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Original wrappers. 4.75 x 7”, 24pp.

Rare World War I-era reprint of  a booklet originally written by abolitionists at the start of the Civil War to support enlisting Black soldiers for the Union Army - reprinted by the first Black bookstore in Harlem - the first major bookstore in the US to specialize in African-American history and literature.

The "Mecca of Literature Pertaining to Colored People" was the brainchild of George Young, a former Pullman Porter, who, in the preface to this booklet, notes that even as the Black soldier was again showing his devotion to America, begging “that you treat him not as an alien, but a full-fledged American citizen…”, the “time has come when the educated Negro…shall devote more time and money to the Negro’s history. When this is done we shall know that there is no disgrace in wearing the skin that God has given…”  Possibly the first of the handful of Young Bookstore reprints, this is especially rare, most institutions holding only a microfilm copy from the original in the Schomburg Collection.