African-American Newspapers and Periodicals: A National Bibliography
James P. Danky, Editor
Maureen E. Hady, Associate Editor
Foreword by Henry Louis Gates, Jr.
"We wish to plead
our own cause. Too long have others spoken for us."
These words are from the front page of Freedom's
Journal, the first African-American newspaper
published in the United States, in 1827, a milestone
event in the history of an oppressed people. From then
on a prodigious and hitherto almost unknown cascade of
newspapers, magazines, letters, and other literary,
historical, and popular writing poured from presses
chronicling black life in America.
The authentic voice of African-American culture is
captured in this first comprehensive guide to a treasure
trove of writings by and for a people, as found in
sources in the United States, Canada, and the Caribbean.
This bibliography of over 6,000 entries is the
indispensable guide to the stories of slavery, freedom,
Jim Crow, segregation, liberation, struggle, and
triumph.
Besides describing many new discoveries--from church
documents to early civil rights ephemera, from school
records to single-mother newsletters, from artists'
journals to labor publications--this work informs
researchers where and how to find them (for example,
through online databases, microfilm, or traditional
catalogs).
"African-American Newspapers and
Periodicals is a map to a veritable dark
continent of journalism that black Americans have
created, circulated, and digested for the past one
hundred seventy-one years ... This bibliography is a
conduit into an almost self-contained universe of
thought and feeling of the African-American people,
their aspirations and dreams, but also their
everyday concerns and occurrences... Few reference
tools have a greater potential impact upon the
development of African-American studies than this
one."
-- From the Foreword by Henry Louis Gates, Jr.
"The first comprehensive guide to all known
newspapers and magazines by and about
African-Americans. With the oldest recorded
publications dating back to 1827, the bibliography
accounts for close to 6,500 titles in the United
States, Canada, and the Caribbean. For each
description, the book informs the researchers where
certain copies of the publication can be found,
either on microfilm or a hard copy. National
Endowment for the Humanities President William
Ferris called the work a 'historic landmark.'"
--Elizabeth Hurt, Wisconsin State
Journal
Comments or Questions?
Contact the Library Reference Department by email at
asklibrary@wisconsinhistory.org or by phone at 608-264-6535.
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