Uncorrected First Proof copy. Octavo. Random House. New York. 1973. 190pp. Publisher’s red paper wraps titled in black to front cover. Some light scuffing, and a couple of spots of grubbiness to the covers, but essentially a clean, tight copy. Internally clean, a pencil annotation “April..?” to the title page. A scarce proof copy of the first book on Black reparations and which Morrison guided into print as an editor at Random House. Written by a white professor at Yale, Morrison felt the book was "an important contribution to the fledgling reparations debate." A significant proof on its own, of a book that was an origin point for the intellectual debate about reparations for many decades, but also because it documents Morrison's incredible tenure and astute publishing history during her tenure at Random House. Necessarily scarce.