BRIETMAN (George), editor.
Malcolm X Speaks.
INSCRIBED BY ONE ACTIVIST TO ANOTHER
A collection of the revolutionary orator Malcolm X’s late speeches, published posthumously in the year of his assassination. This copy with a gift inscription from Ruth Schein, an activist who was involved in the Mississippi Freedom Summer Project in 1964, to the noted feminist publisher Florence Howe and her then husband Paul Lauter. The inscription is dated December 1976 and reads: “To Florence Howe and Paul Lauter, with affectionate memories of Mississippi ‘64. I know that we’ll be together again in the liberation struggle.”
The Freedom Summer Project was designed to bring white northern student volunteers, a third of whom were Jewish, to the south to engage in civil rights work like voter registration, and teaching at Freedom Schools. Notably the syllabus in the Freedom Schools was developed to encourage independent thought and centre marginalised histories, and is considered to have laid a foundation for the academic discipline of African American Studies. It is notable that Florence Howe would go on to found the Feminist Press “a literary nonprofit dedicated to promoting social justice and amplifying overlooked voices”, and was referred to in her NYT obituary as the “mother of Women’s Studies”.
A desirable copy in the scarce dustwrapper.
