Search Results: Authors starting with J from Langdon Manor Books LLC

San Jose, California: Phoenix Publications, 1977. Very good. 11" x 8½". Bifolium. pp. [12]. Very good: light edge wear; toned and dust-soiled. This is the first, and presumably only, issue of a periodical and promotional for the Gay Task Force of Central California (GTFCC). All we know about the GTFCC is found in an article in this issue which was apparently reprinted from the September 1, 1977 issue of the Bay Area Reporter ("BAR"). The GTFCC was originally founded by Eladio "Lucky" Guerrero in 1976 as "The Gay Liaison Task Force of Santa Clara County." After functioning for a year as an adjunct of the Human Relations Commission of Santa Clara County, it re-formed as this new entity in the hope of better "serv[ing] the needs of the gay community more effectively as a political association." That article also stated that The Avatar would grow to a sixty page magazine with a monthly press run of 10,000 copies. The printer of this issue, Ms. Atlas Press, was founded in 1975 by Johnie Staggs and… Read More

[Shreveport, Louisiana]: [Shreveport Journal], 1945. Good. 9" x 6". Stapled selfwrappers. Pp. 8. Good: several ink blots, affecting a couple characters of text; outer bifolium loose from bottom staple; faint water stains to edges; a few penciled notations and visible scratches. This is an offprint of a report lamenting the migration of African Americans from the Shreveport area due to racism and fear. It provides suggestions to improve race relations and working conditions for African Americans in the South, and was written by the first Black juvenile detective in Caddo Parish, Frank Jameson. Per contemporary newspaper accounts, Frank Jameson served as a case worker for the Caddo Relief Administration and as "Negro probation officer" for Caddo Parish from the 1930s to the 1970s. His work led to the 1935 organization of the "colored children's bureau" of Shreveport, a welfare group, and by 1953 he was the first Black member of a Caddo Parish juvenile investigation team. Jameson died in 1977, and… Read More

St. Louis, Missouri: [Committee of the Community Race Relations Institute], 1946. 10¾" x 8¾". Stapled wrappers. Reproduced typescript printed rectos only. [4], 154A [i.e. 155] leaves. Very good: wrappers moderately worn, scuffed and dust soiled; wrappers and a few leaves with small chips; text lightly toned. In February, 1946, leaders from thirty-four civic, welfare, religious and labor organizations met at the downtown Y.M.C.A. in St. Louis with the goal of improving that city's race relations. This is the report of those meetings. The Community Race Relations Institute ("CRRI") grew out of the Race Relations Department of the United Church Board for Homeland Ministries. According to the Amistad Research Center, the department's mission was to "define problem areas related to race relations in the United States, to develop programs and techniques designed to promote constructive action, and to work toward relieving areas of tension utilizing, wherever possible, local resources." The department,… Read More

Augusta, GA: Chronicle Job Print, 1909. Good. 8¾" x 5½". Red cloth, title gilt. Pp. [author frontis], 276 + three page table of contents and 23 plates interspersed. About good: spine appears to be fully perished and crudely repaired with tape; endpapers crudely renewed; hinges cracked but holding; scrawled pencil notations to verso of frontis and last (blank) page; several leaves with tiny tears, folds or faint stains at edges. This is a thorough and compelling history of an organization of Black Baptist churches in Georgia, the Walker Baptist Association (WBA). It was compiled by Reverend R.J. Johnson, who served as pastor of four churches and treasurer of the association. WBA was organized in 1868 with seven churches in Jefferson County, Georgia. At the time of this book's publication WBA covered eight counties and included a Sunday School program, missionary department, women's auxiliary and a high school, known as the Walker Baptist Institute (WBI). According to their website, WBA is… Read More

Orangeburg, South Carolina, 1940. Very good. 5 1/8" x 7". Blue faux leather over boards commercial autograph book. Pp. [114], nearly all inscribed. Very good: covers moderately worn at edges and lightly soiled; evidence of minor damp stain to edges of a few leaves, lightly smearing a few lines of ink but largely not affecting legibility; a few scattered ink splotches. This is a lightly illustrated and deeply moving autograph book that belonged to a young African American woman, Leola Johnston. Leola was in the class of 1942 at the South Carolina HBCU, Claflin College, and this book showcases the hopes, wishes and lived experiences of her friends and classmates at the school. Claflin College (now University) is the oldest HBCU in South Carolina and claims to be the first college in the state to welcome all students regardless of race or gender. The school boasts a long list of notable alumni, not least among them the 1884 graduates Alice Jackson Moorer and Annie Thortne, two of the first five… Read More

San Francisco: Carl E. Jordan, 1972. Newsprint. pp. 15. Very good with light toning to outermost leavs and a tiny tear to the cover page. This is an issue of the short-lived San Francisco Forum which touted itself as "The Independent Community Newspaper" for San Francisco. Its premier issue contained a short history of how the paper came about, as well as its purpose: [i]"the idea of the FORUM was born amid reports of long continuing strife rampant within the bowels of other publications. In addition to the searing dissention [sic] within the management of our community newspapers there exists the counter-productive and egocentric mismanagement of the major social organizations within our community. As a result the public has been exposed to . . . biased reporting and the effective silencing of the distasteful truths. For any paper to publish but one side of any issue is equal to the total censorship of the other."[/i] The paper provided information relevant to the gay community, with regular… Read More