This is a history of the American Negro, whose ancestors arrived at Jamestown a year before the arrival of the "Mayflower."The book begins in Africa with the great empires of the Nile Valley and the western Sudan and ends with the Second Reconstruction, which Martin Luther King Jr. and the Sit-in Genera­tion are fashioning in the North and South. Written in a dramatic, readable style, Before The Mayflower throws a great deal of light on today's headlines. As such, it will be a valuable addition to the library of every discerning American.Grounded on the work of scholars and specialists, the book is designed for the non-specialist. Based on the trials and triumphs of Negro Americans, the book tells a story which is relevant to all men.Here are the Negro Minute Men of Lexington and Concord and the black soldiers who stood with Andrew Jackson at New Orleans and Ulysses S. Grant at Petersburg.Here also are the forgotten figures of American history: Phillis Wheatley, the slave poet who became the second American woman to write a book; Nat Turner, the mystic who led a bloody slave revolt; P. B. S. Pinchback, the Negro who sat in the Louisiana governor's mansion and dreamed of the vice presidency.The author, Lerone Bennett, Jr. was a journalist and later an editor at Ebony magazine. The book grew out of a series of articles originally published in Ebony magazine. He tells the story with the energy and drama you would expect from a magazine writer.