Taken From Rainbow Quest TV Show, 1965

taken from Rainbow Quest TV show, 1965

Portland Town

vashti bunyan - lookaftering (2005)

Illustration from Bound for Glory, by Woody Guthrie.

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"I am a changer a constant changer I have to be or die Because whatever stops changing is dead. And I am alive."

-Woody Guthrie from his journal, Woody Guthrie: Songs and Art • Words and Wisdom by Nora Guthrie and Robert Santelli

In honor of Black History Month, we'd like to share our copy of Let Me Live (1937), by Angelo Herndon.

Angelo Herndon (1913-1997) was a coal miner and labor organizer who worked across racial lines. After an attempt to organize black and white industrial workers in Atlanta in 1932, Herndon was arrested and convicted of insurrection. The prosecution case pointed to his possession of communist literature (all of which could be found at a public library), which were found in his hotel room.

Herndon was eventually sentenced to 18 to 20 years of hard labor, but his conviction was overturned by the state appeals court and he was released on bail. On April 26th, 1937, a narrow majority of the Supreme Court ruled in his favor, ruling Georgia's insurrection statute as unconstitutional.

Let Me Live, Herndon's autobiography written during his time in prison, tells the story of his arrest and times in court but also describes his early life up until that point.

This first edition copy features an inscription from Herndon to Thomas Mooney, a noted political activist and labor leader who was controversially imprisoned. When Herndon was out on bail awaiting appeals, he visited Mooney in prison and conducted an interview, which was published in Labor Defender in January, 1935.

To view more about this book and other materials to celebrate Black History Month, visit our digital exhibit, Law and the Struggle for Racial Justice.