UI Press | Edited by Leon Litwack and August Meier | Black Leaders of the Nineteenth Century

Black Leaders of the Nineteenth Century

Leading historians of the black experience offer compelling biographical accounts of seventeen nineteenth-century black leaders in this collection of original essays. Like its successful predecessor - Black Leaders of the Twentieth Century - this companion volume helps to illuminate the accomplishments and times of major black leaders who sought in diverse ways to advance the race.

Focusing on the challenges and perils faced by these religious and political leaders at both local and national levels, Leon Litwack and August Meier have gathered essays that represent enslaved and free, southern and northern, male and female blacks during a formative period in black history.

These studies present the latest scholarship on Richard Allen, by Albert J. Raboteau; Nat Turner, by Peter H. Wood; Harriet Tubman, by Waldo E. Martin, Jr.,; Mary Ann Shadd, by Jason H. Silverman; John Mercer Langston, by William Cheek and Aimee Lee Cheek; Henry Highland Garnet, by Sterling Stuckey; Martin R. Delany, by Nell Irvin Painter; Peter Humphries Clark, by David A. Gerber; Blanche K. Bruce, Robert Brown Elliott, and Holland Thompson, by Howard N. Rabinowitz; Alexander Crummell, by Alfred Moss; Henry McNeal Turner, by John Dittmer; William Henry Steward, by George C. Wright; Isaiah T. Montgomery, by Janey Sharp Hermann; and Mary Church Terrel, by Sharon Harley. In addition, Eric Foner examines "Black Reconstruction Leaders at the Grass Roots."

"Fresh scholarly portraits of some of the most influential black figures of the 19th century. . . . An excellent reader for all interested in American History."--Virginia Quarterly Review

"A remarkable volume that captures that diversity of individual experience, while also stimulating theoretical discussion of black leadership in the nineteenth century."--David W. Blight, Journal of American History

Leon Litwack is the Morrison Professor of History at the University of California at Berkeley. The author of North of Slavery: The Negro in the Free State, 1790-1860, he received the Pulitzer Prize in history and the Francis Parkman Prize for Been in the Storm So Long: The Aftermath of Slavery. August Meier, author of Negro Thought in America, 1880-1915 and co-author of Black History and the Historical Profession, 1915-1980, is professor of history at Kent State University.