners, and fore-edge of front cover, gilt title and black palm tree ornaments to upper cover, two sample spines with gilt titles on flap at front paste-down. [i-vi], vii-xix, [106] pp., 9 pp. of blank subscription form, numerous illus.

A scarce salesman’s dummy for a book on the contributions of African-Americans to a diverse array of fields.

Written more than thirty years after Emancipation, the work represented by this canvassing book or salesman’s dummy would cover African-American contribution to such fields as Law, Medicine, Divinity, Industry, Literature and the Fine Arts, Business, Politics, Journalism, The Lecture Field, War, Education, and so on. Offering “a summary of the actual accomplishments and attainments of the colored man,” it claimed to be the most exhaustive study of its kind yet published.

The volume begins with a section entitled “Negro in Revelation,” which traces the black race as it figures in scripture. This is followed by concise biographies and numerous portraits of prominent African Americans. As Gen. John B. Gordon pronounces in the introduction to the text: “The doctrine here taught, by the undoubted testimony of facts, is, that the Negro, in common with members of every other race, must work out his own destiny. All that the white man can do for him is to give him an opportunity and a fair chance.” Gordon expresses his hope that the book will do good among both black and white people. Among the eminent figures featured are Booker T. Washington, Toussaint Louverture, Alexandre Dumas, Judson Lyons, John Wesley Hoffman, W. H. Councill, Narcissa West, Emma B. Delaney, Inez C. Parker, Effie Waller, Mary Church Terrell, etc. Two chapters are devoted to the “College-bred Negro,” and another chapter concerns “a remarkable incident” that transpired between Thomas Jefferson and African Amercan Julius Melbourn. One chapter is entitled “Among the Southern People the Negro Finds His Best Friends.”

CONDITION: Good, a few dings and nicks to the boards and along the margins, light rubbing to boards, edge of back-cover worn through.

An interesting example of the marketing of African American achievement in the early twentieth century.