Black Identity

A Thematic Reader

by Francis E. Kearns

Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1970 [First Edition], paperback

Very Good Condition, a little edge and shelf wear, a little rubbing and bumping to edges and corners, no inscriptions, (see photographs)

'A collection of short stories, poems, a short play, and personal essays written by both blacks and whites, on the themes of Negro experience and identity in America.  Intended as a literary approach to a social topic, the book also presents essays of social analysis and commentary, but these pieces have only a secondary role to play.
Black Identity is not an anthology of exclusively Afro-American writing.  though most of the writers brought together here are black, the collection also includes several important writers, since I feel that the question of black identify has been one of the major questions to which American writers have had to respond, whether with anger, rationalisation, or disdain.  James Baldwin put this thought more succinctly, though, when he wrote: "If you don't know my name, you don't know your own."