The Black Book

by Middleton A. Harris (Editor), Toni Morrison (Foreword), Ernest Smith (Editor)

A new edition of the classic New York Times bestseller edited by Toni Morrison, offering an encyclopedic look at the black experience in America from 1619 through the 1940s with the original cover restored.

“I am so pleased the book is alive again. I still think there is no other work that tells and visualizes a story of such misery with seriousness, humor, grace and triumph.”—Toni Morrison

Seventeenth-century sketches of Africans as they appeared to marauding European traders. Nineteenth-century slave auction notices. Twentieth-century sheet music for work songs and freedom chants. Photographs of war heroes, regal in uniform. Antebellum reward posters for capturing runaway slaves. An 1856 article titled “A Visit to the Slave Mother Who Killed Her Child.”

In 1974, Middleton A. Harris and Toni Morrison led a team of gifted, passionate collectors in compiling these images and nearly five hundred others into one sensational narrative of the black experience in America—The Black Book. Now in a newly restored 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 joined Harris and Morrison (then a Random House editor, ultimately a two-time Pulitzer Prize–winning Nobel Laureate) to spend months studying, laughing at, and crying over these materials—transcripts from fugitive slaves’ trials and proclamations by Frederick Douglass and celebrated abolitionists, as well as chilling images of cross burnings and lynchings, patents registered by black inventors throughout the early twentieth century, and vibrant posters from “Black Hollywood” films of the 1930s and 1940s. Indeed, it was an article she found while researching this project that provided the inspiration for Morrison’s masterpiece, Beloved.

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 foreword and original poem by Toni Morrison, The Black Book remains a timeless landmark work.

Genres: History, Nonfiction, African American, Race, American History, Historical, Black Literature

224 pages, Hardcover

First published January 12, 1974

Reviews

[Betsy Robinson · Rating 5 out of 5]

You cannot read The Black Book, a scrapbook of historical documents about Black people, predating slavery and running up through the 1940s, without being simultaneously awestruck, outraged, and exhilarated.

I've read the book, often with a magnifying glass to see the tiny newspaper type, over the course of a month, writing about various articles as I went—publishing the material on Substack, where you can see images from the book:

Let Us Not Squander the Gifts of All People

Whiplash

Manifest Destiny . . . Epstein: Connect the Dots

History Rhymes: From Slave Patrollers to ICE

From editor Toni Morrison's Foreword, this letter from a prison inmate:

Dear Mrs. Morrison,

Someone sent me a copy of The Black Book and if at all possible I would like to have two more. I need one copy to give to a friend, another to throw against the wall over and over and over. The one I already own I want to hold in my arms against my heart.

[Morgan · Rating 5 out of 5]

In the preface, Toni Morrison writes, "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..." which is what this book is--an amazing journey through time and through bygone (but not forgotten) history. It's like a museum on page--there's newspaper clippings, bills of sale for slaves, promotional posters for cakewalks, ads for hair products, and historical documents chronicling the role Africans have played in the Western world since the 15th century. It's a lot to take in, which is partly why it took me such a long time to finish this. Some of the images are horrific and stomach-turning, such as one where a black murder suspect is dragged out prison and burned alive.

But, this is our shared history--the triumphs and terror, it's our shared, global history, and the legacy of centuries of oppression is still being unpacked and unraveled today. I can't even imagine how long it must have taken the book's editors to collect these materials. As Morrison wrote in the 35th anniversary foreword about the book: "Its new life is more than a welcome gift; it is a requirement for our national health."

[Theophilus (Theo) · Rating 3 out of 5]

Avery interesting read. This is a collection articles, pictures, and other documents. It's like reading a scrapbook that someone meticulously put together around a single theme, Black History. Some of the documents are difficult to read because of the small print (reduced to fit the pages. I learned what the contemporaries of a time period thought about some things. I felt slightly slighted because some of my favorite historical personages were left out. However, they may have been included in earlier editions. Worth the time for anyone even a little interested in black history. Some of the old advertisements are offensive, but that's what the ad men thought would sell their product. Tells a lot about America through its past.

[Jacques Coulardeau · Rating 5 out of 5]

A MAJOR CARD IN ELECTORAL TIMES

The first thing that comes to mind when we open this quasi-mythic if not cultish book is that it is a lot more than a plain “testament to the wisdom, strength, and perseverance of black men and women intent on freedom.” It is a real book of revelation about the future these black people contain in their genes and heritage because they were the original brood from which the whole humanity grew, starting some 300,000 years ago, and now proved to have been in Border Cave in South Africa, at least 200,000 years ago with a fossilized herbal bed showing how far they were already from animalhood, from even their direct ancestors Homo Erectus. They were then, hardly 80-100,000 years after emerging from their Hominin ancestors organizing their life and their living quarters for work and communal existence, but also for the comfort of their sleep. These Homo Sapiens were already vastly engaged on the road to humanity, to a life together for the comfort of all, and nature provided them with the raw materials they needed, be it ochre, silex or flints, grass to make their straw beds, all kinds of shells to make beads for their own decoration or to facilitate their exchanges of goods, and so many other things revealing their vast symbolism which of course was realized in daily life with language and communication.

Black Africans, or African Americans, or Caribbeans, or all of them, Black people, who were captured and transported who knows where to be slaves, some males being castrated flush with the abdomen to become eunuchs in various harems, a fate that was started as soon as agriculture was devised that required a regular workforce that could be obedient and effective, following orders from those who controlled the land and the farm work. We have to keep in mind the fate of the Non-Jewish Arab slave maid Hagar lent to Abraham by his own wife Sarah for him to have a son that was to be Ishmael, and remember how when Sarah gave birth to Isaac, she required from Abraham that he ban both Hagar and Ishmael and force them in the desert with little or no water or food, for them to die there.

That’s what this book is all about. All Black people in this world carry in their genes all our Homo Sapiens genes and the only supplements came from Neanderthals all over the world except Black Africa, and Denisovans in Asia and South East Asia, hence probably, though not checked yet, present in American Indians, Native Americans who came to the Americas via a north route from Siberia to Alaska and North America, and via a south route from South East Asia and Melanesia across the Southern Pacific Ocean to Chile and up to as far as Mesoamerica.

The explanation why as soon as 10,000 BCE Black Africans were made slaves for the Mediterranean world, the Middle East, and all around the Indian Ocean, both from West Africa to the Maghreb and beyond the Middle East, and from Eastern Africa up the Nile Valley and then to the Middle East and the Indian sub-continent. That’s what is missing actually. This fact that slavery was invented as a labor-organization answering the emergence of agriculture in the whole world around 12-10,000 BCE. The Americas are concerned by the Transatlantic slave trade from West Africa, particularly the Mali Empire that became Muslim in 1235 and since then enslaved animist Africans from non-Muslim tribes to sell them to North Africa, to the Maghreb and Libya. Has anything changed as for this forced migration?

But you will be surprised by the fact that French merchant from Dieppe and Rouen sent ships at least one century before Christopher Columbus to West Africa and to East Brazil to buy some of the spices and other commodities they sold with a tremendous profit in France and Europe. I can add to this the fact that in Bordeaux Black people were present and asserted as being present as soon as the 12-13th centuries, probably coming from Spain and the Maghreb since Bordeaux continued having links with the Moors in Spain five centuries after Charles Martel stopped the Moors in Poitiers in 732. Bordeaux was at the time controlled by the English with the famous Eleonor of Aquitania, Queen of France first and then England. Two one-hundred-year wars ensued and Bordeaux was finally integrated into the French Kingdom by Louis XIV at the end of the 17th century.

The book concentrates mostly on the positive side of the Blacks in the USA, of African Americans in North America. It is mostly a gathering of documents about this American slavery, and only American slavery, the slavery of systematic lynching, of the one-drop-of-blood theory, White the Anglo-Saxon Protestant slavery of Black African “chattel,” not even as valuable as a horse or a cow, hardly at the same level as a castrated ox (and women are just plain milk cows for the children they give birth to in order for the slaveowner to sell the children as soon as they can stand on their own feet and obey a simple order.

But the best part of the book is centered on Black culture in such conditions. Music and songs, ragtime they call it, is central. Africans were forbidden to speak their own languages and were mixed so that they could not. They could not speak English at first though since in those centuries – and this is still true in Africa – they had to be bilingual if not trilingual to just be able to live in West Africa or Angola or Congo, they probably already spoke or at least understood some English when being disembarked in America, if the crew on the ship was speaking English. Black Africans developed articulated human languages as soon as 300,000 years ago or maybe more, and they were thus born “linguists” and could probably learn any language just by hearing it and imitating it. But the Plantation owners who were the slave owners too, encouraged the slaves to sing, hum, some kind of rhythmic chanting or threnody because it enabled the slaves to keep a working rhythm that was the same for all and thus guaranteed production. For the slaves, it was a way to avoid the fact that some among them might linger behind and be whipped in the evening for lack of productivity. For the planters, it was using the African culture that is based on such rhythmic chanting to reach the level of production that made slavery profitable. It was also a vision of these slaves as being all the same, homogenized, just like a herd of sheep or cows, all running as soon as one does, all cows turning their nose against the wind to smell the water and dangerous intruders, etc. Don’t forget for these planters their African slaves were animals, following instincts, not deserving any religious initiation, christening, or even controlled practice because they had no souls, just like all animals indeed. Can you dream of a vicious scorpion having a divine soul?

The songs are very emotional, from lullabies to working songs, from “ragtime” to any other form in which they integrated some religious surviving tradition from Africa, hence Voodoo or some copycat Christian elements from the very start transferred from white Christian faith to Black African resistance. That’s where maybe the book has aged. The resistance was a lot less and at the same time a lot more than what is said. The main resistance was a whole set of practices, some tolerated, some totally clandestine, for the African slaves to improve their daily lot with some extra food (fishing for example, or trapping some small animals, along a tolerated line, and stealing chickens along a totally clandestine line), some extra protection against the future of being sold afar, children of course since that was an important income for the planter, but also grown-ups to guarantee some turnover that enabled better domination.

Some of the stories are fascinating. I love the story “Gris-Gris on his door-step drove him mad” page 146, which is both the illustration of how Voodoo fear and Voodoo domination can reduce a man to nothing at all, to a slow and systematic alienation and self-destruction, or incite one to escape by moving away, in this case to Peru, and coming back later on rich, and rebuilding his life there, or rather in the next-door city or next state with no consequence at all. Voodoo is not magic that can perform anything, except a mental subjugation that leads to death or abasement or insanity. All that is in the head of the victim and nothing else.

This is what I would call the insistence on a positive vision that keeps the future open for improvement and liberation. This is the positive stance of many Black activists or Black politicians like John Lewis and Barack Obama. Despite the worst possible shortcomings of the American Declaration of Independence and US Constitution, the constant and continuous fight that has to be first of all some mental power building a “Stand up in your soul, Speak up in your secret essence, and Shut up till time is ripe for you to speak” attitude of caution, resistance, and hope. That cannot be reduced to a binary light versus darkness metaphor, nor even a triadic light versus dawn-and/or-dusk versus dark-night pattern or motif. Life is not a quilt, bedspread, coverlet, or rug. Life is the energy that is cultivated and controlled when you make, produce, weave, and sow one of these quilts, bedspreads, coverlets, or rugs. This book is the assertion of what some 34 years later will become the famous Obama’s mantra “Yes I can” or “Yes your can” or “Yes we can.” But think of Sergeant William Carney, heroic flag bearer of the 54th Massachusetts U.S. Colored Troops, since 1776 till victory.

“The old flag never touch’d the ground, boys,
The old flag never touch’d the ground
Though shot and shell fell all around, boys,
The dear old flag was never downed.”

And another song answers this hope for a constitution of freedom, though this freedom will remain a potential vastly covered up for a long time by the words and their interpretation that de facto justified slavery.

“Little Sally Walker
Sitting in the saucer
Weeping and crying for someone to love her.
Rise, Sally, rise!
Wipe ya weepin eyes
Put ya hands on ya hips
Let ya backbone slip
Aww shake it to the east
Aww shake it to the west
Aww shake it to the one you love the best”

And remember that in this life, tomorrow is always the result of this morning’s hope and this afternoon’s march and tonight’s election results that only depend on how powerful our dance shook our backbone to the south where every day, our sun reaches His zenith.

And that is the testament of this book, the something that serves as a sign or evidence of a specified fact, event, or quality. “I am not complete here; there is much more, but there is no time and no more space… And I have journeys to take, ships to name, and crews,” as Toni Morrison wrote in 1973. And all these journeys, ships, and crews have to reach the end we hope will be a new beginning.

Dr. Jacques COULARDEAU

[RaeAnna Rekemeyer · Rating 5 out of 5]

The Black Book is a heartbreaking history of Africans’ struggle to gain humanity, recognition, rights, and the hope for equality and citizenship in America from 1619 through the 1940s.
https://onthebl.org/2020/02/08/the-bl...

[Joanne · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a phenomenal resource to help learn about Black History. Filled with photographs, newspaper articles and handbills from days long past, they all are so important to know about and never forget. My heart just broke reading some of these true accounts. There were also many beautiful stories, so many remarkable people that persevered through the most unimaginably cruel and horrible circumstances and survived and even thrived. Such a powerful book and highly recommended.

[Kristin · Rating 5 out of 5]

If I could give this more than five stars, I would. An invaluable resource for anyone who is interested in African-American history and culture, or book history.

[WITCHCRAFT · Rating 5 out of 5]

Like a time machine, it sucks you and you feel like you're there. The entire thing is primary sources throughout the history of African Americans. Make this your Black History Month book, and you won't be disappointed.

[Faith]

This was highlighted on NPR today.

[Sharonbrown · Rating 5 out of 5]

Awesome journey into Black history through actual photographs, public and private records, 1st person narratives, etc.

[Glenda Nelms · Rating 4 out of 5]

Historical and interesting scrapbook of deep Black History.

[Mary Quintanilla · Rating 5 out of 5]

The saddest book but what really happened in history

[Octavia Cade · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a bit of an odd book to describe. More than anything else, its structure reminds me of a scrapbook: disparate bits and pieces crammed together, with no editorial comments. Which is not to say that this indicates an absence of editorial input, as the whole has clearly been painstakingly constructed from an enormous variety of sources. The whole effect, at the end (and I am only guessing as to what was intended) is to cement African Americans in the history of the United States, in multiple ways and in multiple fields, in order to prevent the whitewashing of history which is frankly all too common.

Some of that history is horrid and confronting. Cheek by jowl with photographs of art made by slaves are photographs and records of lynching, and this is hard to look at. Unsurprisingly, the early parts of The Black Book have a heavy focus on slavery, and while this is leavened with documentation of active resistance, the real variety comes through later in the book, with sections on everything from music to military history. What's most impressive, though, is the variety of sources. All are contemporary, from newspaper articles (admittedly, sometimes these were hard to read because the font was so tiny; one of the few times I would have preferred a change in format), letters, artwork, legal documents, musical scores, poetry, movie posters... when I said above that this book has the feel of a scrapbook this is why! It's an enormously appealing approach to history, collating so many contemporary records in this way. And while I see the reason in having all the editorial work behind the curtain, as it were, I would have loved for this book to have included a chapter (or a foreword, or an afterword) on the making of it, and how the editors made the choices that they did. Because as crammed as this book is with primary sources, they can only be a fraction of what actually exists...

[Debra Hines · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is like a scrapbook of Black history, compiled in the 70s, and was a project of Toni Morrison's when she was an editor at Random House. It is a collection of pictures, news articles, documents, advertisements and many other primary sources that document the history of racism, and accomplishments- Lewis Latimer and his patent drawings are included, for example, that Black Americans endured since slavery. For example, there is a first hand account of the Draft Riots that occurred during the civil war, advertisements for runaway slaves, merchandise that depicted Blacks as more monkey than human, and so much more. The documents are collected, one after the other, without commentary, and the artifacts speak for themselves, like a scrapbook. Would make a good addition to all US history classrooms as part of the classroom library.

[Lindsey · Rating 5 out of 5]

How do you review something like this? No matter how much I learn about the history of our treatment of BIPOC in this country I'm always shocked and horrified when I hear something I didn't know. The Black Book should be required reading for every American.

I received a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

[David Steele · Rating 5 out of 5]

Sadly, I did not know this book existed until after Toni Morrison passed last year. Thank God she shepherded this to publication, because it's one of the most unique and essential historical volume I've ever come across. You have to see it for yourself to understand why it's so important and to appreciate its greatness.

[Todd]

brilliant idea. i love the concept of big book of random facts focused on black culture/history. an almanac, basically. There's alot of cool stuff here. Only critiques are the typeset (really small) and i think maybe some chapter headings or something to help the flow a little better.

[Joan Carlton · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is humbling, hurtful, sad, uplifting, educational, and factual. I had so many mixed feelings reading it. I wanted to cry, laugh, but I also got mad. So much rich history was captured in the stories, songs, pictures, and articles. I am glad I read it. We can never forget…

[marcali · Rating 3 out of 5]

a primary source collage

[Ebonie · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is very necessary and I am glad U had the opportunity to buy it and read it.

[Michael · Rating 5 out of 5]

Necessary reading for anyone who wants to understand American history.

[Melvina Germain · Rating 5 out of 5]

I bought three of these books and gave two as gifts.

[Vedia Barnett · Rating 5 out of 5]

LOVE!!!!!!

[Jenevive Desroches · Rating 5 out of 5]

Like opening a door into a history that is still kept too deeply in shadow.

[Sam · Rating 5 out of 5]

The book is a museum.

[Katie · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excellent; learned history, events & people I’d never heard of or learned about in public school, college or graduate school. History is important and is worth every effort to learn and read about!

[Matt Sautman · Rating 5 out of 5]

A rich anthology of Black patents, news articles, photographs, and historical tidbits, The Black Book makes for an unconventional reading experience that rewards anyone willing to work through the book. The Black Book is a celebration and a eulogy simultaneously that calls attention to how much Black Americans have endured and overcame, as well preserving an archive of knowledge for future generations.

[Frank Thomson · Rating 5 out of 5]

Definitely not a traditional novel. Very hard to read, both physically and emotionally. However, to understand antebellum conditions under chattel slavery and post-Civil War society under Jim Crow segregation, this book is a must read. The stories, examples and primary source documents are both heart-wrenching and necessary for building the empathy to prevent these atrocities from ever happening again.

[Kathi · Rating 4 out of 5]

As the inside cover states, The Black Book honors the past, reminding us of where our nation has been, and gives flight to our hopes for what is yet to come. Personally, I felt it was a journey through a museum of pages filled with slave auction notices, sheet music, photographs, birth records, posters, etc. that captured the diversity of African American culture.

[Cat Roule · Rating 3 out of 5]

An interesting book, full of history. It was like looking at old historical newspapers and advertisements, along with letters and pictures. Very well put together, the cover was really great. I had some issues with the print at times, but all in all I liked it. Would be a great book to have in school reference libraries.
Thanks to Goodreads giveaway, and Random House books for this copy!