With a new preface Bill V. Mullen updates his dynamic reappraisal of a critical moment in American cultural history. Mullen's study includes reassessments of the politics of Richard Wright's critical reputation and a provocative reading of class struggle in Gwendolyn Brooks' A Street in Bronzeville. He also takes an in-depth look at the institutions that comprised Chicago's black popular front: the Chicago Defender, the period's leading black newspaper; Negro Story, the first magazine devoted to publishing short stories by and about African Americans; and the WPA-sponsored South Side Community Art Center.
| Cover Title Copyright Contents Acknowledgments Preface Introduction 1. Chicago and the Politics of Reputation: Richard Wright's Long Black Shadow 2. Turning White Space into Black Space: The Chicago Defender and the Creation of the Cultural Front 3. Artists in Uniform: The South Side Community Art Center and the Defense of Culture 4. Worker-Writers in Bronzeville: Negro Story and the African-American "Little" Magazine 5. Genre Politics/Cultural Politics: The Short Story and the New Black Fiction Market 6. Engendering the Cultural Front: Gwendolyn Brooks, Black Women, and Class Struggle in Poetry 7. American Daughters, Fifth Columns, and Lonely Crusades: Purge, Emigration, and Exile in Chicago Postscript: Bronzeville Today Appendix Notes Index Back cover | "Mullen marries investigation and a well-executed idea of story in this well-researched piece of scholarship on black art, black literature and literary publications, and the cultural politics of Chicago's African American community."— Choice"Mullen's mission is to refresh our cultural memories. He wants to remind us not only of African American cultural production in the 'Chicago Renaissance' that took place before and during World War II, but also that the U.S. Left—in the form of the Communist Party and the individuals and organizations of its Popular Front—played a significant role in the period."— American Historical Review
"All readers who are interested in the history of Chicago, African American culture, and leftist politics are sure to find some benefit from Mullen's richly detailed and boldly revisionist study."— Journal of Illinois History
|Bill V. Mullen is a professor of English and American studies at Purdue University and the author of Afro-Orientalism.