Description
Signed first edition of Sammy Younge, Jr.: The First Black College Student to Die in the Black Liberation Movement by James Forman. This copy is inscribed by Forman to Dr. Quentin Young, a white physician who provided care to countless activists, including Martin Luther King, Jr.
Octavo, 282pp. Full black cloth, title in white on spine. Stated “First Printing” on copyright page. Solid text block, some spotting to covers, light bumps to corners, a near fine example. Features a double-page map and 15 pages of black-and-white photos. In the publisher’s dust jacket, $5.95 retail price on front flap, shelf worn, with minor peeling to laminate along spine. Housed in a custom black cloth clamshell case, title in gilt on black morocco label affixed to spine.
Inscribed on the front free endpaper: “To my friend Quentin Young, In Profound admiration + friendship. James Forman 12/15/68.”
An exceptional association copy, inscribed in the year of publication and just eight months after the assassination of Dr. King.
Sammy Younge, Jr. (1944-1966) was a civil rights activist, US Navy member, and a student at the Tuskegee Institute with a major in political science. He participated in the Selma to Montgomery march and aided in efforts to register Black voters with the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party. On January 3, 1966, Younge, Jr. was shot by a white gas station attendant in Tuskegee, AL, after attempting to use a “whites only” bathroom.
James Forman, activist and Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) executive, wrote that the murder of Younge, Jr. marked “the end of tactical nonviolence” in the civil rights movement.The recipient of this copy, Dr. Quentin Young, co-founded the Medical Committee for Human Rights and volunteered to aid in registering black voters during the Mississippi Freedom Summer in 1964. Young, a resident of Chicago, also served as a physician to Martin Luther King, Jr. during King’s many stops in the city.
