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REFERENCE AND RESEARCH  KAISER
spreading the facts of Negro life and history and in helping to guide the uninitiated or the inexpert to the sources of these facts.

Erwin A. Salk makes very modest claims for his A Layman's Guide to Negro History. In his introduction, he says that "many of [his] listings and complications are partial, only a sampling—a touchstone here and there-to provide introductions, indications, and guidelines for use by individuals and organizations....It is perhaps not as complete as that required for the professional scholar." But he has done very well. This is, as the book says, the first comprehensive bibliography of books and teaching aids concerned with the history of the Negro people in the U.S. Salk's emphasis is upon the Negroes' struggle and protest and their contributions despite barriers. His book brings together in compact and convenient listings a basic library, general history, biographies, and autobiographies, children's books, cultural contributions, paperbacks, recordings and films, Negro inventors, attitudes toward race, organizations, periodicals, teaching guides and a chronology of important men and women in Negro history. His "Negro slave revolts" section is very good. Salk admits his indebtedness to various bibliographies and books. FREEDOMWAYS' many "Recent Books" lists play an important part in the development of this book. We are glad to be helpful in a worthwhile project. 

What are some of the book's limitations? There is an eclectic quality in the selection of the book lists. Some books are listed here that shouldn't be in an introductory text of this kind. This is not an all-inclusive bibliography and these books do more harm here than good. Some examples are J.C. Furnas's The Road to Harper's Ferry (a terrible book on John Brown) and his Goodbye to Uncle Tom (given extended criticism in FREEDOMWAYS, Spring 1961); Larry Gara's The Liberty Line: The Legend of the Underground Railroad (See critical note on this book in FREEDOMWAYS, Summer 1962); Larry Cuban's The Negro in America (listed twice) (Cuban doesn't know the good books in the field of Negro studies; documents are drawn from the wrong sources; "Negroes and Reconstruction" section is terrible, "Civil War" section weak); and Henderson H. Donald's The Negro Freedman (a terrible account of Negroes after Emancipation). The Negro inventors listed are only to 1900. The many Negro inventors since 1900 are left out. A few paperback books are not known as such. Margaret Just Butcher's The Negro in American Culture is an example. "More and later entries could have been made in the sections titled "Racial Attitudes in Textbooks" and "Bibliographies." But this is a very useful book, the first of its kind.

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