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Books by James Smethurst
The New Red Negro: The Literary Left and African
American Poetry /
Radicalism in the
South Since Reconstruction
The Black Arts Movement
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Radicalism in the
South Since Reconstruction
Edited by Chris
Green, Rachel Rubin, and James Smethurst
Reviews
This book broadly frames the scholarly conversation
about southern radicalism, putting essays covering a
range of historical periods and topics in dialogue with
each other so as to get a sense of the range of southern
politics and history.
—
Palgrave Macmillan
“A welcome contribution to the growing body of
revisionist scholarship influenced by postmodernism. The
multidisciplinary essays do not belong to the
traditional schools of either consensus or conflict
history, but rather adopt the perspective of diversity
without boundaries. Focusing on diversity within the
region, they challenge the conventional notion of a
South unified by reactionary ideology…As these essays
clearly show, American history was changed by homegrown
southern radicals who dared to dream and become the
missionaries for a new social order.”—Ronald L. Lewis,
Stuart and Joyce Robbins Chair in History, West Virginia
University
“A stunning, dazzling and, ultimately, insightful
collection of essays which reaffirms the simple fact
that those who wish to understand the U.S. must
understand the U.S. South—and those who wish to
understand the U.S. South must read this book.”—Gerald Horne, author of Black and Brown: African-Americans and the
Mexican Revolution, 1910-1920
"This book uncovers some lost history of radical
political activity in the South, dispelling the image of
the South as conservative, provincial and unconcerned
with the problems of poverty, inequality, unemployment
which plagued the region. Thanks to Smethurst, Green,
and Rubin for disturbing our ideas of the South and
adding to our knowledge of Southern politics and history."—Helen Matthews Lewis,
author of Mountain Sisters: From Convent to Community in
Appalachia
“Radicalism in the South is a scintillating blend of
historical narrative, biography, reminiscence, primary
materials, cultural studies, and literary criticism. By
thoughtfully combining fresh source materials and
perspectives, the volume presents the political and
cultural terrain of the post-Reconstruction South as we
have seldom seen it—from the angle of labor, the Left,
cultural workers, anti-racist activists, and more. The
result is an indispensable addition to the growing
collection of works that encourage the reconsideration
of a region too often shrouded in clichés and myths.”—Alan Wald, Professor, Program in American Culture,
University of Michigan, and author of Trinity of
Passion: The U.S. Literary Left and the Anti-fascist
Crusade
James Smethurst is Associate Professor of History and
Afro-American Studies in the W.E.B. Du Bois Department
of Afro-American Studies, University of
Massachusetts-Amherst. Rachel Rubin is Associate
Professor of American Studies, University of
Massachusetts-Boston. Chris Green is Assistant Professor
of English, Marshall University.
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The Black Arts Movement (Smethurst)
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The Black Arts Movement
Literary Nationalism in the 1960s and 1970s
By
James Edward Smethurst
Emerging from a matrix of Old Left, black nationalist,
and bohemian ideologies and institutions, African
American artists and intellectuals in the 1960s
coalesced to form the Black Arts Movement, the cultural
wing of the Black Power Movement. In this comprehensive
analysis, James Smethurst examines the formation of the
Black Arts Movement and demonstrates how it deeply
influenced the production and reception of literature
and art in the United States through its negotiations of
the ideological climate of the Cold War, decolonization,
and the civil rights movement.
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Taking a
regional approach, Smethurst examines local expressions
of the nascent Black Arts Movement, a movement
distinctive in its geographical reach and diversity,
while always keeping the frame of the larger movement in
view. The Black Arts Movement, he argues, fundamentally
changed American attitudes about the relationship
between popular culture and "high" art and dramatically
transformed the landscape of public funding for the
arts.—Publisher,
University of North Carolina Press
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Visions of a Liberated Future
Black Arts Movement Writings
By
Larry Neal
"What we have been
trying to arrive at is some kind of
synthesis of the writer's function as an
oppressed individual and a creative
artist," states Neal (1937-1981), a
writer, editor, educator and activist
prominent in the Black Arts movement of
the 1960s and '70s. Articulate, highly
charged essays about the black
experience examine the views of his
predecessors--musicians and political
theorists as well as
writers--continually weighing artistic
achievement against political efficacy.
While the essays do not exclude any
readers, Neal's drama, poetry and
fiction are more limited in their form
of address, more explicitly directed to
the oppressed. The poems are
particularly intense in their protest:
"How many of them / . . . have been made
to /prostitute their blood / to the
merchants of war." Rhythmic and adopting
the repetitive structure of music, they
capture the "blues in our mothers'
voices / which warned us / blues people
bursting out." Commentaries by Neal's
peers, Amiri Baraka, Stanley Crouch,
Charles Fuller and Jayne Cortez,
introduce the various sections.—Publishers
Weekly |
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Sister Citizen: Shame, Stereotypes, and Black Women in
America
By Melissa V.
Harris-Perry
According to the
author, this society has historically exerted
considerable pressure on black females to fit into one
of a handful of stereotypes, primarily, the Mammy, the
Matriarch or the Jezebel. The selfless
Mammy’s behavior is marked by a slavish devotion to
white folks’ domestic concerns, often at the expense of
those of her own family’s needs. By contrast, the
relatively-hedonistic Jezebel is a sexually-insatiable
temptress. And the Matriarch is generally thought of as
an emasculating figure who denigrates black men, ala the
characters Sapphire and Aunt Esther on the television
shows Amos and Andy and Sanford and Son, respectively.
Professor Perry
points out how the propagation of these harmful myths
have served the mainstream culture well. For instance,
the Mammy suggests that it is almost second nature for
black females to feel a maternal instinct towards
Caucasian babies.
As for the source
of the Jezebel, black women had no control over their
own bodies during slavery given that they were being
auctioned off and bred to maximize profits. Nonetheless,
it was in the interest of plantation owners to propagate
the lie that sisters were sluts inclined to mate
indiscriminately.
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Blacks in Hispanic Literature: Critical Essays
Edited by
Miriam DeCosta-Willis
Blacks in Hispanic Literature is a
collection of fourteen essays by scholars and
creative writers from Africa and the Americas.
Called one of two significant critical works on
Afro-Hispanic literature to appear in the late
1970s, it includes the pioneering studies of
Carter G. Woodson and
Valaurez B. Spratlin, published in the 1930s, as
well as the essays of scholars whose interpretations
were shaped by the Black aesthetic. The early
essays, primarily of the Black-as-subject in Spanish
medieval and Golden Age literature, provide an
historical context for understanding 20th-century
creative works by African-descended, Hispanophone
writers, such as Cuban
Nicolás Guillén and Ecuadorean poet, novelist,
and scholar
Adalberto Ortiz, whose essay analyzes the
significance of Negritude in Latin America. This
collaborative text set the tone for later
conferences in which writers and scholars worked
together to promote, disseminate, and critique the
literature of Spanish-speaking people of African
descent. . . .
Cited by a
literary critic in 2004 as "the seminal study in the
field of Afro-Hispanic Literature . . . on which
most scholars in the field 'cut their teeth'."
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The White Masters of the
World
From
The World and Africa, 1965
By W. E. B. Du Bois
W. E. B. Du Bois’
Arraignment and Indictment of White Civilization
(Fletcher)
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Ancient African Nations
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Only a Pawn in Their Game
Rev. Jesse Lee Peterson Thanks America for
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Haitian Declaration of Independence 1804
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January 1, 1804 -- The Founding of
Haiti
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