About ten or fifteen years ago, I was browsing through an antiques flea market in Mount Pleasant, S.C., when I stumbled upon a 1928 signed first edition of Nigger To Nigger, by South Carolina author E.C.L. Adams.
I haven’t found out much about him, but apparently he was a white man who was able to earn the trust and friendship of the African-Americans living around Columbia, S.C.; so much so that he listened in on their conversations and stories, and then transcribed them in eye-dialect. Some of the stories in the book are critical and even mocking of local whites, so they must have really trusted him, given the time and place. He even dedicated the book to one of them.
I can’t remember exactly, but I recall reading, in a history of Black English Vernacular, that this book is significant as a record of early-twentieth century Black English. It certainly records BE usages, like deleted copula, aphetic words, and the continuous “be”. The men and women whose stories and poems Adams was transcribing were the sons and daughters of ex-slaves, and many of the pieces are about “sperrits” and Brer Rabbit, so it’s also a record of African-American folklore.
Has anyone ever heard of this book, and whether or not it is significant in African-American history? I’ve often thought about donating it to a local historically black college, or the black history research library in my city. Given the title though, I’m not sure I’d want to walk through the doors of the library and offer this, unless it is an important source and would be recognized as such.
According to this site, it is a work of fiction, not, as your post suggests, a collection of oral histories.
Amazon has another, similar collection of his called Tales of the Congaree. A Google search turns of a few references to it in conjunction with African American Study programs.
I just checked WorldCat and this book is listed as being owned by over 100 libraries (mostly university libraries) in the US, in 33 states plus the District of Columbia. This leads me to believe it’s considered to be of some importance. However, it also means there’s a decent chance the relevant libraries in your area already own a copy. I also checked Books In Print, and this book is available via Books On Demand. It’s listed for about $90 that way, though.
Speaking as a librarian myself here, anyone donating books to a library should realize that the library is not necessarily going to keep them. A lot of donated books are sold or discarded. If you want to know if this particular book would be of interest to one of the libraries in your area then I’d recommend sending an email to ask.