The Militant Black Writer in Africa and the United States

by Mercer and Stephen E. Henderson Cook 

Here, two distinguished Black intellectuals view the Black Revolution in terms of the Black writer. Cook traces the development of Black African consciousness through the works of representative black African writers, from the nineteenth century to the present. In exploring basic themes—independence, civilization, identity, African personality, and African socialism—he draws interesting parallels and notes some telling dissimilarities in the American and African movements. Henderson, choosing the phrase “survival motion” as rubric, examines the intricate interrelationship among black writers, the Black Revolution, and Black Consciousness in America—and their effects upon (and influencing by) established, white, middle-class cultural values. The responsibility of the black writer, he suggests, is to free his people from racist mythology and stimulate their emergent self-respect into an instrumentality of wisdom. Together, these remarkable essays form some profound connections for all who seek a greater understanding, not only of the American Black Revolution, but of the larger, international Black movement which forms an illuminating context for the American experience.

Paperback | 136 pages | The University of Wisconsin Press; Second Printing | 1969

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