Who Speaks for the Negro?

Warren Robert Penn, Blight David W.

First published in 1965, this is a unique text in the history of the American Civil Rights Movement. Robert Penn Warren interviewed a wide range of African American leaders, activists and artists across the country, among them Martin Luther King, Malcom X, and James Baldwin. Sections from the transcripts of these interviews are combined with the author's insightful reflections on the interviewees and the Civil Rights Movement as a whole to create a powerful oral history of this all-important struggle. A new introduction by David W. Blight places Warren's book in historical perspective.

About the Author

Robert Penn Warren (1905-1989) was awarded the Pulitzer Prize three times: in 1946 for his novel "All the King's Men" and twice for his poetry, in 1958 and 1979.

David W. Blight is Class of 1954 Professor of American History at Yale University and director of the Gilder Lehrman Center for the Study of Slavery, Resistance, and Abolition at Yale.

Reviews

"Warren's book remains a luminous volume about race, racism, the South, black America, and our national destiny. It consistently reflects the uncommon courage, integrity, and prophetic imagination that made him such a towering cultural interpreter when it first appeared. We ignore or forget his work at our peril" – Arnold Rampersad, Stanford University

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