This collection, drawn from a wealth of original research into previously untapped sources - including letters, diaries, memoirs, speeches, poems, songs, newspaper articles, advertisements, a ship's log, and official documents - allows African Americans to speak afresh across more than two centuries.

Besides the expected voices of Frederick Douglass and Sojourner Truth, this book makes vivid the experiences and views of a diverse range of lesser-known but equally fascinating personalities: Ira Aldridge, one of the great Shakespearean actors of his day; William Allen, the first black college professor in the country; the astronomer and mathematician Benjamin Banneker; Paul Cuffe, owner of a fleet of merchant ships; Martin R.

Delany, the father of black nationalism; James Forten, war veteran, inventor, and one of the wealthiest men in America; the militant Henry Highland Garnet, who urged slaves to revolt; the poet Phillis Wheatley; as well as ordinary free blacks, fugitive slaves, soldiers, wives, mothers, pioneers, sailors, and numerous others.