Follow the North Star. [Sub-titled:] The story of an American Negro leader who believes in self responsibility as a means to end juvenile delinquency.

“The Reverend Mitchell has proven that his race can progress without shouting and marching…”

---

A striking survival of conservative counter–civil rights literature, centered on Reverend Henry Mitchell, a Chicago pastor promoted as a patriotic Black leader by right-wing activist Kent Courtney and the Conservative Society of America.

The pamphlet portrays Mitchell as an alternative to Martin Luther King Jr. and Stokely Carmichael, emphasizing self-responsibility, anti-communism, and opposition to civil disobedience, busing, and welfare dependency. In Courtney’s framing, Mitchell offered “constructive alternatives”—education, employment, and juvenile reform—while rejecting protest and direct action.

Mitchell openly challenged Martin Luther King Jr. in 1967 over strategy and tactics, and denounced Carmichael as “seditious.” His North Star United Missionary Workers of America, consisting of some 65 ministers and tens of thousands of members, is depicted here as an organization devoted to training, employment, and self-reliance for African Americans.

Follow the North Star exemplifies a deliberate effort to elevate certain Black leaders who rejected mainstream civil rights approaches, while simultaneously attacking the press, liberal clergy, and federal programs as communist-inspired. The closing text urges readers to buy copies in bulk and distribute them to politicians, editors, and pastors, reinforcing its role as a propaganda piece.

Scarce. Copies of CSA “pamphlets” (as this is described) were cheaply produced for mass circulation and seldom survive. This example illustrates the intersection of race, conservatism, and Cold War anticommunist politics at a pivotal moment in 1968, when King’s assassination, urban uprisings, and Black Power radicalism reshaped the political landscape.

Price: $85.00