Me and My Captain, Chain Gangs, Negro Songs of Protest

First Edition. 32 pp., letterpress on commercial stock in printed gold stiff wrappers. 4to. Good. Cover lightly soiled with a few light creases and minor edegwear. Interiors clean. [2158]

An unusual and uncommon pamphlet of African American protest songs, published from the collection of Lawrence Gellert following one earlier, titled "Negro Songs of Protest", and advertising two more forthcoming titles on the inside cover which appear not to have materialized. Gellert, born in Hungary, became an avid collector of African American music after moving to South Carolina to recover from an illness. Songs in the present pamphlet were arranged for voice and piano by Adomian, originally from Russia, a musician and composer who had also fought with the Abraham Lincoln Brigade and eventually moved to Mexico. An interesting collection for having an implicit leftist/Marxist political bent, and being from the era immediately preceding the Civil Rights Movement.