Full Description
The Black Press brings together original, multidisciplinary research that explores the history and impact of Black newspapers in Canada. This collection of essays introduces readers to the rich archive of Black Canadian journalism, spanning the period from the abolitionist to the modern civil rights era, and reveals the extensive network of African and African-descended activist-journalists.
The book positions Black Canadian journalists, editors, publishers, and readers as influential intellectual activists whose efforts shaped the press to drive socio-cultural change both in Canada and abroad. Through historical analysis and archival research, each essay highlights how Black journalists countered mainstream portrayals of their community, challenging dominant narratives of Blackness in the Canadian imaginary. The essays demonstrate how the Black Press served as a crucial space for reflecting on Black Canadian identity, belonging, social justice, and human rights within the colonial contexts of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Combining historical, archival, and cultural analysis, the book uncovers the profound and often overlooked influence of the Black Press on Canada's cultural and political landscape.
Contents
Acknowledgements
An Introduction to The Black Press: A Shadowed Canadian Tradition
Claudine Bonner, Boulou Ebanda de B'béri, Nina Reid-Maroney
Part One: The Black Press and the Abolitionist Context
1. An Education without Walls: The Voice of the Fugitive and the Provincial Freeman as an Unconventional Classroom
Lorene Bridgen-Lennie
2. The Black Press and The Voice of the Bondsman
Neil Brooks, Nina Reid-Maroney, Scott Schofield
Part Two: Reconstructing the Black Press, 1870-1900
3. As Seen in the News: Representations of Blackness in the Mainstream Nova Scotian Newspapers, 1867-1910
Claudine Bonner
4. Georgiana Whetsel and the Case for Nineteenth-Century Black New Brunswick Newspaper Culture
Jennifer Harris
5. "Read. Important." Anderson Ruffin Abbott's Missionary Messenger Scrapbooks
Nina Reid-Maroney
Part Three: Representation and Activism in the Twentieth Century
6. "You Will Do the Race and Yourselves Much Good": The Black Athlete and Sport Discourse in The Clarion (1946-1949)
Ornella Nzindukiyimana
7. Brand Advertising in Contrast in the 1970s: Selling Race and Culture Through Beer
Cheryl Thompson
List of Contributors
Index
