4to. Photographic illustrations throughout. Original publisher's oatmeal cloth; original publisher's illustrated dust jacket (minor scuffs at extremities, corners clipped). 

FIRST EDITION photodocumentary book with images of African Americans taken by the Farm Security Administration and selected by Edwin Rosskam with the text written by Richard Wright. In the foreword, Wright explains his focus: "It is not, however, to celebrate or exalt the plight of the humble folk who swim in the depths that I select the conditions of their lives as examples of normality, but rather to seize upon that which is qualitative and abiding in Negro experience, to place within full and constant view the collective humanity whose triumphs and defeats are shared by the majority, whose gains in security mark an advance in the level of consciousness attained by the broad masses in their costly and tortuous upstream journey."