Civilization and Black Progress

Founder of the American Negro Academy, Alexander Crummell (1819-1898) played a pivotal role in later nineteenth-century debates over race and black intellect. Yet compared with the work of Du Bois and Washington, his speeches and publications have remained relatively inaccessible until now. Here are eighteen texts, along with a thorough biography and valuable source list. As this collection makes clear, Crummell's writings speak of a transitional figure who bridged two radically different worlds separated by the bloodshed and upheaval of the Civil War.