Forgotten Readers reveals that neglected past, looking at the reading practices of free blacks in the antebellum north and among African Americans following the Civil War. It places the black upper and middle classes within American literary history, illustrating how they used reading and literary conversation as a means to assert their civic identities and intervene in the political and literary cultures of the United States from which they were otherwise excluded.

Includes index.

"Dreaded eloquence" : the origins and rise of African American literary societies -- Spreading the word : the cultural work of the Black press -- Literary coalitions in the age of Washington -- Reading, writing, and reform in the women's era -- Georgia Douglas Johnson and the Saturday nighters.