Black History Comic Book Series Golden Legacy Featuring Harriet Tubman, Alexandre Dumas, and the Amistad Uprising, 1983 Edition

Golden Legacy African American History

Periodical

Bertram Fitzgerald’s Golden Legacy, 1983 reprint of the 1966-1976 first printing, near complete in thirteen of sixteen issues, documenting an effort to create an illustrated Black history curriculum for young readers during and after the civil rights movement. Fitzgerald, born in Harlem and trained as an accountant, developed the series in response to the omission and distortion of Black achievement in conventional school histories and in the illustrated literature he had encountered as a child. Its stated purpose was explicit: "The intention of our publication is to implant pride and self-esteem in black youth while dispelling myths in others." Fitzgerald consequently built a historical sequence extending from ancient African kingdoms and the Haitian Revolution through slavery, abolition, Reconstruction, civil rights leadership, exploration, literature, and invention, using the visual vocabulary of the comic book to place Black historical actors at the center of the narrative. Coca-Cola purchased issues in quantity beginning early in the run and distributed copies through schools, libraries, churches, and organizations including the NAACP and National Urban League; approximately nine million copies of the sixteen volume series were ultimately published.

Golden Legacy. Vols. 1 through 12, and 15. New York City: Fitzgerald Publishing Co., 1983. Near complete 13 issues of the illustrated Black history magazine. Illustrated wrappers, 4to, approximately 32 pages each, extensively illustrated in full color by a changing group of writers and artists, many of them Black.

[1] Golden Legacy. Vol. 1, 1966. The Saga of Toussaint L'Ouverture and the Birth of Haiti, establishing the series with the Haitian Revolution and the leadership of Toussaint L'Ouverture.
[2] Golden Legacy. Vol. 2, 1967. The Saga of Harriet Tubman "The Moses of her People", presenting Tubman through enslavement, escape, and her work guiding others to freedom. [3] Golden Legacy. Vol. 3, 1967. Crispus Attucks and the Minutemen, placing Attucks within the revolutionary generation and the struggle for American independence.
[4] Golden Legacy. Vol. 4, 1968. The Life of Benjamin Banneker, recounting the career of the Black mathematician, astronomer, surveyor, and almanac maker.
[5] Golden Legacy. Vol. 5, 1969. The Life of Matthew Henson, devoted to the Arctic explorer and his role in expeditions toward the North Pole.
[6] Golden Legacy. Vol. 6, 1969. Alexander Dumas and Family, extending the series beyond the United States through the history of the Dumas family and the Black ancestry of the French novelist.
[7] Golden Legacy. Vol. 7, 1969. Frederick Douglass Part One.
[8] Golden Legacy. Vol. 8, 1970. Frederick Douglass Part Two. The paired issues give Douglass the most extended individual treatment in the series, following his passage from enslavement to abolitionist authorship and political leadership.
[9] Golden Legacy. Vol. 9, 1970. The Life of Robert Smalls, recounting the life of the formerly enslaved Civil War mariner who later served in Congress.
[10] Golden Legacy. Vol. 10, 1970. Joseph Cinque and The Amistad Mutiny, treating the 1839 revolt aboard La Amistad and the legal struggle that followed.
[11] Golden Legacy. Vol. 11, 1970. Men of Action White, Wilkins, & Marshall, bringing the chronology into twentieth century civil rights history through Walter White, Roy Wilkins, and Thurgood Marshall.
[12] Golden Legacy. Vol. 12, 1972. Black Cowboys, recovering Black participation in the history and mythology of the American West.
[13] Golden Legacy. Vol. 15, 1972. Ancient African Kingdoms, moving beyond biography to present African civilization before the Atlantic slave trade.

Fitzgerald began Golden Legacy at a moment when Black parents, educators, publishers, and civil rights organizations were challenging school curricula that marginalized African American history. The series answered that problem through popular print rather than a conventional textbook: historical protagonists appear heroically in full color action sequences, while the subjects themselves move across national and chronological boundaries, from Haiti, Africa, and Russia to slavery, abolition, western expansion, Reconstruction, the modern civil rights movement, and twentieth century invention. Fitzgerald initially encountered difficulty financing and distributing the project; corporate support from Coca-Cola beginning with the early volumes enabled bulk distribution and access to improved printing, while later volumes attracted additional commercial sponsorship. The NAACP, National Urban League, and New York City Board of Education were among the institutions associated with or endorsing the series, placing Golden Legacy within the broader effort to make Black history available to children outside the limits of existing textbooks. Some loss to covers, some staining, internally sound and mostly clean. Overall good to very good condition. A near complete archive of the illustrated curriculum through which a Black independent publisher recast African and African American history for a generation of young readers from the height of the civil rights movement through the American Bicentennial.

Item #23745

Price: $550.00