Ebony Magazine and Lerone Bennett Jr.: Popular Black History in Postwar America (Paperback)
Description
E. James West's fresh and fascinating exploration of Ebony’s political, social, and historical content illuminates the intellectual role of the iconic magazine and its contribution to African American scholarship. He also uncovers a paradox. Though Ebony provided Bennett with space to promote a militant reading of black history and protest, the magazine’s status as a consumer publication helped to mediate its representation of African American identity in both past and present.
Mixing biography, cultural history, and popular memory, West restores Ebony and Bennett to their rightful place in African American intellectual, commercial, and political history.
About the Author
E. James West is a Leverhulme Early Career Fellow in American History at Northumbria University.
Praise For…
"West expertly chronicles how Ebony magazine and its executive editor Lerone Bennett Jr. shaped cultural perception of African-American history. . . . This astute history shines a welcome light on a pioneering journalist. " --Publishers Weekly
"A fantastic, deeply-contextualized new book about Ebony and Bennett." --IMixWhatILike
"This concise, illuminating book serves as a useful marker for a full-fledged (and long overdue) critical history of Ebony, a major American magazine, in all its glories and travails." --PopMatters