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What the Negro Wants Spiral-Bound | April 30, 2017

Rayford W. Logan, Kenneth Robert Janken (Introduction by)

$52.69 - Free Shipping

Published in 1944, What the Negro Wants was a direct and emphatic call for the end of segregation and racial discrimination that set the agenda for the civil rights movement to come.

With essays by fourteen prominent African American intellectuals, including Langston Hughes, Sterling Brown, Mary McLeod Bethune, A. Philip Randolph, W. E. B. Du Bois, and Roy Wilkins, What the Negro Wants explores the policies and practices that could be employed to achieve equal rights and opportunities for Black Americans, rejecting calls to reform the old system of segregation and instead arguing for the construction of a new system of equality. Stirring intense controversy at the time of publication, the book serves as a unique window into the history of the civil rights movement and offers startling comparisons to today’s continuing fight against racism and inequality.

Originally gathered together by distinguished Howard University historian Rayford W. Logan in 1944, our 2001 edition of the book includes Rayford Logan’s introduction to the 1969 reprint, a new introduction by Kenneth Janken, and an updated bibliography.

Publisher: Longleaf Services
Original Binding: Paperback
Pages: 416 pages
ISBN-10: 0268019649
Item Weight: 1.5 lbs
Dimensions: 5.5 x 0.9 x 8.5 inches

“This book provides a marvelous window into the contours of mid-twentieth century black political thought. . . . More than half a century after its publication, this book remains a valuable document for anyone interested in the origins of the modern civil rights movement. Its indictment of American racism remains powerful and relevant even today.” —Chicago Tribune

Rayford W. Logan (1897-1982) was professor emeritus of history at Howard University. Logan was an African American historian and Pan-African activist who was best known for his study of post-Reconstruction America. In the late 1940s, he was a chief advisor to the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) on international affairs.