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First published in 1972
First published in Penguin Classics 2017
Copyright © Ishmael Reed, 1972
A Coming Attraction for This Work Entitled ‘Cab Calloway Stands In for the Moon’ was published in Amistad 1 and 19 Necromancers From Now copyright © Ishmael Reed, 1970
Grateful acknowledgement is made to the following for the use of illustrations appearing within the text: here: © 1971 by The New York Times Company. Reprinted by permission; here: Jose Fuentes; here: Bonnie Kamin; here: Fred McDarrah; here: Underwood & Underwood; here: Gerald Duane Coleman; here: Courtesy, The Bancroft Library; here: Copyright of Radio Times Hulton Picture Library; here: Lincoln Center Library; here: National Museum of Anthropology, Mexico City; here: Mark Citret; here: Courtesy of Sengstacke Newspapers; here: Courtesy Ohio Historical Society Library; here: Copyright of Radio Times Hulton Picture Library; here: Xavier Zeara; here: © 1971 by The New York Times Company. Reprinted by permission; here: Basil Rakoczi; here: Deutsches Archaeologisches Institut, Rome Italy; here: International Publishers; here: Gundar Strads; here: From The American West by Lucius Beebe and Charles Clegg. Copyright © 1955 by E. P. Dutton & Co., Inc., and reproduced by permission; here: Manchete Revista Semanal, Bloch Editores S.A., Brazil
The moral right of the author and has been asserted
Cover photograph © Ishmael Reed
ISBN: 978-0-241-30582-9
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Chapter 41
Chapter 42
Chapter 43
Chapter 44
Chapter 45
Chapter 46
Chapter 47
Chapter 48
Chapter 49
Chapter 50
Chapter 51
Chapter 52
Chapter 53
Chapter 54
Chapter 55
Epilogue
Partial Bibliography
Follow Penguin
NOVELS
The Terrible Threes
Reckless Eyeballing
The Terrible Twos
Flight to Canada
The Last Days of Louisiana Red
Mumbo Jumbo
Yellow Back Radio Broke Down
The Free Lance Pall Bearers
ESSAYS
Writin’ Is Fightin’
God Made Alaska for the Indians
Shrovetide in New Orleans
POETRY
Catechism of D Neoamerican Hoodoo Church
A Secretary to the Spirits
Chattanooga
Conjure
PLAYS
Mother Hubbard, formerly Hell Hath No Fury
The Ace Boons
Savage Wilds
ANTHOLOGIES
Calafia
19 Necromancers from Now
Some unknown natural phenomenon occurs which cannot be explained, and a new local demigod is named.
Zora Neale Hurston on the origin of a new loa
The earliest Ragtime songs, like Topsy, “jes’ grew.”
… we appropriated about the last one of the “jes’ grew” songs. It was a song which had been sung for years all through the South. The words were unprintable, but the tune was irresistible, and belonged to nobody.
James Weldon Johnson
The Book of American Negro Poetry
To my grandmother
Emma Coleman Lewis.
And to
Clarence Hill, proprietor of
Libra’s on East 6th Street
between A & B
and also for
George Herriman, Afro-American,
who created Krazy Kat.