Black Classic Press

• Parent — Black Classic Press • Founder — W. Paul Coates • Status — Active • Distribution — Publishers Group West • Genre — Non-fiction and fiction • Country — United States • Headquarters — Baltimore, Maryland, United States • Imprints — Black Classic Press W.M. DuForcelf INPRINT EDITIONS • Website — blackclassicbooks.com

W. Paul Coates (father of Ta-Nehisi Coates) founded Black Classic Press in 1978 in Baltimore, Maryland, originally working from the basement of his house. The company is one of the oldest independently owned Black publishers in operation in the United States. The primary mission of the press is to publish obscure and significant books by and about people of African descent. John G. Jackson, John Henrik Clarke, and Yosef Ben-Jochannan were major influences in defining the mission and early direction of the press. The company publishes about six titles annually; most are out-of-print historical books that the company brings back into print.

The first books published by the company were pamphlets printed on a photocopier that Coates purchased. In the same vein, he established BCP Digital Printing in 1995 as an affiliated company of Black Classic Press. The printing company, a million-dollar business, serves as the printer for the publishing company as well as for other companies and organizations in the Baltimore–Washington metropolitan area, and is the only Black-owned printing company in the US.

Black Classic Press has three imprints: • Black Classic Press: Historical reprints that deal with the African diaspora • W.M. DuForcelf: Currently defunct since 1994, a statement and a call for self-sufficiency in the African-American community • INPRINT EDITIONS: Serves academic books and titles that fall outside the primary mission of Black Classic Press list

The press gained national attention in 1996 when best-selling author Walter Mosley chose Black Classic Press to publish Gone Fishin′ (1997), the prequel to his popular Easy Rawlins mysteries. Mosley decided to publish a book with a small Black publishing house because he felt it was important "to create a model that other writers, black or not, can look at to see that it's possible to publish a book successfully outside mainstream publishing in New York." The result was so successful that in 2003 the press collaborated again with Mosley to publish What Next: An African American Initiative Toward World Peace (2003), part memoir and part call to action for African Americans after the September 11, 2001 attacks in the United States. The Tempest Tales (2008), Mosley's homage to Langston Hughes' character Jesse B. Semple, was the third collaboration between Mosley and Black Classic Press. • Gone Fishin': An Easy Rawlins Novel. Baltimore, MD: Black Classic Press, 1997., • What Next: An African American Initiative Toward World Peace. Baltimore, MD: Black Classic Press, 2003., • The Tempest Tales. Baltimore, MD: Black Classic Press, 2008.