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In this comprehensive volume of the collected writings of James Monroe Whitfield (1822-71), Robert S. Levine and Ivy G. Wilson restore this African American poet, abolitionist, and intellectual to his rightful place in the arts and politics of the nineteenth-century United States. Whitfield's works, including poems from his celebrated America and Other Poems (1853), were printed in influential journals and newspapers, such as Frederick Douglass's The North Star. A champion of the black emigration movement during the 1850s, Whitfield was embraced by African Americans as a black nationalist bard when he moved from his longtime home in Buffalo, New York, to California in the early 1860s. However, by the beginning of the twentieth century, his reputation had faded. For this volume, Levine and Wilson gathered and annotated all of Whitfield's extant writings, both poetry and prose, and many pieces are reprinted here for the first time since their original publication. In their thorough introduction, the editors situate Whitfield in relation to key debates on black nationalism in African American culture, underscoring the importance of poetry and periodical culture to black writing during the period. Intro -- Contents -- Acknowledgments -- Introduction -- A Note on the Texts -- PART I: America -- America and Other Poems -- AMERICA -- Christmas Hymn -- Lines on the Death of John Quincy Adams -- To Cinque -- New Year's Hymn -- To A. H. -- Love -- How Long -- The Arch Apostate -- The Misanthropist -- A Hymn -- Yes! Strike Again That Sounding String -- To -- -- Prayer of the Oppressed -- To S. A. T. -- Delusive Hope -- To M. E. A. -- A Hymn -- Self-Reliance -- Ode for the Fourth of July -- Midnight Musings -- Ode to Music -- Stanzas for the First of August -- The North Star -- PART II: Black Nationalism and Emigration -- Extracts from an Eulogy Delivered before the Buffalo Library Association upon the Life and Character of the Late Thomas Harris -- Letter to Frederick Douglass, 30 August 1849 -- Arguments, Pro and Con, on the Call for a National Emigration Convention -- From The Vision -- Morning Song -- Report on the Establishment of a Periodical, to Be the Organ of the Black and Colored Race on the American Continent -- Prospectus of the Afric-American Quarterly Repository -- Lines, Addressed to Mr. and Mrs. J. T. Holly, on the Death of Their Two Infant Daughters -- Letter to Frank P. Blair, Jr., 1 February 1858 -- Letter to the Pacific Appeal, 2 August 1862 -- PART III: Poems from California -- Elegy on T. T. Tatem, Esq. -- To A-. Sketching from Nature -- A Poem, Written for the Celebration of the Fourth Anniversary of President Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation -- Poem, Written by J. M. Whitfield for the Celebration of the Anniversary of West Indian Emancipation -- Poem -- Selected Bibliography.
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