Freeport, NY: Books for Libraries, 1972. Hardcover - A title in The Black Heritage Library Collection, of a work originally published in 1905. In his preface Merrill, a white minister, states that he sought to show "the real purpose of educated negroes, just as I have seen it carried out, in their efforts to adjust themselves to their new surroundings. My Negro characters are taken from lowly cabin homes, educated in good schools, and become influential agencies among their people." Illustrated with a frontispiece portrait and three internal plates. 331 pp. ISBN: 0-836990366.

Berkeley, CA: Counterpoint, (2019). SIGNED first edition - Award-winning author's second novel. Named a "Notable Book of the Year" by the New York Times who commented that this is "told in alternating chapters from the points of view of two African-American women connected by blood but divided by time: a biracial single mom in 2017 and a former sharecropper turned farm-owning widow in 1924. Both tell their progeny stories that ground the novel in the harsh facts of history even as they take on the weight of myth." SIGNED on the title page and dated in Sept 2019, that is before publication. Letter from the publisher and marketing information bound in. 276 pp.

Berkeley, CA: Counterpoint, (2019). SIGNED first edition - Award-winning author's second novel. Named a "Notable Book of the Year" by the New York Times who commented that this is "told in alternating chapters from the points of view of two African-American women connected by blood but divided by time: a biracial single mom in 2017 and a former sharecropper turned farm-owning widow in 1924. Both tell their progeny stories that ground the novel in the harsh facts of history even as they take on the weight of myth." SIGNED on the title page. Letter from the publisher and marketing information bound in. 276 pp.

New York & London: Oxford University Press, (1975, c 1969). An account of this 1930s case and the issues it raised - radicalism, racism, and operation of the Southern court system- as well as what it meant to nine black young men whose lives were changed forever by one morning's ride on an Alabama freight train. Photographs, index. vii, 431 pp. ISBN: 0-195014855.

New York: Bradbury Press, (1992) dj. Hardcover first edition - The history of African Americans in Mississippi told by this award-winning author in a major, two-part work of nonfiction - the first covering the period through slavery, reconstruction and the Jim Crow era, the second focusing on the civil rights era, and the drive for voter registration. Whenever possible, the story is told in the words of the participants. Illustrated throughout with historic photographs, map of Mississippi. Ssource notes, bibliography, index, xv, 205 pp. ISBN: 0-02-7923010.

Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, (1979.). An account of this 1930s case and the issues it raised - radicalism, racism, and operation of the Southern court system- as well as what it meant to nine black young men whose lives were changed forever by one morning's ride on an Alabama freight train. Photographs, index. xii, 479 pp. ISBN: 0-8071-04981.

New York: Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 1992. dj. Hardcover first edition - The story of Collis Phillips, who became a successful boxer in New Orleans during the height of Jim Crow, and of his family, of the triumphs and the tragedies. Before writing this moving book, Bates spent 10 years with the Phillips family from Collis down thru his great-great grandson, as a friend and biographer. 421 pp plus a section of glossy photographs.