Abstract

This monograph deals with traces of early black journalism in the widest sense of the word – as public articulations with implications for concepts of citizenship. As a sequel to the 2013 monograph Gender, Citizenship and Newspapers, this books focuses on race and ethnicity, with implications for class, memory, identity studies, and study of popular, ephemeral archival texts.
The study positions itself at the boundaries between media history and literary/language studies by comparing newspaper archives as a voice for black people to other literary non-fiction articulations by them such as pamphlets, and memoirs.
At the same time, the book makes a case for the historical period of the aftermaths of the First World War (1919-1924) as being a crucial one for communications by black people using print communications, evidenced comparatively in 3 countries – Britain, France and the United States.
These timely research findings bring a fresh trans-national perspective, expanding academic recuperation of black heritage in print, and adding an ethnic dimension to the concept of ‘cultural citizenship’ –first elaborated by the author in her 2013 Palgrave publication in relation to gender.
The work is an output of an AHRC Hidden Histories Centenary Centre public engagement grant ‘African, Asian and Caribbean Empire Contributions to World War One’, and is connected to public engagement activities as part of the author’s involvement in the AHRC/HLF funded ‘Everyday Lives at War’ Centenary Commemoration Centre.