You are invited to a National Centre for Research in Children’s Literature seminar
Wednesday 17th February 2016
1-2 pm, Fincham 001
Department of English and Creative Writing
‘Politics and Publishing: Black Power, British Publishing and Child Readers 1965-1975’
Karen Sands O’Connor, Leverhulme Fellow, Newcastle University
In 1966, Stokely Carmichael encouraged a rally of African-Americans to demand “Black Power”; by the 1968 Mexico City Olympics, Black Power had become a movement. Black Power was associated with self-esteem and identity-building in Black communities, but also with violence and militant action; many outside the movement, including liberal white groups and people associated with Martin Luther King Jr.’s ideas of non-violence disavowed or avoided Black Power and its public anger. Although begun (and often referred to) as an American slogan and pressure group, Black Power affected people of African descent worldwide throughout the late 1960s and 1970s. I will examine Black Power as it is embodied and manifested in the publishing of British children’s literature between 1965 and 1975, and the subsequent reaction to (and sometimes against) it in the media and academia.
ALL WELCOME