A Question of Manhood, Volume 1: A Reader in U.S. Black Men's History and Masculinity, "Manhood Rights": The Construction of Black Male History and Manhood, 1750-1870

Each of these essays illuminates an important dimension of the complex array of Black male experiences as workers, artists, warriors, and leaders. The essays describe the expectations and demands to struggle, to resist, and facilitate the survival of African American culture and community. Black manhood was shaped not only in relation to Black womanhood, but was variously nurtured and challenged, honed and transformed against a backdrop of white male power and domination, and the relentless expectations and demands on them to struggle, resist, and to facilitate the survival of African-American culture and community.

Darlene Clark Hine is John A. Hannah Professor of History at Michigan State University. She is co-editor of More than Chattel: Black Women and Slavery in the Americas, co- author of A Shining Thread of Hope: The History of Black Women in America, and author of Hine Sight: Black Women and the Reconstruction of American History.

Earnestine Jenkins is Assistant Professor in the Department of Art at the University of Memphis. She has published articles that have appeared in numerous books and journals, including Milestones in Black American History, and Aspects of Ethiopian Art.