In 1920 African American scholars put together "The Upward Path," a collection they would describe in the foreword as "stories and poems by Negro writers, which colored children could read with interest and pleasure and in which they could find a mirror of the traditions and aspirations of their race." A literary treasure and artifact of American history (albeit with some dated language), "The Upward Path" collection includes contributions from:
Paul Laurence Dunbar, William H. Holtzclaw, Booker T. Washington, Augusta Bird, H. Cordelia Ray, W. E. B. DuBois, Paul Laurence Dunbar, Angelina W. Grimke, Charles W. Chesnutt, James E. Shepard, William J. Edwards, H. Cordelia Ray, W. E. B. DuBois, Lottie Burrell Dixon, H. Cordelia Ray, Lieut. Henry Ossian Flipper, Phyllis Wheatley, William H. Holtzclaw, Alston W. Burleigh, Walter F. White, A. O. Stafford, Joseph S. Cotter, C. Emily Frazier, William Pickens, Jessie Fauset, Frederick Douglass, W. H. Crogman, William Henry Sheppard, Lillian B. Witten, Joseph F. Cotter, Jr., Azalia Hackley, Lillian B. Witten, Matthew A. Henson, William Wells Brown, Charles W. Anderson, John W. Cromwell, Fenton Johnson, William Stanley Braithwaite, Emmett J. Scott, Leila A. Pendleton, Emmett J. Scott, Roscoe C. Jamison, George W. Ellis, H. Cordelia Ray, Silas X. Floyd, Joseph F. Cotter, Jr., L. J. Coppin, W. H. Crogman, Ralph W. Tyler, James Weldon Johnson, Emmett J. Scott, Daniel A. Rudd and Theodore Bond, Edward Smyth Jones, Ruth Anna Fisher, Benjamin Brawley William, J. Simmons, William Henry Sheppard, William C. Jason, Kelly Miller
This e-book version also includes the FULL account of Matthew Alexander Henson voyage to the Artic (previous versions of "An Upward Path" included only excerpts). Henson was an American explorer who is best known for his participation in the 1908–1909 polar expedition with Robert Perry that reached the geographic North Pole on April 6, 1909. Henson claimed he was the first of their party to reach the pole, a story that rewrites history, making Henson—a son of sharecroppers and student of Inuit survival techniques—the first person to reach the North Pole, not Robert Perry.
While some scholars have cast doubt on whether or not Henson and Perry's expedition made it to the true pole, Henson's complete memoir is a riveting read. Henson was the first life time, African American member of The Explorers Club; received the Peary Polar Expedition Medal, and posthumously awarded the Hubbard Medal by the National Geographic Society.
