The Works of James M. Whitfield
America and Other Writings by a Nineteenth-Century African American Poet
Robert S. Levine
Publisher: University of North Carolina Press
Imprint: The University of North Carolina Press
Published: 02/2011
Pages: 256
Subject: Poetry, Social Science, Literary Collections
| University of North Carolina
Print ISBN: 9.78E+12
eBook ISBN: 9780807877814
DESCRIPTION
Whitfield's works, including poems from his celebrated America and Other Poems (1853), were printed in influential journals and newspapers, such as Frederick Douglass's The North Star. A champion of the black emigration movement during the 1850s, Whitfield was embraced by African Americans as a black nationalist bard when he moved from his longtime home in Buffalo, New York, to California in the early 1860s. However, by the beginning of the twentieth century, his reputation had faded.
For this volume, Levine and Wilson gathered and annotated all of Whitfield's extant writings, both poetry and prose, and many pieces are reprinted here for the first time since their original publication. In their thorough introduction, the editors situate Whitfield in relation to key debates on black nationalism in African American culture, underscoring the importance of poetry and periodical culture to black writing during the period.