I love that MLK wasn’t the main focus and that the Great Daisy Bates received her flowers. And I especially loved learning new bits of information. Great book.

I had to read this book, since I was named after the author.

This is my favorite book of all time. That means that it influenced my actions. Also, I collect editions of it, so if you have one you want to let go, please send it to me. :) Thank you.

Excellent resource book to have. It provides a detailed history of Black America before coming over on the Mayflower. There are many that have tried to lift up the defeats and successes of the African American. Great historical book to maintain in your home library.

I rarely write reviews, but this book deserves one.

Given it has been more than half a century since it's writing, it is amazing to me how timeless ideas are. Also, as unfortunate as it is, how long a gap there is between ideas and progress. The book also highlights the sheer number of individuals who contribute to progress versus the simplistic hero-worship that is conventional history.

It is absolutely impossible to summarize this tome, so I will share some anecdotes that particularly resonated with me (in no particular order), and the timeless ideas that stuck with me.

- This line from the author - “Historians and history books are historical….. They bind time and express time and their times… “
- I thought the passing of batons and the "binding of time" across historians from different times was a very cool concept
- A timeless idea that unfortunately persists. Slavery existed before European slave trade. Africans enslaved Africans and they just happened to now sell them to the Europeans.
- While that did happen, it was far from the norm, and actively discouraged. Quote from a letter the King of the Congo state sent to European royalty - “we need priests and people to teach in schools, and wine and flour for the holy sacrament…. beg of you to help stop the trade in slaves or markets for slave”
- The idea of connections across powerless groups
- Whether it was Frederick Douglas and his connections between womens’ suffrage and Black rights or MLK and his connections across Poor people irrespective of race, the concept of allyship is a timeless one
- Harriet Tubman - everything about her is incredible
- Tons of data about lack of social mobility existed in 1963 and the Civil Rights argument was incredibly data-backed. It is amazing to me, that these ideas which have been proven for so long, still need to be re-proven
- While there has been tremendous progress in Black contributions to Sports, Politics, Entertainment, Religion, I learned a lot about how Black America has been blocked out of business
- Black-owned banks and how they have reduced over the years
- In 1900, there were 200 Black-owned hospitals, in 2000, there were 3
- In 1900, 15M acres of farmland was controlled by African Americans, in 2000 that was down to 3M acres
- The broad number of intellectuals who built the scaffolding that Martin Luther King helped erect.
This book really talked about the broader intellectual history versus talking about one individual

This was an amazing piece of work. I knew that people of color in this country had it rough but this truly shows just how bad. Even with all of the hardships people of color tried again and again to be the best that society would not let them. I was inspired by this book to continue to strive for progress and thus success. The stories of my ancestors have shown me that I come from a strong stock that can survived the worst of times so that I may have the best of times.

Very detailed, and very informative. Content, in some areas, may promote anger while reading.

Learned some things I didn't know.

great read on african american history. the history of africans in america is the history of america.

I am thrilled! Lerone Bennett Jr is now my favourite author on African/American history. If he does not number among the great, I put him in a more beloved category: those who wrote African/American history as Lerone Bennett Jr might have written it. A cursory glance at the reviews revealed to me that the author has a following. Their are plenty of people who are still interested in African/American history.

As the title shows, this book details the events that occurred in America between 1619 and 1964. The trend was against slavery, segregation, and objectification of African/Americans. African/Americans were rising up and no longer wanted to be subordinates to their white counterparts. They scorned all forms of discrimination on account of colour and race. They were intent on creating an America that was colourless and raceless, yet they had to contend with racism. Racism was everywhere, All over America. Most of all in their homes.

At the time, African Americans did not care about money and social positions. They cared about ending discrimination, stopping wars, economic empowerment and education of children. If you ask me, I think they were right. When America was going to pieces, who had time to talk about good form and good taste? What are such things but pretty little blinds to shut out starvation and mass murder? We can refer to them as the moral generation. They are among the first that ever showed a genuine social conscience.

I can’t give due justice to this very impactful epic...Read it!

Before and After The Mayflower

I have always wanted to read this Negro Classic. Mr. Bennett goes into great details on many of the historical events that are just skimmed in many history books. The history books talk about John Brown, Nat Turner and Denmark Brady's insurrections and maybe even mention the name of Toussaint L'Overture but Mr. Bennett goes into more details and mentions many more.
This book provides quite a Black History lesson and I highly recommend reading it.

WLM
SC