Recirculating Black Militancy in Word and Image: Henry Highland Garnet's "Volume of Fire"

This article foregrounds materiality in examining Henry Highland Garnet's 1848 volume, which includes two texts of black militancy—a reprint of David Walker's Appeal to the Coloured Citizens of the World (1829, 1830) and Garnet's Address to the Slaves (1843). My argument situates Garnet's Address within the volume in which it appeared, considers Garnet's role as compiler, and recognizes the book's role in the further circulation of black militancy. A focus on Garnet's volume illuminates antebellum black militant print's survival, malleability, and cachet. Garnet's volume precipitated subsequent circulation not only of Walker's and Garnet's texts but also of an image of a black Moses from Garnet's book. The most striking iteration appeared in a modified form as the frontispiece of Hollis Read's The Negro Problem Solved (1864). The similarity of the images throws into sharp relief the contrast marking the books: Read's advocacy of colonization is far different from Garnet's and Walker's assertions of black citizenship, even as Read's book fabricates affiliation with Garnet. Ultimately, my focus on materiality reveals a range of motives at work in the dissemination of antebellum black militancy—in text and image—and demonstrates that black militant print could paradoxically circulate while becoming unrecognizable.