Origin of Races and Color Hardcover by Martin R Delany

Origin of Races and Color Hardcover by Martin R Delany

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Origin of Races and Color Hardcover by Martin R Delany

Of the books authored by Martin R. Delany (1812-1885), The Origin of Races and Color is perhaps the most obscure. Out-of-print until now, it has been available to the public only through select libraries. At the time of its publication in 1879, this valuable resource presented a bold challenge to racist views of African inferiority. Delany wrote in opposition to a developing oppressive intellectualism that used Darwin's thesis, the survival of the fittest, to support its demented theories of Black inferiority.

Skillfully blending biblical history, archaeology and anthropology, Delany offered evidence to the serious inquirer suggesting the first humans were African, and that these Africans were . . . builders of the pyramids, sculptors of the sphinxes, and original god-kings. . . . With such radical assertions, Delany advanced a model of ancient history that contradicted the very foundation of intellectual racism. He believed knowledge of one's past was essential, and that it could provide Black people with the regenerative force necessary to inspire their self-improvement. Were he alive today, Delany would certainly feel at home with the present generation of Africancentrists, especially since he developed and articulated so many of their arguments more than a century ago.
Delany, Martin R.: -

Martin Delany (1812-1885) was an abolitionist, writer, soldier, physician, and black nationalist. Born free in Virginia, Delany was raised in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, where he became a physician's assistant and worked tirelessly during the cholera epidemic of 1833. Admitted to Harvard Medical School in 1850, Delany was dismissed after protests by white students threatened his life. After traveling to the South in 1839 to witness the conditions experienced by slaves for the first time, Delany moved to Rochester, New York to work with Frederick Douglass on his abolitionist newspaper The North Star. After a brief visit to Liberia and several years in Canada, Delany returned to the United States at the onset of the Civil War, eventually working as a recruiter for the United States Colored Troops and serving as the first African American field grade officer in the Army. During Reconstruction, he moved to South Carolina, where he worked for the Freedmen's Bureau and dedicated himself to activism and politics. Delany was also a prolific pamphleteer, journalist, and novelist whose book Blake, or the Huts of America (1859-1862) is considered a pioneering work of black nationalist fiction. Towards the end of his life, Delany devoted himself to the Liberia Exodus Joint Stock Steamship Company, an expedition he envisioned as a response to the growing violence and voter suppression faced by African Americans following the withdrawal of federal troops from the South in 1877. In his final years, Delany returned to his work as a physician, supplementing his wife's income as a seamstress in order to pay for their children to attend Wilberforce College in Ohio.

SKU Unavailable
ISBN 13 9781639233175
ISBN 10 1639233172
Title Origin of Races and Color Hardcover
Author Martin R Delany
Condition Unavailable
Binding Type Hardback
Publisher Lushena Books Inc
Year published 2022-04-01
Number of pages 102
Cover note Book picture is for illustrative purposes only, actual binding, cover or edition may vary.
Note Unavailable