Second Volume of the Writings of Henry McNeal Turner Due January 2012

Dr. Andre E. Johnson is pleased to announce the publication of “An African American Pastor Before and During the American Civil War: The Literary Archive of Henry McNeal Turner, Vol 2; The Chaplain Writings” (Edwin Mellen Press, 2012). This is the second of a proposed 12 volume series that aims at collecting the letters, speeches, sermons and essays of Turner. Volume 2 consists of 38 writings while Turner served as a Chaplain during the American Civil War from 1863-1865.

Praise for the Volumes:

Dr. Andre E. Johnson’s scholarship on the life, work, and writings of The Henry McNeal Turner recovers an incredibly important aspect of African American history. It is always an important occasion when a scholar goes beyond the study of well known historical figures to re-introduce a leader who lived beyond the limits of current life memories, and whose efforts paved the way for current benefits. The volumes that will follow, document Turner’s contributions to history through his copious writings. Dr Johnson, a rhetorician, theologian, professor and pastor, is uniquely suited to edit volumes that will enhance our understanding of Turner’s work and the political, theological, and legal issues of the antebellum and reconstruction period.-Barbara A. Holmes, Professor of Ethics and African American Studies, Memphis Theological Seminary

In this collection of writings and speeches Dr. Andre E. Johnson opens up an aspect of American history that has been unavailable to scholars and general readers, the history of African Americans during the last half of the 19th-century and early 20th-century revealed through the mind of a southern black man. Johnson characterizes Henry McNeal Turner as a public intellectual of his time given the range of topics he addresses and the vast quantity of his published and unpublished writing. We see American history from an uncommon angle, from the point of view of a black man striving to find freedom and equality for all people of color in a society that condoned racism and racist practices.-Sandra Sarkela, Associate Professor of Communications, University of Memphis

Thank you ever so much for the new scholarship on a mainstay personality of the nineteenth century. McNeal Turner was an unusual and intellectually stalwart human being.This kind of research will be of use not only to historians but to literary critics and so many others not to mention people interested in his theology, his race insights even the ideas these volumes will lend to anyone wanting to do a psychoanalytic analysis of his work. Thank you ever so much for this.-prramsey@starpower.net

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