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Date of Award

5-2010

Access Type

Campus Access

Document type

dissertation

Degree Name

Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)

Degree Program

Afro-American Studies

First Advisor

Ernest Allen, Jr.

Second Advisor

James Smethurst

Third Advisor

Dayo Gore

Subject Categories

African American Studies | Mass Communication | United States History

Abstract

This dissertation investigates the impact of the New York City-based Liberator magazine on the expansion and dissemination of African American political outlooks in the decade between 1960 and 1971. This study explores the history of this magazine as a critical political and cultural formation of these years. Growing out of the tradition of labor, Left-oriented radicalism as well as earlier forms of Black Nationalism at the turn of the 20 thcentury, the Liberator provided an indispensable forum where many of the national and international concerns facing Black people could be discussed and debated. In its early days as the organ of the short-lived Liberation Committee for Africa and after, Liberator delivered cutting-edge political, social and cultural analyses of Black radicalism. Therefore, in accounting for the transition period between the Civil Rights Movement and Black Power radicalism, I argue that Liberator represents an important example of the strategic efforts of African American intellectuals, artists, and activists to shape autonomous political spaces through the establishment of a radical print culture.

DOI

https://doi.org/10.7275/5670552

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