Black Americana and Abolition – 4 – Bauman Rare Books - July 2022 Faith Ringgold’s Aunt Harriet’s Underground Railroad In The Sky, 1992, Warmly Inscribed By Maya Angelou 3. (ANGELOU,Maya) RINGGOLD, Faith. AuntHarriet’sUnderground Railroad in the Sky. New York, 1992. Tall quarto, original laminated pictorial paper boards. $950. First edition of the renowned artist’s second children’s book, inscribed in the year of publication by Maya Angelou, who collected Ringgold’s art: “Brett Johnson Joy! Maya Angelou 11/19/92.” Pioneering American artist Ringgold “is best known for her richly referential, painted story quilts” (Art Newspaper). In 1991, she published her first book, Tar Beach, inspired by her 1988 story quilt of the same title. Here, in Aunt Harriet’s Underground Railroad, she continues the story of Cassie Lightfoot, who has timetraveled and is trapped in the antebellum South. She is guided to freedom by Harriet Tubman... A unique and creative vision” (Kirkus). Angelou’s inscription is likely to the award-winning fashion designer Brett Johnson. A fine copy. “The Negro People… Demand Full Freedom And Absolute Equality” 4. APTHEKER, Herbert and YERGAN, Max. A Petition… to the United Nations on Behalf of 13 Million Oppressed Negro Citizens of the United States of America. New York, 1946. Slim octavo, original black and ivory self-wrappers. $1500. First edition of a very scarce 1946 publication by the embattled National Negro Congress documenting “its most innovative program, the petition to the UN,” in fragile original wrappers. With “the American justice system maintaining an astounding silence on the lynching, torture and police brutality that Blacks endured… the National Negro Congress (NNC) became convinced that the only hope for redress lay with the United Nations. On May 17, 1946, [the NNC] asked historian Herbert Aptheker to draft an eight-page report to the UN” (Anderson, 554). Before its petition could be reviewed by the UN, the NNC was told it “had to prove that the rights of African Americans were being violated… The emerging Cold War and the rise of anti-Communist hysteria made it impossible for the NNC to respond.” By early 1947, the NNC had been “absorbed into the emerging Civil Rights Congress” (Anderson, 54553). Text very fresh with only trace of bookseller ticket removal to front wrapper. A fine copy.
RkJQdWJsaXNoZXIy NDg3OTM=