A New Breed of Black Consciousness

A New Breed of Black Consciousness interprets the literature and politics of 1960s African American activist movements: Black Power, the Black Arts Movement, and Black Revolutionary Nationalism. A New Breed reassesses two decades of black militancy worldwide and growth in the publishing of independent and mainstream black literature during the era. Special attention is given to black feminist writers (Alice Walker, Frances Beale, Nikki Giovanni), to activists who came of age before the start of the 1960s (Paul Robeson, Harold Cruse, Richard Wright), and to small journals such as Freedomways. A New Breed also examines important literary anthologies of the period: Black Fire (Amiri Baraka and Larry Neal, 1968), The Black Aesthetic (Addison Gayle, 1971), The Black Woman (Toni Cade Bambara, 1970) , and Understanding the New Black Poetry (Stephen Henderson, 1973). Some of these works have long been out of print, making this historical assessment of 1960s black literature particularly timely. A New Breed of Black Consciousness appeals to general readers and period specialists as an authoritatively researched interpretation of 1960s African American literature and cultural politics.