African-American Newspapers and Periodicals
The ideal
of a library would be to have all
information of all peoples equally accessible.
However, because of many, often unstated, cultural
biases, this has not happened. Publications produced
by and that appeal to people with greater economic
resources are usually collected with more frequency
and consistency than those for people without those
resources. The poor do not tend to sponsor or build
libraries, donate their papers, or found influential
periodicals. Therefore, libraries have an
unfortunate bias to collect certain sections of
society in greater depth than others.
African-Americans are one of the groups whose
publications have not been collected consistently by
libraries. "The historical record has been
deformed by the lack of fair and equitable
collecting by libraries," says James
P. Danky.
"The effects of slavery, of Jim
Crow, of segregation, of racism, have permeated all
aspects of American life, black and white. As
official institutions of the dominant society,
libraries could not possibly be exempt -- and they
were not. Libraries and the men and women who
staffed them, again with a few exceptions, selected
materials for their collections that reflected
their own experiences: nearly all white,
middle-class, English-speaking, and, despite the
female presence, male-dominated." 1
Danky's work has produced a
comprehensive guide to newspapers and periodicals of
African-Americans, The
African-American Newspapers and Periodicals: A
National Bibliography and Union List, a
description of more than 6,500 titles and their
locations. A follow-up grant has been awarded to the
Society from the National Endowment for the
Humanities to preserve African-American periodicals
on microfilm.
1
- Danky, "Introduction: The Black Press and White
Institutions", AANP : A Bibliography, p.
xxxiii-xxxiv.
Comments or Questions?
Contact the Library Reference Department by email at
asklibrary@wisconsinhistory.org or by phone at 608-264-6535.
|
