Robert Russa Moton (1867-1940). What the Negro Thinks. Garden City, New York: Doubleday, Doran and Company, Inc., 1929. 

8vo. 267 pages. Original black cloth, gilt lettered.  FIRST EDITION.

INSCRIBED BY ROBERT RUSSA MOTON to front free endpaper: "To my good friends / Major and Mrs / Allen Washington / with highest regards / Robert Russa Moton / Tuskegee Institute / April 1921." 

A superb first edition of Robert Russa Moton's work on the state of Negro self-consciousness in the 1920s. Moton (1867-1940) was a prominent educator and leader of the early 20th-century civil rights movement. A graduate of HBCU Hampton Institute, he served as the commandant of the male student cadet corps. This copy is inscribed warmly to Major Allen Washington, who succeeded him in the role. The Motons and Washingtons were close, traveling together to Europe and domestically to spread the message of Black excellence. 

Moton is best remembered as the successor to Booker T. Washington when he was named principal of the Tuskegee Institute after Washington died in 1915. His philosophy, much like Washington's, was that the best pathway forward for Black America was charity and success that would merit mutual respect from white Americans. Moton was deeply respected by civil rights leaders such as Howard Thurman and Martin Luther King, Jr.

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wear to extremeties.