The Black Man, His Antecedents, His Genius, and His Achievements

"The first really important work in black history ... perhaps his best book." Goezmann, Beyond the Revolution (2009)
"William Wells Brown truly dominated the market of Black historical works in the postbellum period." -Van Hove, Congoism (2017)
"A writer whose literary career is a remarkable catalog of firsts." -Arkansas Review (2004)
"Scholars have called William Wells Brown the first African American to achieve distinction in belles lettres, or literature." Africana (2004)

In 1863, former slave William Wells Brown, a prominent African-American abolitionist lecturer, pioneering novelist, playwright, and black historian published perhaps his greatest work, "The Black Man, His Antecedents, His Genius, and His Achievements."

In introducing his work, Brown describes his purpose in writing the book as "to meet and refute misrepresentations, and to supply a deficiency, long felt in the community, of a work containing sketches of individuals who, by their own genius, capacity, and intellectual development, have surmounted the many obstacles which slavery and prejudice have thrown in their way, and raised themselves to positions of honor and influence."

Growing up a slave, Brown is famously credited as being the author of the first novel, play, and travel book published by an African American in the United States.

In his book "The Black Man," Brown argued for blacks' rights to full citizenship, and to make his case he includes a series of life histories of notable blacks, showing their contributions to the nation or region. Brown also highlights slaves' willingness to use violence to gain their freedom, including portraits of a number of revolutionary blacks who revolted against their slave masters.

Brown's book opens with his own amazing life story, then is followed by an overview of black heritage going back to Ethiopia, Egypt, Minerva, Jupiter, Tertullian, St. Augustine, Hanno, Hamilcar Barca, and Hannibal---demonstrating the historical nature of the cosmopolitan black community.

The remainder of the book is devoted to 57 short biographies of famous black historical figures including Benjamin Baneker, Nat Turner, Toussaint L'Ouverture, Crispus Attucks, Alexander Dumas, Denmark Vesey, Martin Delany, Frederick Douglass, James W.C. Pennington, Sir Edward Jordan, and John S. Rock.

In describing his view on social justice, Brown writes that "every man must make equality for himself. No society, no government, can make this equality. I do not expect the slave of the south to jump into equality; all I claim for him is, that he may be allowed to jump into liberty, and let him make equality for himself."

In describing his views on the high importance of self-improvement, Brown writes that "I have some white neighbors around me in Cambridge; they are not very intellectual; they don't associate with my family; but whenever they shall improve themselves, and bring themselves up by their own intellectual and moral worth, I shall not object to their coming into my society--all things being equal."

Other works by the author include:
Narrative of William W. Brown, a Fugitive Slave
Three Years in Europe: Or, Places I Have Seen and People I Have Met
CLOTEL; or the President's Daughter
The American Fugitive in Europe
The Rising Son, or The Antecedents and Advancements of the Colored Race
My Southern Home: or, The South and Its People
The Negro in the American Rebellion

Biographies included in Brown's "The Black Man" include:

BENJAMIN BANNEK

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