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.

In 1926, Walter White, then assistant secretary of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, broke the story of an especially horrific triple lynching in Aiken, South Carolina. Aiken was White's forty-first lynching investigation in eight years. He returned to New York drained by the experience. The following year he took a leave of absence from the NAACP and, with help from a Guggenheim grant, spent a year in France writing Rope and Faggot. Ironically subtitled "A Biography of Judge Lynch, " Rope and Faggot is a compelling example of partisan scholarship and is based on White's first-hand investigations. It was first published in 1929.

The book met two important goals for White: it debunked the "big lie" that lynching punished black men for raping white women and protected the purity of "the flower of the white race, " and it provided White with an opportunity to deliver a penetrating critique of the southern culture that nourished this form of blood sport. White marshaled statistics demonstrating that accusations of rape or attempted rape accounted for less than 30 percent of the lynchings. Presenting evidence of white females of all classes crossing the color line for love -- evidence that white supremacists themselves used to agitate whites to support anti-miscegenation laws -- White insisted that most interracial unions were consentual and not forced. Despite the emphasis on sexual issues in instances of lynching, White also argued that the fury and sadism with which the mob attacked victims had more to do with keeping blacks in their place and with controlling the black labor force. Some of the strongest sections of the book deal with White's analysis of theeconomic and cultural foundations of lynching.

Walter White's powerful study of a shameful practice in modern American history is now back in print, with a new introduction by Kenneth Robert Janken.

In February 1971, racial tension surrounding school desegregation in Wilmington, North Carolina, culminated in four days of violence and skirmishes between white vigilantes and black residents. The turmoil resulted in two deaths, six injuries, more than $500,000 in damage, and the firebombing of a white-owned store, before the National Guard restored uneasy peace. Despite glaring irregularities in the subsequent trial, ten young persons were convicted of arson and conspiracy and then sentenced to a total of 282 years in prison. They became known internationally as the Wilmington Ten. A powerful movement arose within North Carolina and beyond to demand their freedom, and after several witnesses admitted to perjury, a federal appeals court, also citing prosecutorial misconduct, overturned the convictions in 1980. Kenneth Janken narrates the dramatic story of the Ten, connecting their story to a larger arc of Black Power and the transformation of post-Civil Rights era political organizing. Grounded in extensive interviews, newly declassified government documents, and archival research, this book thoroughly examines the 1971 events and the subsequent movement for justice that strongly influenced the wider African American freedom struggle.

A masterful biography of a key figure in twentieth-century African American history

"Logan (1897-1982), the subject of this superb biography by Kenneth Robert Janken, was a gifted intellectual, important Pan-Africanist, bold civil rights crusader, and highly productive historian.... Among the best in a sizable body of first-rate studies devoted to the lives of African-American leaders, Janken's biography is certain to gain for Logan the recognition that persistently eluded him during his lifetime.... Based upon impressive research especially in the previously untapped Logan papers, and written with extraordinary grace, this multidimensional biography provides a sensitive and incisive analysis of the career, intellectual development, and complex personality of an important scholar/activist". -- Journal of American History

"Janken's well-written biography based on Logan's work, letters, diaries, and autobiography, vividly brings back to life the struggles of the Talented Tenth in the early twentieth century". -- American Historical Review

"In his frank and thorough biography ... Janken provides a window on the history of black intellectual life of the 20th century". -- Washington Post Book World

"Scrupulously fair and intellectually astute.... A frank, well-founded assessment not only of personalities, but also of agendas and the dynamics of power in the top tier of black America at midcentury". -- Kirkus Reviews

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.

Walter White (1893-1955) was among the nation's preeminent champions of civil rights. With blond hair and blue eyes, he could "pass" as white even though he identified as African American, and his physical appearance allowed him to go undercover to investigate more than 40 lynchings and race riots in the years following World War I. As executive secretary of the NAACP from 1931 until his death in 1955, White promoted the Harlem Renaissance and led influential national campaigns against lynching, segregation in the military, and racism in Hollywood movies. In this first scholarly biography, Kenneth Robert Janken considers the man who embodied many contradictions. Walter White gained access to white elite culture, establishing friendships with Eleanor Roosevelt and numerous congressmen and Supreme Court justices, but he ultimately considered himself--and was considered by many--an organization man, "Mr. NAACP."

In 1926, Walter White, then assistant secretary of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, broke the story of an especially horrific triple lynching in Aiken, South Carolina. Aiken was White's forty-first lynching investigation in eight years. He returned to New York drained by the experience. The following year he took a leave of absence from the NAACP and, with help from a Guggenheim grant, spent a year in France writing Rope and Faggot. Ironically subtitled "A Biography of Judge Lynch, " Rope and Faggot is a compelling example of partisan scholarship and is based on White's first-hand investigations. It was first published in 1929.

The book met two important goals for White: it debunked the "big lie" that lynching punished black men for raping white women and protected the purity of "the flower of the white race, " and it provided White with an opportunity to deliver a penetrating critique of the southern culture that nourished this form of blood sport. White marshaled statistics demonstrating that accusations of rape or attempted rape accounted for less than 30 percent of the lynchings. Presenting evidence of white females of all classes crossing the color line for love -- evidence that white supremacists themselves used to agitate whites to support anti-miscegenation laws -- White insisted that most interracial unions were consentual and not forced. Despite the emphasis on sexual issues in instances of lynching, White also argued that the fury and sadism with which the mob attacked victims had more to do with keeping blacks in their place and with controlling the black labor force. Some of the strongest sections of the book deal with White's analysis of theeconomic and cultural foundations of lynching.

Walter White's powerful study of a shameful practice in modern American history is now back in print, with a new introduction by Kenneth Robert Janken.