The Black Book: 35th Anniversary Edition

As fresh as the day it was born, 35 years ago, this category-smashing book is scrapbook, photo album, treasure chest and time capsule. An undated history of black life and culture in America emerges from the abundant photographs and contemporaneous reportage along with bountiful facsimiles of highly diverse articles (e.g., commercial advertisements, public notices, patent applications, sheet music and obituaries). Resonant scraps, photos and facts pepper the pages—“The land on which Madison Square Garden in New York now rests once belonged to a black woman, Annie d'Angola”; a photograph of Leo Pinckney, “the first draftee of World War I”; a list of black jockeys who've won the Kentucky Derby. Subjects occasionally cluster, among them black resistance to slavery, slave art (e.g., quilts, clothing, tools and furniture) and voodoo. Toni Morrison's quiet editorial hand is subtly acknowledged by her preface, which, in 1974, appeared without attribution as back jacket copy. Given the celebrated status of this book, which remains as valuable and fresh as when newly made, and the unlikelihood of another edition, an index would have been useful and welcome. Photos. (Nov.)