Hardcover. New York, G. K. Hall & Company, 1st, 1996, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, 319 pages. Hardcover with dust jacket. Minor dust jacket edge wear, otherwise, spotless and tight copy.

Hardcover. NY, Atheneum, 1st, 1991, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover in a bright, unclipped dust jacket with edge wear, short closed tears. The first full-length biography--and likely the authoritative one for years to come--of the flamboyant black congressman who, as civil-rights gadfly and as libertine, exemplified the gap between our nation's ideals and practices that was given a name in Gunnar Myrdal's ``American Dilemma.'' Blessed with good looks, eloquence, and a bully pulpit (he succeeded his father as head of the Abyssinian Baptist Church, the nation's largest black congregation), Powell became ``Mr. Civil Rights'' in the pre-King era by combining agitation and electoral politics. As congressman from Harlem, Powell denounced racist southern colleagues and introduced the ``Powell Amendment'' to deny federal funds to projects or organizations that practiced discrimination. In 1960, he became chairman of the House Committee on Education and Labor, then the strongest position ever held by a black in the US government. Columbia Univ. political-science professor Hamilton also highlights how the Democratic politician became a thorn in the side of ally and foe alike. Powell was a maverick seldom bound by party (he endorsed Eisenhower for President), duty (a high absentee rate), or conventional morality. Inevitably, after an income-tax evasion trial, a suit filed by a Harlem resident he called a ``bag woman,'' and a European junket with two attractive female aides, Powell was stripped of his chairmanship by the House of Representatives despite his cry of double standards for white counterparts. Blending scholarship and ironic detachment, an admirably balanced treatment of a politician who provoked anything but objectivity during his Marion Barry-like career.

Hardcover. NY, Free Press, 1st, 1991, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover, 322 pages, b&w illustrations, in a bright dust jacket. This book examines the issue of racial stereotyping and with the issue of skin color as seen by such radio show broadcasts as Amos 'N' Andy. Some Blacks did not like the show when released, while others saw it as a humane portrayal of African-American Life. Overall, the show became the most popular radio show of all time. Later, it was touted by the Civil Rights Movement as offensive and racist.

Hardcover. NY, Albert & Charles Boni, 3rd pr, 1928, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Hardcover, pictorial boards with a black cloth spine. 376 pages with illustrations, endpapers, and cover design by Miguel Covarrubias. Frontispiece loose, otherwise a clean copy.

Hardcover. NY, Alfred A. Knopf, 1st US, 1935, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Hardcover, 337 pages, Index. Black & white photographic illustrations. Cream cloth with red & black illustration and lettering. The exciting story of the author's travels by car with Paris Benga, the famous Negro dancer, on a tour which zigzagged through the French colonies, the French and British mandates, and the Gold Coast to study the native dances in the districts most remote from civilization. This is also a study of the government and religion, the sex-life and marriage ritual, habits and customs, and the emotional and mental character of these West African Negroes. Mild stain to corners of front cover, not affecting the interior. Otherwise clean and tight copy.

Hardcover. Westport CT, Negro Universities Press , reprint, 1970, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Hardcover, brown cloth with gilt lettering on the spine. Originally published in 1852 this is an in depth study of the African people , both in Africa and in America. A great deal of material on slavery and the South, as well as early material on Liberia. Presented in a series of "conversations", this is an in-depth history of the African continent's peoples, the colonization of Africa, and subsequent African American slavery in the United States. Clean copy.

Softcover. NY, Babcock Galleries, 1s, 2010, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Softcover, 48 pages illustrated in color. Published in conjunction with the exhibition of the same name; Includes images of and images by African-Americans, including William Sidney Mount, Thomas Worth, Edward Mitchell Bannister, Lyell E. Carr, Sol Eytinge, Eastman Johnson, Sheldon Orrin Parsons, and others. Clean copy.

Softcover. Providence RI, John Carter Brown Library, 1st, 1988, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Softcover, 62 pages illustrated in b&w. Clean copy.

Hardcover. New York, Jump At The Sun/Hyperion, 1st, 2007, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover. Non-paginated. SIGNED BY ANN GRIFALCONI AND JERRY PINKNEY ON TITLE PAGE. 1st edition/1st printing. Full color illustrations by Jerry Pinkney. A bright, clean copy.

Hardcover. New York, Atheneum, 1st, 1991, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover, 48 pages. Color illustrations by Ashley Bryan. Musical arrangements by David Manning Thomas. Very good in a bright, unclipped dust jacket.

Softcover. NY, International Publishers, 7th pr., 1968, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Softcover, 409 pages. Years ago, the controlling view held that the response of the slaves in the United States to their bondage 'was one of passivity and docility'. That opinion, so decisive a part of the chauvinism afflicting the nation, is shown to be false in this book and in the material accumulated since its initial appearance has further substantiated this thesis; namely, that the African-American people, in slavery, forged a record of discontent and of resistance comparable to that marking the history of any other oppressed people. Name on front fly leaf otherwise clean.

Softcover. Belmont CA, Wadsworth Publishing, 1st, 1971, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Softcover, 202 pages. A collection of essays focusing on African American resistance, specifically (from the introduction) "on the nature and extent of the resistance of blacks to slavery in the United States." Name on front fly leaf, otherwise clean.

Hardcover. Rome, Grafica Internazionale, 1st, 1969, Book: Good, Dust Jacket: None, Hardcover, oblong format, orange cloth covers stamped in brown and white. ITALIAN TEXT. Introduction by Elio Mercuri. Poetic texts by Langston Hughes, Owen Dodson, Sterling A. Brown, James Weldon Johnson. With 32 color plates and 60 black and white illustrations. 8vo, 100 pages, Aligi Sassu created all the plates reproduced here in 1969 for the scenic cantata ''Anch'io sono l'America'' by Mario Nascimbene, inspired by the texts of contemporary black poets. The work is; had its world premiere on 20 June 1969 at the Teatro Sociale in Lecco, interpreted by Helenita Olivares and Therman Bailey. Covers with fading, light soil. Interior clean.

Hardcover. NY, Warner/Amistad, 1st, 1990, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover in a bright. unclipped dust jacket. Wonderful, inspiring stories of dozens of black women in opera and classical music. Features in-depth portrais of such notables as Sissieretta Jones, Elizabeth Taylor-Greenfield, Marie Selika, Marian Anderson, Flora Batson, Dorothy Maynor and many more. 236 pages including index. B&W photos. Inscription on front fly leaf, otherwise clean.

Softcover. NY, Penguin Books, reprint, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Softcover. Thomas Wentworth Higginson, a Unitarian minister, was a fervent member of new England's abolitionist movement, an active participant in the Underground Railroad, and part of a group that supplied material aid to John Brown before his ill-fated raid on Harpers Ferry. When the Civil War broke out, Higginson was commissioned as a colonel of the black troops training in the Sea Islands off the coast of the Carolinas. Shaped by American Romanticism and imbued with Higginson's interest in both man and nature, Army Life in a Black Regiment ranges from detailed reports on daily life to a vivid description of the author's near escape from cannon fire, to sketches that conjure up the beauty and mystery of the Sea Islands. This edition also features a selection of Higginson's essays, including "Nat Turner's Insurrection" and "Emily Dickinson's Letters." Clean copy.

Softcover. NY, Franklin Watts, 1st, 1995, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Softcover, 176 pages, b&w photos. The Contents are: Gentleman's Agreement - African Americans and Baseball's Beginning; A Ballplayer from Cooperstown - Post Reconstruction America and the Strange Career of Bud Fowler; False Spring - Fleet Walker and the Grudging Integration of the 1880s; Jim Crow Wins - Cap Anson Gets the Save; War Paint and Feathers - Jim Crow and Chief Tokohama; Second Class Immortals - Satchel Paige and the Black Babe Ruth; The Badge of Martyrdom - The Myth of Rickey and Robinson; and They Never Had It Made - from 1947 to Today; followed by Appendix: Professional Baseball Leagues Chronology; Glossary of Team Names; and an index. Clean copy.

Hardcover. Philadelphia, J.B. Lippincott, 1st, 1964, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, 216 pages. Hardcover with price-clipped dust jacket. Dust jacket shows chipping, and wear on edges. Covered with plastic sleeve. Previous owner's name on front fly leaf,otherwise clean, tight copy.

Hardcover. NY, Harcourt Brace Janovich , 1st, 1989, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, 59 pages. Hardcover with dust jacket. Color Illustrations by Lambert Davis. Light edgewear to dust jacket , else a clean, tight copy.

Softcover. Norman OK, University of Oklahoma Press, reprint, 1979, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Softcover, 207 pages, b&w illustrations. Few of rodeo's early heroes matched the achievements of the black cowboy Bill Pickett, and his story is recounted here for the first time in book form. Pickett grew up in Texas in the 1880s, the child of former slaves, to become nationally famous as the star of the 101 Ranch Wild West Show. Pickett was associated with such western figures as Tom Mix, Will Rogers, Milt Hinkle, and Lucille Mulhall, and earned a reputation as an all around cowboy of legendary abilities. His greatest claim to fame is as the originator of steer wrestling, the only rodeo event to the traced to one individual. Audiences all over the United States, South America, Canada, and England were amazed to see the "Dusky Demon" fell on thousand-pound steers and bring them down bite-'em style with his teeth. Clean copy.

Hardcover. Chicago, University of Chicago Press, 1st, 2018, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover in a bright dust jacket. It started with the searing sound of a slide careening up the neck of an electric guitar. In 1970, twenty-three-year-old Bruce Iglauer walked into Florence's Lounge, in the heart of Chicago's South Side, and was overwhelmed by the joyous, raw Chicago blues of Hound Dog Taylor and the HouseRockers. A year later, Iglauer produced Hound Dog's debut album in eight hours and pressed a thousand copies, the most he could afford. From that one album grew Alligator Records, the largest independent blues record label in the world. Bitten by the Blues is Iglauer's memoir of a life immersed in the blues--and the business of the blues. No one person was present at the creation of more great contemporary blues music than Iglauer: he produced albums by Koko Taylor, Albert Collins, Professor Longhair, Johnny Winter, Lonnie Mack, Son Seals, Roy Buchanan, Shemekia Copeland, and many other major figures. In this book, Iglauer takes us behind the scenes, offering unforgettable stories of those charismatic musicians and classic sessions, delivering an intimate and unvarnished look at what it's like to work with the greats of the blues. It's a vivid portrait of some of the extraordinary musicians and larger-than-life personalities who brought America's music to life in the clubs of Chicago's South and West Sides. Bitten by the Blues is also an expansive history of half a century of blues in Chicago and around the world, tracing the blues recording business through massive transitions, as a genre of music originally created by and for black southerners adapted to an influx of white fans and musicians and found a worldwide audience.

Hardcover. Boston, Little, Brown, 1st, 1947, Book: Good, Hardcover, green cloth with black lettering. Frontis portrait. This text is an expansion of the author's 1937 article Black Hamlet : the mind of an African Negro revealed by psychoanalysis. "This is the true story of John Chavafambira. It is a unique, never-before-written account of a native African medicine man, his life experiences and inner conflicts, etched against the background of two worlds-- white and black -- in collision. It is an amazing study of seemingly irreconcilable elements, laid in South Africa where the clash of color is most violent". Clean copy but mild musty odor.

Hardcover. Metuchen NJ, Scarecrow Press, 1st, 1981, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Hardcover, tan cloth with white lettering, 200 pages, b&w illustrations. SIGNED BY RUSSELL on front fly leaf. Clean, bright copy. No dust jacket issued.

Softcover. Chicago, Arcadia Publishing, 1st, 2000, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Softcover, 128 pages with b&w photos. Chronicles the history of the teams and players that spent time in the "Windy City." Has black and white photos of John Henry "Pop" Lloyd, Bruce Petway, Pete Hill, Grant "Home Run" Johnson, Lou Dials, Dave Malarcher, Willie Foster, "Cannonball" Dick Redding, Ted "Double Duty" Radcliffe and many others. Clean copy.

Hardcover. Syracuse NY, Syracuse University Press, 1st, 1973, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Good, Hardcover in a worn dust jacket with fading to spine, 236 pages. This foremost history of the Northern slave system examines its operation from its colonial beginnings to its dissolution. Unlike the South, which used slaves primarily for agricultural labor, the North trained and diversified its slave force to meet the needs of a complicated economy. In the early 19th century the author sees that economic displacement allows an emancipation of blacks that is at least as beneficial to the masters as to the blacks. Name on front fly leaf, otherwise clean.

Hardcover. Columbia, SC, State Company, 2nd, 1922, Book: Good, Dust Jacket: None, 345 pages. Hardcover with black stamped lettering on front. Rear top corner bumped. Light foxing on page block and internal pages. Light fading on edges of cover.

Hardcover. London, Soul Jazz Books, 1st, 2014, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, 192 pages. Hardcover with no dust jacket. Clean, unmarked copy with only minor wear to laminated boards. Black and white pictures throughout. At the start of the 1960s, jazz entered a unique period of revolution as African-American musicians redefined the art form in the context of the Civil Rights Movement, Afro-centric rhythm and thought and an ideology of black economic empowerment. John Coltrane, Ornette Coleman, Sun Ra, Pharoah Sanders, Albert Ayler and others developed a new cosmology of sound that was as revolutionary as the social and political changes that took place in America throughout the decade. From the musical explorations of John Coltrane, Cecil Taylor and Ornette Coleman to the collective and community concerns of Chciago's Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians and the black science fiction of Sun Ra, the new jazz musicians created a musical and cultural landscape from which jazz never looked back. This large-format deluxe hardback book features hundreds of stunning photographs of the new jazz musicians in the USA throughout the 1960s, presented with an introductory essay and biographies on the many artists included in the book.

Hardcover. NY, Knopf, 1st, 1991, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover, 237 pages, in a bright, unclipped dust jacket. Memoir of an African-American woman when she was a student at a formerly all white male private prep school.

Softcover. Los Angeles, J. Paul Getty Museum, 1st, 2010, Book: Good, Dust Jacket: None, 208 pages. Softcover. Black and white photographs. Light edgewear to wrappers, spine shows chips and creases. Reprint of the B&W photo essay first published in 1967-68 examines daily lives of African-Americans during the Civil Rights era. Text adapts Freed's diary entries and interviews. 208 pages.

Softcover. Washington DC, Howard University Press, 1994, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Softcover, 365 pages. Maps, illustrations, bibliography, index. A comparative social overview of slavery in Britain, America, and the Caribbean during the colonial period. Walvin carefully examines the external pressures exerted on coastal communities in Africa for slaves, the gradual development of a slave trading system within Africa, and the transport of over twelve million Africans across the seas. Clean copy. Several pages with dog-ear creases.

Softcover. Cambridge MA, Harvard University Press, reprint, 1998, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Softcover, 310 pages, b&w illustrations. Few Americans, black or white, recognize the degree to which early African American history is a maritime history. W. Jeffrey Bolster shatters the myth that black seafaring in the age of sail was limited to the Middle Passage. Seafaring was one of the most significant occupations among both enslaved and free black men between 1740 and 1865. Tens of thousands of black seamen sailed on lofty clippers and modest coasters. They sailed in whalers, warships, and privateers. Some were slaves, forced to work at sea, but by 1800 most were free men, seeking liberty and economic opportunity aboard ship.Bolster brings an intimate understanding of the sea to this extraordinary chapter in the formation of black America. Because of their unusual mobility, sailors were the eyes and ears to worlds beyond the limited horizon of black communities ashore. Sometimes helping to smuggle slaves to freedom, they were more often a unique conduit for news and information of concern to blacks.But for all its opportunities, life at sea was difficult. Blacks actively contributed to the Atlantic maritime culture shared by all seamen, but were often outsiders within it. Capturing that tension, Black Jacks examines not only how common experiences drew black and white sailors together-even as deeply internalized prejudices drove them apart-but also how the meaning of race aboard ship changed with time. Bolster traces the story to the end of the Civil War, when emancipated blacks began to be systematically excluded from maritime work. Rescuing African American seamen from obscurity, this stirring account reveals the critical role sailors played in helping forge new identities for black people in America.

Hardcover. San Antonio TX, Wings Press, reprint, 2017, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover in a bright dust jacket, 208 pages, b&w photos. On October 28, 1959, John Howard Griffin underwent a transformation that changed many lives beyond his own he made his skin black and traveled through the segregated Deep South. His odyssey of discovery was captured in journal entries, arguably the single most important documentation of 20th-century American racism ever written. More than 50 years later, this newly edited edition which is based on the original manuscript and includes a new design and added afterword gives fresh life to what is still considered a contemporary book. The story that earned respect from civil rights leaders and death threats from many others endures today as one of the great human and humanitarian documents of the era. Clean copy.

Hardcover. Washington, DC, Associated Publishers, Revised Ed., 1944, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Hardcover, 381 pages. Dark green cover with slight wear and white spotting to back. Slight soiling to edges. Binding cracked at page 45. Overall, a clean, tight copy.

Hardcover. Boston, Little, Brown & Company, 1st, 1961, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Hardcover, light mauve cloth with white lettering on spine, 311 pages with index. B&w illustrations, maps. Spine with light fading, book is clean, tight copy. Stated First Edition.

Softcover. Middletown CT, Wesleyan University Press, 1st, 1994, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Softcover, 237 pages. From its beginnings in hip hop culture, the dense rhythms and aggressive lyrics of rap music have made it a provocative fixture on the American cultural landscape. In Black Noise: Rap Music and Black Culture in Contemporary America, Tricia Rose, described by the New York Times as a "hip hop theorist," takes a comprehensive look at the lyrics, music, cultures, themes, and styles of this highly rhythmic, rhymed storytelling and grapples with the most salient issues and debates that surround it. Clean copy.

Hardcover. NY, Atheneum, 3rd pr., 1999, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover in a bright, unclipped dust jacket. In a clear, straightforward style, Katz describes the settlement of the Ohio and Mississippi Valleys (covering Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Michigan, Wisconsin, Minnesota, Iowa, Kansas, and Missouri) by African Americans seeking freedom, including biographical sketches of men and women who formed churches, started schools, or were politically active in their region. Some of these settlers were fugitive slaves; several set up stations on the Underground Railroad with the aid of the Quakers; others were farmers, poets, and soldiers. In several states, they helped form black regiments in the Civil War. Chronologically arranged, the book introduces many lesser-known personages not found in most collective biographies and places them in a broader context of U.S. history as a whole.

Softcover. Hanover NH, Hood Museum of Art, Dartmouth College , 1st, 2008, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Softcover, 374 pages illustrated in b&w and color. Issued in connection with an exhibition held March 8 to September 7, 2008, Hood Museum of Art, Dartmouth College. Black Womanhood examines an especially charged icon - the black female body - and contemporary artists' interventions upon historical images of black women as exotic Others, erotic fantasies, and supermaternal Mammies. This book presents icons of the black female body as seen from three separate but intersecting perspectives: the traditional African, the colonial, and the contemporary global. The display and contemplation of such iconic images addresses complex and often competing forces of self-presentation and the representation of others. Clean, like new. DOMESTIC SHIPPING ONLY.

Hardcover. NY, Amistad/HarperCollins, 3rd pr., 2005, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover in a bright, unclipped dust jacket. 540 pages, b&w illustrations, index. An important book of epic scope on America's first racially integrated, religiously-inspired political movement for change-The Underground Railroad, a movement peopled by daring heroes and heroines, and everyday folk For most, the mention of the Underground Railroad evokes images of hidden tunnels, midnight rides, and hairsbreadth escapes. Yet the Underground Railroad's epic story is much more morally complex and politically divisive than even the myths suggest. Against a backdrop of the country's westward expansion,which brought together Easterners who had engaged in slavery primarily in the abstract alongside slaveholding Southerners and their slaves, arose a clash of values that evolved into a fierce fight for nothing less than the country's soul. Beginning six decades before the Civil War, freedom-seeking blacks and pious whites worked together to save tens of thousands of lives, often at the risk of great physical danger to themselves. Not since the American Revolution had the country engaged in an act of such vast and profound civil disobedience that not only subverted federal law but also went against prevailing mores.

Hardcover. US, Atlas & Co, 6th, 2008, 240 pages. Hardcover with dust jacket. Clean, unmarked copy with only minor wear to dust jacket. Black and white pictures throughout.

Softcover. Oxford UK, Clarendon Press, reprint, 1991, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Softcover, green paper wraps, 449 pages. A study of the West Indies in the mid-nineteenth century, this book draws together the experiences of more than a dozen different sugar colonies and forms them into a coherent historical account. The first part of the book examines the West Indies on the eve of emancipation in 1830-1865, a key passage in West Indian history. Green presents a clear general picture of the sugar colonies, and places British governmental policy toward the region in the context of Victorian attitudes toward colonial questions.

Hardcover. New York, Powerhouse Books, 1st, 2000, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover, 143 pages, 94 b&w photographs throughout. Textured black cloth covers with silver lettering and photo plate pasted on front. In publisher's shrinkwrap. Dixon collects 135 of his own photographs taken over a period of ten years with New York City black biker clubs such as the Imperials, Transit Wheelers, and Uptown Riders. As a member of this inconspicuous subculture, Dixon is privy to what is usually heavily guarded, and he takes on the risky task of presenting members in some of their most gritty and vulnerable positions. He includes here pictures of both public and private events, from aerial shots of bike blessings to strip parties inside clubhouses. Dixon does not glamorize any aspect of biking and even includes photographs of injured riders and funerals owing to biking accidents. Ultimately, the reader gets more than an eyeful of what is rarely seen outside of the bikers' small circle. Biker enthusiasts of all races will appreciate the polished sport bikes and Dixon's perfect action shots; the mystery and danger surrounding these photos make one long to see the entire collection.

Softcover. Charlottesville, University of Virginia Press, 1st pbk, 2007, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Softcover. Illustrated with black and white photos.; A history of of the racially-charged integration of black players into baseball's southern minor leagues.

Softcover. Syracuse, NY, Willis N Bugbee Co, 1st, 1932, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, 16 pages. Softcover booklet. Green paper wrappers with softened edges. Light soil to paper wrappers. tight copy. Lightly faded on rear.

New York, John S. Taylor, 1st, 1836, Book: Good, Hardcover, 296 pages plus 8 pages of publisher's ads in rear. Original black boards with embossed design, gilt lettering and design with number ! on spine. Folding chart/map tipped in at page 196 with short tears. Illustrated title page. The first of three anti-slavery books published by John Taylor, a staunch abolitionist. A few brief notations on prlim pages, otherwise clean.

softcover. New York, Theatre Communications Group, reprint, 2004, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, 127 pages. Softcover. Clean, unmarked copy with only minor wear to wrappers.

Hardcover. NY, Charles Scribner's Sons, 2nd pr., 1985, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover in a bright, unclipped dust jacket. Blending biography and social history, this portrait of one of the first Black Americans to win fame and respect in the twentieth century draws on new interview material and translations from German press coverage. 330 pages, b&w illustrations.

Philadelphia , John Winston, reprint, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover. B&W illustrations by Cyrus Leroy Baldridge. Clean copy in a nice dust jacket, pages tanning. Caleb Willows, a 16-year-old slave, makes a break for freedom and later is a student at Fisk University in Tennessee. He becomes one of the Jubilee Singers, eleven young African Americans who tour the United States and England singing spirituals in order to raise money for the school.

Softcover. San Francisco, Backbeat Books, 1st, 1998, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Softcover, 271 pages, b&w illustrations. Chasin' That Devil Music has the feel of a documentary about the making of a thrilling motion picture. The main focus is on the Delta blues singers of the early 20th century--artists such as Charley Patton, Tommy Johnson, Son House, and Blind Lemon Jefferson who've achieved near-mythic status in blues circles. In addition, many of the articles gathered in this splendidly illustrated volume capture the process and people involved in tracking long-lost recordings nearly as elusive as the performers who made them. Here, for example, is the story of author/blues scholar Gayle Dean Wardlow's three-year hunt for the death certificate of Robert Johnson, the celebrated Mississippi bluesman and a figure whose legend has grown greater with each year since his much-debated death in 1938. The text here is nearly as raw in spots as the music that sparked it, but, as with those sounds (which can be heard on a terrific CD sampler included with the book), enthusiasts will find Chasin' That Devil Music riveting. Clean, bright copy.

Hardcover. Berkeley, University Of California Press, 1st, 2000, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover, black cloth stamped with silver lettering in a bright dust jacket, 112 pages. An immensely important record of black life in Chicago at the near end of the 1940's. Apart from a few photos of entertainers the rest capture, in fascinating detail, life in Chicago's south side. The workplace and workers, interiors of homes and bars, parades, funerals, sport and street scenes with plenty of activity. The detail in all these pictures is impressive and typical of Miller's eye to capture a scene that reveals so much. Foreword by Orville Schell. commentaries by Gordon Parks and Robert Stepto. Small color sticker on front fly leaf, otherwise clean.

Hardcover. New York, Schiffer, 1st, 2015, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, 160 pages. Hardcover with dust jacket. Color photographs throughout. Clean, tight copy.

Hardcover. New York, McGraw Hill, 1st, 1977, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover, 171 pages, in a bright, unclipped dust jacket with art by Charles Lilly.