Issues of Color

I am currently at work on a second book Issues of Color: Black Magazine and the Business of Black Life. A business and cultural history of the mid-twentieth century Black magazines, this work examines origins, development, and scope of the commercial Black magazine publishing industry, with special attention to the role that popular Black periodicals played in Black life. Many of these publications were short-lived; additionally, they have been disregarded and devalued Black popular culture products and discarded by libraries and other scholarly repositories. As a result, determining the scope of the industry is tricky as many of its products are hard to find. One of the best parts of this research is my late night marauding sessions on eBay looking for these essential primary resources.

Emmett Till, JET Magazine, & Wellesley College

For well over a decade, I have studied JET Magazine’s coverage of the lynching of fourteen-year Emmett Till in 1955. Being able to access the actual magazines is essential to my research. Fortunately, Ruth R. Rogers, Curator of Wellesley College Special Collections, recognized the value in these magazines and, in 2022, she procured all issues of JET containing Till material. Beyond serving me, this subset of the JET archive constitutes an important archive for students of JET, black publishing, the Emmett Till case, and the history of lynching.

See: “Black History in Your Hands,” Wellesley Magazine, Fall 2022 by Catherine O’Neill Grace

Resources

Wellesley College Special Collections

Wellesley College Digital Repository

(excellent resource for rare books & manuscripts, archival material, and Wellesley College faculty & student scholarship)