Lift Every Voice

This comprehensive anthology will be the standard source for the

study of African American public address for years to come.

For Americans of the 19th century, as W. E. B. Du Bois observed, eloquent

speeches were 'the shining lights of civilization' that both expressed

and sought to improve the lives and communities from which they sprang.

Through political speeches, sermons, lectures, oral testimonies, and ceremonial

addresses, African Americans offered diverse responses to the issues and

events of their times, including not only slavery and racial equality but

also women's rights, education, religion, immigration, socialism, war,

Indian policy, and labor organization, among others. The speeches in this

collection are among the most powerful expressions of African American

opinions on these issues and were delivered on occasions and before audiences

where the speakers believed their words might be transformative.

Lift Every Voice is a completely revised, updated, and expanded

version of Philip Foner's 1972 classic Voice of Black America, which Library

Journal hailed as "indispensable.""This well-edited and

richly inclusive work," wrote Benjamin Quarles, "unveils the

full sweep of Black expression as found in platform addresses" by

"men and women who join eloquence with reason in articulating their

grievances and their aspirations and in arousing their listeners with their

ringing and prophetic challenges." This new collection includes over

60 additional texts and revised and expanded introductory essays that provide

historical, biographical, and critical information for each speech.

Containing more than 150 speeches, this anthology represents the most

extensive and diverse collection of African American oratory of the 18th

and 19th centuries ever published. Lift Every Voice makes readily

accessible not only the classic orations of such well-known figures

as Frederick Douglass, Sojourner Truth, and Booker T. Washington but also

dozens of lesser-known but important speeches deserving greater recognition

and study. Many of these speeches are previously unpublished, uncollected,

or long out of print.