HUGHES, Langston and Milton MELTZER. A Pictorial History of the Negro in America. New York: Crown, 1963.

4to. Illustrated throughout. Original taupe cloth-backed boards; publisher's dust jacket (separation along front spine fold, a few tears, chipping and creasing). Provenance: William P. and Alice D. Mahoney (presentation inscription); by descent to present owner.

New Revised Edition, INSCRIBED BY HUGHES TO THE MAHONEYS: “Especially for Bill and Alice – with happy memories of my Ghana visit with you – Sincerely, Langston New York 1963.”

In June of 1963, Langston Hughes made his third trip to Africa in two years, where he traveled to Uganda and Egypt before heading to Ghana. At the urging of famed reporter Edward R. Murrow (then serving as the director of the United States Information Agency), Hughes agreed to speak at the formal opening of the new U. S. library in Accra. “If Langston had misgivings about performing what Morrow called ‘this little chore,’ he probably shelved them when he learned that the new ambassador to Ghana was the liberal Democratic lawyer William P. Mahoney of Arizona. ‘Ghana will be fortunately to have him in residence,’ he wrote Murrow. Bill Mahoney was married to Noël Sullivan’s niece Alice Doyle ” (Rampersad, Life, Vol. II, p.355). See lots 236 and 237.


Fine African Americana from the Collections of Noël Sullivan & William P. and Alice D. Mahoney