The Black book

As fresh as the day it was born, 35 years ago, this category-smashing book is scrapbook, photo album, treasure chest and time capsule. An undated history of black life and culture in America emerges from the abundant photographs and contemporaneous reportage along with bountiful facsimiles of highly diverse articles (e.g., commercial advertisements, public notices, patent applications, sheet music and obituaries). Resonant scraps, photos and facts pepper the pages-"The land on which Madison Square Garden in New York now rests once belonged to a black woman, Annie d'Angola"; a photograph of Leo Pinckney, "the first draftee of World War I"; a list of black jockeys who've won the Kentucky Derby. Subjects occasionally cluster, among them black resistance to slavery, slave art (e.g., quilts, clothing, tools and furniture) and voodoo. Toni Morrison's quiet editorial hand is subtly acknowledged by her preface, which, in 1974, appeared without attribution as back jacket copy. Given the celebrated status of this book, which remains as valuable and fresh as when newly made, and the unlikelihood of another edition, an index would have been useful and welcome. Photos. (Nov.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved

PREFACE I am The Black Book . Between my top and my bottom, my right and my left, I hold what I have seen, what I have done, and what I have thought. I am everything I have hated: labor without harvest; death without honor; life without land or law. I am a black woman holding a white child in her arms singing to her own baby lying unattended in the grass. I am all the ways I have failed: I am the black slave owner, the buyer of Golden Peacock Bleach Creme and Dr. Palmer's Skin Whitener, the selfhating player of the dozens; I am my own nigger joke. I am all the ways I survived: I am tun-mush, hoecake cooked on a hoe; I am Fourteen black jockeys winning the Kentucky Derby. I am the creator of hundreds of patented inventions; I am Lafitte the pirate and Marie Laveau. I am Bessie Smith winning a roller-skating contest; I am quilts and ironwork, fine carpentry and lace. I am the wars I fought, the gold I mined, the horses I broke, the trails I blazed. I am all the things I have seen: The New York Caucasian newspaper, the scarred back of Gordon the slave, the Draft Riots, darky tunes, and merchants distorting my face to sell thread, soap, shoe polish, coconut. And I am all the things I have ever loved: scuppernong wine, cool baptisms in silent water, dream books and number playing. I am the sound of my own voice singing "Sangaree." I am ring-shouts, and blues, ragtime and gospels. I am mojo, voodoo, and gold earrings. I am not complete here; there is much more, but there is no more time and no more space . . . and I have journeys to take, ships to name, and crews. Toni Morrison, 1973 Excerpted from The Black Book All rights reserved by the original copyright owners. Excerpts are provided for display purposes only and may not be reproduced, reprinted or distributed without the written permission of the publisher.