Collection of African American Folklore from Texas "The Word on the Brazos", First Edition 1953

J. Mason Brewer

First Edition

[African American][Literature] Brewer, J. Mason. The Word on the Brazos: Negro Preacher Tales from the Brazos Bottoms of Texas. Austin: University of Texas Press, 1953. First edition. Foreword by J. Frank Dobie. Illustrations by Ralph White, Jr. 109 pages. Illustrated with offset woodcuts. Original red cloth in publisher’s pictorial dust jacket.

A foundational work of African American folklore, The Word on the Brazos collects oral narratives drawn from the Black communities of the Brazos River region in Texas, focusing on preacher tales—humorous, didactic, and deeply rooted in the lived experience of the post-Emancipation South. Compiled and retold by J. Mason Brewer, the first Black member of the Texas Folklore Society and the American Folklore Society’s executive committee, the collection is widely considered the first volume of religious folktales by African Americans ever published. Brewer’s careful fieldwork, conducted among rural Black Texans—many of whom were formerly enslaved or the children of those who had been—preserves a vernacular storytelling tradition that might otherwise have been lost to time. Through these tales, Brewer illuminates the wit, spiritual resilience, and moral insight of a generation whose oral culture shaped the religious and communal life of Black Texas.

Brewer’s position as a pioneering African American folklorist adds unique weight to the collection, as does the endorsement by folklorist J. Frank Dobie, who declared the tales “among the most charming” he had ever encountered. The stories, which date largely from the half-century following Emancipation, are told in dialect and revolve around itinerant preachers, divine tricksters, and sacred fools—figures who oscillate between the comic and the reverent, the earthly and the divine. In both tone and purpose, Brewer’s work functions as both preservation and celebration, bridging oral history, Black vernacular tradition, and academic folklore. The book also reflects Brewer’s broader mission: to center Black cultural contributions in scholarly and literary canons from which they had long been excluded. His methodology—immersive, respectful, and shaped by shared experience—was unusually progressive for its time and anticipated later developments in ethnographic practice.

Light edge wear and minor chipping to jacket at spine ends and corners. Binding tight, pages clean. Overall very good condition in a very good dust jacket. A landmark in African American folklore and cultural preservation, The Word on the Brazos remains a vital text for understanding the intersection of race, religion, humor, and oral tradition in the rural South.

Item #22135

Price: $225.00