“The ultimate treasure chest of the Black Experience.” – Dr. Henry Louis Gates Jr., Harvard University

“AN IMPORTANT DOCUMENT OF AMERICAN HISTORY that defines a people’s strength, hope, and perseverance.” – Gay Talese

“There is not a member of the human family on earth who cannot learn from it.” – Gloria Steinem

“A book no American – black or white – can afford to ignore.” – Dr. Cornel West, Princeton University

“TERRIFIC, TERRIFIC, TERRIFIC.” – Melvin Van Peebles, Writer/Director

Now in a deluxe 35th anniversary hardcover edition, The Black Book remains a breathtaking testament to the legendary wisdom, strength, and perseverance of black men and women intent on freedom. Prominent collectors Morris Levitt, Roger Furman, and Ernest Smith, as well as Middleton Harris and Toni Morrison (then a Random House editor, now a two-time Pulitzer Prize-winning Nobel laureate) spent months studying, laughing at, and crying over these materials-from transcripts of fugitive slaves’ trials and proclamations by Frederick Douglass and other celebrated abolitionists to chilling images of cross burnings and lynchings, patents registered by black inventors throughout the early twentieth century to vibrant posters from “Black Hollywood” films from the 1930s and 1940s.

A labor of love and a vital link to the richness and diversity of African American history and culture, The Black Book honors the past, reminding us where our nation has been, and gives flight to our hopes for what is yet to come. Beautifully and faithfully presented, and featuring a new Foreword and original poem by Toni Morrison, The Black Book remains a timeless landmark work.