Great American Negroes

My late father, Ben Richardson, was the author of this book. Our family never gave permission for this reprint. The Kessinger company will not respond to our queries. We ask interested buyers to look for used copies of the original editions online and elsewhere. They will certainly get the book at a much better price. Thank you for your interest.

The original Great American Negroes, published in the 1940s, is an amazing compendium of info on outstanding contemporary black americans. A great strength of this book is the variety of lives and careers it discusses. Subjects include poet Langston Hughes, conductor Dean Dixon, educator Mordecai Johnsnon, along with Marian Anderson, James Weldon Johnson and a host of others. For many years this was the best reference work of its type as an intro to these figures. The original illustrations, elegant, lively portrait drawings are beautiful. The book was later revised and expanded by a different author and the illustrations were replaced with lesser work. Overall, the first version is a real find and something of a milestone in its genre.