The Black Scholar
Frick Fine Arts Library
University of Pittsburgh
(Original Text)
This display is the first of several to be presented over the coming weeks which coincide with the graduate seminar, Considering African American Art in the International Arena. The purpose of these displays will be to provide opportunities for viewing a broad range of material to inform and enhance an appreciation of related aspects of modern and contemporary art history.
The Black Scholar Journal of Black Studies and Research was founded by Robert Chrisman and Nathan Hare, in the San Francisco Bay Area, in 1969. Originally published monthly, this small selection from 1974 to 1976 characterize the journal’s dynamic editorial vision which encompassed black perspectives on a breadth of political, social and cultural concerns of the day. As one of only a few journals of its kind available during the early 1970s, the Black Scholar represented an important independent and intellectual perspective on America past and present.
With its distinctive front cover designs and boasting an impressive array of contributors, including Alice Walker, Alex Haley, Imamu Amiri Baraka, Shirley Chisholm and Julius K. Nyerere, issues were typically thematic in nature and supplemented by an invaluable book review section.
Invariably concerned with matters arising in contemporary America, the Black Scholar was simultaneously international in its outlook. In the issue ‘Black Politics 1974 Kwame Nkrumah’ (October 1974), the editor observes “There can be no doubt that black politics has an international dimension, and – as shown in this issue– progressive black political thinkers and leaders are incorporating this reality into their thoughts, their actions, their sense of human responsibility.”
Re-launched in 2012, the Black Scholar is today published quarterly. www.theblackscholar.org
Richard Hylton
Dietrich Diversity Postdoctoral Fellow
History of Art and Architecture
University of Pittsburgh