Working in the Scholastic archive, we sometimes discover books in the stacks that take us on a walk down memory lane. Today those books are...
Title: The Scholastic Black Literature Series
Editors: Alma Murray and Robert Thomas
Works by: Samuel Allen, Maya Angelou, James Baldwin, Lerone Bennett Jr., Julian Bond, Arna Bontemps, Gwendolyn Brooks, Claude Brown, Sterling Brown, Alice Childress, Charles W. Chesnutt, John Henrik Clarke, James David Corrothers, Countée Cullen, Waring Cuney, Arthur P. Davis, Gloria Davis, Ossie Davis, David Diop, Paul Laurence Dunbar, Ralph Ellison, Mari E. Evans, C.H.Fuller Jr., Bob Gibson, Nikki Giovanni, Eloise Greenfield, Dick Gregory, Angelina W. Grimke, Loyle Hairston, Lorraine Hansberry, Robert Hayden, Langston Hughes, Kristin Hunter, Zora Neale Hurston, Ted Joans, James Weldon Johnson, LeRoi Jones, Norman Jordan, Louis Lomax, William Melville Kelley, Mrs. Martin Luther King Jr., Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., Don L. Lee, Julius Lester, Barbara D. Mahone, Claude McKay, Gordon Parks, Raymond Patterson, David N. Peery, Phil Pepe, Tom Pool, Dudley Randall, Bill Russell, Betty Shabazz, Sharon Stockard, Sun-Ra, Booker T. Washington, Ernest White, Richard Wright, Malcolm X, Frank Yerby, and more...
Illustrators: Diane and Leo Dillon, Tom Feelings, George Ford, Alvin Hollingsworth, Mal Cann, Leo Carty, Ronald Flemmings, Charles Lilly, John Shearer (photography), Hugh Bell (photography), and Anthony Barbosa (photography)
Publication Date: 1970-1971
Audience: Students of Los Angeles City Schools
Description:
“A WORD ABOUT THIS SERIES…. The Scholastic Black Literature Series is a cooperative publishing effort of the Los Angeles City Schools and Scholastic Book Services, a Division of Scholastic Magazines, Inc. Dr. Frank Hodgson, Assistant Superintendent in the Los Angeles City Schools, devised this pattern of collaboration, in which a private enterprise and a school system each contributes its specialized knowledge and skill to produce textbooks which are designed to meet the specific needs of students… Mrs. Alma Murray and Mr. Robert Thomas, the editors of this series, are teachers in the Los Angeles City Schools.”—page [3].
Comments:
The black and white artwork in these anthologies is incredibly compelling! Having majored in English and African & African American Studies, much of the writing included is familiar, but I went down a rabbit hole on the internet to learn more about the illustrators and photographers. Leo and Diane Dillon occupy a soft spot in my heart, and now they are going to have to make some room, because I still have some research to do.
This is a great teaching resource – and its just 45 years young! Particularly exciting – there are records with readings from each volume.
What information can you share about Mal Cann, Ronald Flemmings, and Anthony Barbosa?
Update 6/4/2015: I was contacted by someone looking for a readalike, and my suggestion is the ID vision:voice:identity program. The author and advisor for this program is Dr. Alfred W. Tatum, and he also wrote Fearless Voices: Engaging a New Generation of African American Adolescent Male Writers for us.
