Archive - History of Black Writing Blog

Carl Anthony, in the immediate aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, penned “African Americans and Environmental History: A Manifesto” (2006) in part because he realized the overwhelming tragedy confronting black Americans. Anthony’s inquiry led him to unearth a disturbing greening of the racial line that privileges American Indians, at the expense of the people of African descent, with the expected result:
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Over the past month, I have commented on the particular ways in which a number of authors provide us readers with useful information concerning their views of how African American men acquire and share knowledge. These fictional representations have led me to think about autobiographical examples, specifically the narratives of Frederick Douglass and Richard Wright and the overall tradition of education in African American literature and literacy as a tool for gaining higher degrees of social agency.
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Literary Vantage Points is the HBW’s newest initiative geared towards engaging our audience members in conversations about African American literature. We are looking to make short video segments a regular feature on our blog in order to utilize the most effective digital mediums and spark dialogue among people interested in black artist production...

Please join us for a Virtual Seminar – “The Global Vision of Richard Wright” – led by Amritjit Singh, Langston Hughes Professor of English at Ohio University on Saturday, April 23 at 10:00 a.m. CST.
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We all know of the Black Matriarch.  She is the engine that drives many of the novels in HBW’s 100 Novels Project, and in the larger body of African American writing.  In literary works, she serves both the ghost of the past, conjured up to impart wisdom, and the tangible hand of the present, ever ready to guide, heal, and correct.  Over one third of the novels in our project focus on Black women; and each feminine body is bound in the language of story telling, memory holding, and legacy...

There are some notable similarities between the early literary careers of novelists Richard Wright and Colson Whitehead. In particular, the early, substantial support and endorsements that they received for their first published novels were remarkable and helped established them as notable literary figures.

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The shocking passing of Manning Marable and the long-awaited publication of his biography Malcolm X: A Life of Reinvention have prompted quite a bit of commentary.
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Continuing our conversations of linking education to freedom Sutton E. Griggs’s Imperium in Imperio (1899) and Toni Morrison’s Song of Solomon (1977). Griggs’s principle characters Bernard Belgrave and Belton Piedmont and Morrison’s secondary character Guitar Baines both illustrate how black people subvert educational practices as a means to produce alternative political societies in America.
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The Project on the History of Black Writing (HBW) is pleased to “reintroduce ourselves” to the online community as we celebrate the re-launch of our home website! Please visit our website here and help us celebrate our new website...

As the alliterative title suggests, many of the works in the 100 Novels Project deal with religious and cultural practices that are associated with the distant, slavery mired past, or a romanticized and distant homeland that the protagonists have roots in but may have never seen. These practices fall under folk faiths and religion, land based practices of herb-lore and root-work, and ties to food and drink created in the “old ways”.As the alliterative title suggests, many of the works in the 100 Novels Project deal with religious and cultural practices that are associated with the distant, slavery mired past, or a romanticized and distant homeland that the protagonists have roots in but may have never seen. These practices fall under folk faiths and religion, land based practices of herb-lore and root-work, and ties to food and drink created in the “old ways”. The novels that most easily embody these ideas are Nalo Hopkinson’s, The Salt Roads, Octavia Butler’s The Parable of the Sowers, Colson Whitehead’s The Intitutionist, and Gloria Naylor’s Momma Day. While each of these works utilizes elements of folk faith and old cultural practices as mediums of liberation for the protagonists and fall under the genre of speculative fiction, there is something deeper at work within these texts. The inclusion of these practices combined with present or future landscapes and the use of technology and science does double literary duty; not only does it ground the narrative in a racialized past, but the works insist upon a future where authentic black expression along the lines of faith, practice, and spirituality are viable.
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