Before the Mayflower: A History of Black America

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Johnson Publishing Company, 1993 - African Americans - 681 pages
This is the twenty-fifth anniversary edition of a black history classic. First published in 1962, and continuously updated in succeeding years, the sixth edition of Before the Mayflower contains new and expanded material in every chapter and a new section on black pioneers and black firsts. Instead of adding a new chapter to cover contemporary developments, historian Lerone Bennett Jr. has revised the entire book, taking great care to retain the flavor and style of the highly praised original. The new edition begins with The African past and ends with the Second Reconstruction of the seventies and eighties. There are chapters on the Founding of Black America, Slavery, the Civil War, Black Reconstruction and the Freedom movement of the sixties and seventies. There are also in-depth treatments of the Life and Times of Jim Crow and Sex and Race. Interspersed through the chapters are personalized portraits of the seminal figures of black history. The much-copied Landmarks and Milestones section, which consists of significant dates and events from 1619 to 1987, has been reworked and expanded. The new section is essentially an outline of black history and is a handy and invaluable reference tool for students, teachers and laymen. The emphasis throughout the book is on history as revelation and as a means of understanding and transformation. Grounded on the work of specialists, and written in a dramatic and readable style, the book is designed for nonspecialists. Based on the trials and triumphs of black Americans, the book tells a story which is relevant to the lives of all Americans.

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Contents

THE AFRICAN PAST
1
THE FOUNDING OF BLACK AMERICA
55
BEHIND THE COTTON CURTAIN
86
Copyright

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About the author (1993)

Lerone Bennett Jr. was born in Clarksdale, Mississippi on October 17, 1928. By the age of 12, he was writing for the black newspaper The Mississippi Enterprise. He graduated from Morehouse College in 1949 and went to work at the black newspaper Atlanta Daily World. In 1953, he became an associate editor at Jet magazine. He moved to Ebony a year later and became the senior editor there in 1958. He eventually became an executive editor and worked for the magazine into his 80s. He wrote several books including Before the Mayflower, Forced Into Glory: Abraham Lincoln's White Dream, What Manner of Man: A Biography of Martin Luther King Jr., The Shaping of Black America, and Black Power U.S.A.: The Human Side of Reconstruction, 1867-1877. He died from advanced vascular dementia on February 14, 2018 at the age of 89.

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