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Seventeenth-century sketches of Africa as it 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 500 others into one sensational narrative of the black experience in America: The Black Book.

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.

User Reviews about The Black Book: 35th Anniversary Edition

I have owned and given as gifts, copies of this incredible book since its original publication. The Black Book is simultaneously terrifying and uplifting. It is an unflinching look into our collective souls. With the current unfortunate leanings towards revisionist history, it is an absolute must-have for all American family libraries. -- The Black Book: 35th Anniversary Edition

I had the original hard copy of this book, but I loaned it out and never got it back. It's a keepsake, and I could find copies in softcover, but I was really pleased to see this 35th edition in hardback edition. You will treasure the photos and documents found in this book. Take a life experience from my, don't loan it out. You will never see it again. LOL -- The Black Book

OMG!!!! WOW, I'm so glad we ordered this book... The Photos...The ads... The newspaper clipping are simply wonderful.... The print is small but I imagine it has to be in order to stuff 300+ years of Black History on 193pages.... Its a must have for any one who wants to take a trip back in history!!!! -- Priceless Piece of Black History!!!

My parents purchased this book years ago when it intially was purchased. The book was the same size and printed on what seemed to be newsprint paper. My parents have an impressive library of books about African Americans but this book was exhaustive in a way I'd never seen. There were photos I hadn't been exposed to; I can't articulate why, but this book has always captured my interest.

It's years later and my parents split. I have no idea where the original copy is so when I saw the reissue, I picked up two copies.

I strongly recommend this book. -- One of my favorite books

I bought this for a friend and couldn't bear giving it up so I bought another one for myself. -- Great piece of history