Stalking George Washington Williams

Abstract

It was more than a half-century ago when I had the experience, but I remember it as distinctly as if it were yesterday. In the spring of 1945 I was just beginning the work on a book that was to be called From Slavery to Freedom: A History of Negro Americans. A good way to begin, I thought, was to read the shelves in the library of North Carolina College where I was teaching to see what, if anything, had been written, aside from Carter G. Woodson’s The Negro in Our History, published in 1922. To my astonishment, my eyes fell on a two-volume work called A History of the Negro Race in America from 1619 to 1880: Negros, as Slaves, as Soldiers, and as Citizens, by George Washington Williams. Upon examination, I discovered that it had been published in l882 by the reputable publisher G.P. Putnam’s Sons. The work was about 1,000 pages long and covered African civilization and virtually every aspect of the African American experience in the New World. It was carefully researched, logically organized, and well written. Williams had been the author of still another work, A History of Negro Troops in the War of the Rebellion, published in 1887 by Harper and Brothers.