WE SING AMERICA
First edition of this important reader by two Black women about African American history — with illustrations of Black and white children playing together that elicited demands for the book to be burned.
Near fine in very good plus dust jacket.
Price: $2,000.00
WE SING AMERICA
"Every citizen has the right to be protected by law. We are a lawless country until black people are given such protection."
Marion Cuthbert is often remembered as a prominent proponent of higher education for Black people, particularly women. Rather less well known is her early foray into children's books, the most notable of which is WE SING AMERICA. This reader, highlighting the lives and stories of Black Americans from impoverished children to historical figures, was written to teach both Black and white children understanding, appreciation, and mutual respect in the era of Jim Crow. WE SING AMERICA also deals realistically with Jim Crow, including topics like the effects of the Depression, the criminalization of Black youth (in one story, a young boy is taken to court by a racist milkman who baselessly accuses the boy of theft), and sharecropping. One reviewer noted that it "would make an excellent text to set young Americans thinking, but for exactly that reason it will probably have little circulation where it is really needed" (Johnson, 945).
The illustrations of WE SING AMERICA, some of which depict Black children and white children playing together, brought intense racist blowback. Georgia Governor Eugene Talmadge brandished a copy of the book in 1941 in a speech in which he demanded "all books [...] that advocate this racial co-education movement be burned" (McCOMB DAILY JOURNAL, 2). An excellent copy, in notably sharp condition and retaining its original dust jacket.
Read more: Catalogue of the Blockson Afro-American Collection, item 4319; Guy B. Johnson, Review in the American Journal of Sociology vol. 42 no. 6;"Pike School Authorities Should Check Into Rosenwald Matter," McComb Daily Journal, 6 August 1941
The Object
New York: Friendship Press, (1936). 7.5'' x 5.5''. Original red cloth boards. Original unclipped ($1.00) pictorial dust jacket. Pink endpapers. Illustrated in black and white. 118 pages. Modern bookseller label to front pastedown. Pencil name on front fly leaf; scattered pencil marks in margins and a few words underlined. Jacket with some toning to spine and a bit of chipping to ends; milder toning to edges. Binding with slight sunning to top and bottom edges, light bumping to spine ends. Tight.
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