The Negro: A Selected List for School Libraries of Books by or About the Negro in Africa and America

Nashville: State Department of Education, 1935. Very good.. 22pp. Original gray printed wrappers, stapled. Light discoloration to front wrapper, minor creasing. Internally clean. A scarce state publication designed to guide teachers and librarians in segregated Tennessee in assembling a collection of works related to the African American experience. The Foreword reads, in part: "Teachers in the Colored Schools of Tennessee have felt a need for a list of books by and about the Negro which are especially adapted to the comprehension of the pupil.... Every Negro school in Tennessee should have in its library representative books on the literature of the race." The work was compiled by the Director of the Division of School Libraries, Martha Parks, and includes an Introduction by her. The listing of about 150 books is divided into two parts: "Books for the Elementary Grades" and "Books for High School." The latter section presents books by subject categories such as "General Reference," "Biography," "History," "Literature," and "Social and Economic Problems." There is also a section on "Important Books Now Out of Print" which includes works by such luminaries as Frederick Douglass, Booker T. Washington, Phillis Wheatley, and many others. Most of the books throughout the work include at least a brief annotation below the bibliographical information.