Africa and America: Addresses and Discourses

Springfield, MA: Willey & Co, 1891. First Edition. Very Good. First edition, first printing. Presentation copy inscribed by Alexander Crummell on the frontispiece verso: "The Honorable Judge Blodget. With the respects of the Author. Washington D.C. Sept. 2, 1895." vii, [viii - xii], [13] - 466, [2] pp. Bound in publisher's maroon cloth with black lettering to spine and decorative blindstamping to front board, floral endpapers. Very Good with fading to spine, light crease to bottom corner of front board, rubbing to extremities and bumping to corners, and minimal mottling to cloth. Light foxing to textblock edges and margins throughout, binding over-opened (truncated) at multiple places.

Alexander Crummell was an American scholar and Episcopalian minister. He graduated from Queen's College, Cambridge in 1853 and spent twenty years as a teacher and missionary in Liberia. Returning to the United States in 1873, Crummell founded St. Luke’s Episcopal Church in Washington, D.C. He served another twenty years in the church before retiring to teach at Howard University and found the American Negro Academy, whose members included W.E.B. Du Bois and Paul Laurence Dunbar. This collection of Crummell's speeches includes "The Race-Problem in America," "The Black Woman of the South," "Common Sense in Common Schooling," and "The Dignity of Labor." Uncommon signed. (Inventory #: 140947911)