West Virginia University Press has launched “Regenerations: African American Literature and Culture,” a new series devoted to reprinting editions of important African American texts that have fallen out of print or have failed to receive due attention.

The series will encourage regional and local research to develop and extend the understanding of African American literary and cultural history.

To begin the series, WVU Press has printed a new edition of the 1896 novel “Hearts of Gold” by J. McHenry Jones (1859-1909).

Jones was an educator, orator and activist who grew up in eastern Ohio and served as the principal of the Lincoln School in Wheeling, W.Va.

He later spurred more than a decade of growth as president of the West Virginia Colored Institute, now West Virginia State University.

“Hearts of Gold” is a gripping tale of post-Civil War battles against racism and systemic injustice.

In this novel, Jones challenges conventional wisdom by addressing a range of subjects, from interracial relationships to forced labor in coal mines, that virtually no other novelist of the time was willing to approach.

Editors John Ernest, West Virginia University, and Eric Gardner, Saginaw Valley State University, have added an introduction and appendix to the new edition to reveal the difficult foundations upon which African Americans built a platform to address injustice, to generate opportunities and to play a prominent role in American social, economic and political life.

“Regenerations: African American Literature and Culture” is co-edited by John Ernest and Joycelyn K. Moody, University of Texas at San Antonio.

There will be a local appearance by John Ernest, co-editor, on Tuesday, Feb. 16 at 12 p.m. at the Ohio County Public Library in Wheeling, W.Va.

For more information on the series, the book or to arrange a local appearance and presentation by the co-editor, please contact Abby Freeland, marketing manager at the WVU Press, at (304) 293-8400 ext. 33508 or abby.freeland@mail.wvu.edu.

Please visit www.wvupress.com to purchase a copy of “Hearts of Gold.”

-WVU-

02/04/10

CONTACT: Abby Freeland, WVU Press
(304) 293-8400, abby.freeland@mail.wvu.edu