Who Speaks for the Negro?

In 1964, Robert Penn Warren interviewed leaders, activists, and artists engaged in the U.S. Civil Rights Movement. His interviewees included well-known figures such as Reverend Martin Luther King, Jr., Malcom X, and James Baldwin, as well as lesser-known individuals whose names might otherwise be lost to history. Transcripts from these interviews, combined with Warren’s reflections on the movement, were first published in 1965 as Who Speaks for the Negro? This unique text in the history of the U.S. Civil Rights Movement serves as a powerful oral history of an all-important struggle. A new introduction by David W. Blight places the book in historical perspective.

“Warren’s book remains a luminous volume about race, racism, the South, black America, and our national destiny. We ignore or forget his work at our peril.”—Arnold Rampersad, Stanford University

“Not exactly a stroll down memory lane and certainly not a song to sing, yet WhoSpeaks for the Negro? brings back a question one would have thought already answered. We still search America’s soul for how to and who to include. This is still a book worthy of your time and somehow still a part of ours.”—Nikki Giovanni

“Fifty years later, we have this archival treasure that demonstrates why the Civil Rights Movement in fact gave our land its second equality, life, and liberty movement.”—Reverend James M. Lawson, Jr.