To Make a Poet Black

by J. Saunders Redding, Henry Louis Gates Jr. (Introduction)

This classic study of American Black poetry, first published in 1939 and long out of print, is the work of perhaps the pre-eminent figure in Black Studies of the past two generations. A major contribution to the history of Black thought in America, it ranges widely, beginning in the late eighteenth century with Jupiter Hammon, the first American Black writer, and ending in the 1930s with Countee Cullen and Langston Hughes.

Genres: Poetry

184 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1939

About the author

A graduate of Brown University, James Thomas Saunders Redding was an academic and historian who taught at Hampton Institute, Southern University in Baton Rouge, La., and Morehouse College in Atlanta before finishing his career at Cornell University.