A 1st edition of a 161-year old book, ‘Twelve Years a Slave,’ has surfaced in Omaha, Neb., and James R. Beatty, Chairman of the Board and President of the Great Plains Black History Museum, is making sure it stays put. Just 27,000 copies were printed of the rare find that is among the newest gifts to the museum. Beatty sits on the Editorial Advisory Board of the African American Golfer’s Digest and is President of his firm NCS International.
A tattered cover and yellowed pages, the story became a movie and, won an Oscar for best picture. Suddenly everyone was talking about author Solomon Northup’s book and this incredible, horrific memoir. Printed in 1853, the truthful account relives Northup’s regained freedom that had been lost to kidnappers, slave traders/owners in central Louisiana. Northup lived in Saratoga Springs, N.Y., until he followed a job offer that led to his enslavement.
