* You may mistake me for African American but I am negro, a descendant of the enslaved peoples of these United States of America. Above my desk, I have this quote from Black Civil War soldier and historian George W. Williams, which appears in volume 1 of his 1883 book, History of the Negro Race in America from 1619 to 1880: Negroes as Slaves, as Soldiers, and as Citizens: It is not wise, to say the least, for intelligent Negroes in America to seek to drop the word Negro. It is a good, strong, and healthy word, and ought to live. It should be covered with glory: let Negroes do it.

** Another reason is that early ephemera in general was not deemed important enough to keep, but especially early ephemera produced by Black printers.

*** A brilliant satire of fine printing and artists' books appears in Charles Chesnutt's 1904 novella, Baxter's Procrustes. In it, an exclusive club of white male collectors fall all over themselves praising a book that-once they actually open it-turns out to be blank.

**** Many printers have run clandestine presses: secret printing operations where they published pamphlets and flyers on behalf of a resistance movement, like the experimental Dutch printer H. N. Werkman during World War II. Werkman not only resisted Nazism--he also broke through a lot of restraints in letterpress printing. There was a rebellion on the social level and a rebellion on the craft level. I think that some of my work is a form of rebellion on the craft level.

***** Shortly before he died in 1895, the Black statesman and former enslaved person Frederick Douglass was asked what advice he would give to a young person. He said, "Agitate, agitate, agitate!" So I do. AND SO SHOULD YOU.