Abraham Chapman (1915–1976)

This is a well curated, densely packed anthology of African American literature that I have returned to constantly over the years. Published in 1968, it includes work ranging from Frederick Douglass's autobiography to a 1967 essay by Stanley Sanders, a young activist from the Watts district of Los Angeles. The strongest emphasis is on the Harlem Renaissance of the 1920s. In hindsight, there is a notable absence of voices from the nonviolent protest movement: Malcolm X is here, but Martin Luther King Jr., author of six books, is missing. Five years after the historic March on Washington, this collection, like a lot of frustrated activists in '68, has no truck with nonviolent conflict. Instead, the voices selected by Abraham Chapman often express a kind of vague macho militancy, as in the refrain of one of Sterling A. Brown's dialect poems: "The strong men keep a-comin' on / The strong men git stronger." Or as Margaret Walker's anthemic "For My People" concludes, "Let the martial songs be written, let the dirges disappear. Let a race of men now rise and take control." I imagine that this collection was very welcome to Black Power partisans. In any case, it has been an indispensable book to me. It is expertly edited, the introduction and biographical notes are excellent, and the selections are generous. I have encountered many writers through this book whom I probably never would have known without it, including several great ones.… (altro)