The second addition to our Unsung Heroes in Black History series, this anthology presents writings by great Black thinkers such as W. E. B. Du Bois, Booker T. Washington, and Carter G. Woodson, as well as lesser-known names like Manuel Querino, the Brazilian activist and scholar (re)introduced in the first book in the series. (Quite deliberately, works by Querino have been placed alongside similar essays by authors with whom Henry Louis Gates, Jr. compared him in the book and documentary Black in Latin America.)

The Need for Heroes demonstrates that Black intellectuals in the diaspora have long been researching and writing about courageous warriors – including Africans and people of African descent – giving the lie to pernicious racialist stereotypes. It begins with the story of Crispus Attucks, as told by the historian William Cooper Nell.

Of particular interest to a publisher with one foot in Brazil, this anthology clearly shows that Black American activists have known about Palmares, the most notable maroon society in the Americas, since the early twentieth century, if not before.

Another pillar of this book is the story of the 54th Massachusetts Regiment, which fought with tragic courage during the US Civil War and is celebrated by a memorial that stands in Boston Common (a replica is one of the key permanent exhibitions in the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D. C.). Booker T. Washington’s speech at its unveiling is one of the key essays in the collection.

The final chapter presents children’s stories by Elizabeth Ross Haynes, whose book Unsung Heroes inspired the title of this series. For the book in hand, we have selected extracts from three stories – those of Harriet Tubman, Toussaint L’Ouverture, and, coming full circle, Crispus Attucks.

In an afterword written especially for this publication, the Brazilian historian Flavio Gomes gives his scholarly and personal perspective on the story of Palmares, whose last leader, Zumbi, is still venerated in Brazil, where the date of his death, November 20, is Black Consciousness Day.

Available on Amazon in paperback and e-book editions