Speak Out in Thunder Tones: Letters and Other Writings by Black Northerners, 1787-1865

By Dorothy Sterling

Book Overview

This impressive 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. The editor has forged her material into a documentary history as dramatic as it is memorable.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 030680820X
• ISBN13: 9780306808203
• Release Date: March 1998
• Publisher: Grand Central Publishing
• Length: 416 Pages
• Weight: 1.35 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.0" x 5.6" x 8.6"

Customer Reviews

Great Book

This book is great. It is a peek inside the minds and life of early colonial blacks in America. I especially like the treatment of Paul Cuffe's correspondence with his contemporary. I also cannot forget to mention benjamin Bannaker and his responses to the racism of Thomas Jefferson.