It's never been simply a Black-owned publishing house—it's been a community institution
Third World Press Faces the Future
by Mark Anthony Neal | TheLoop21
The recent announcement that Third World Press, the legendary Black owned publishing company founded by Haki Madhubuti (Don L. Lee) was struggling, should come as no surprise. In the midst of a recession (despite what the economists say) the publishing industry is struggling across the board, whether it be magazine, newspaper or book publishing. Third World Press, though, has never been simply a Black owned publishing house—it has been a community institution, run by a family that has been committed to the city of Chicago for more than four decades. More importantly Third World Press has been on the front lines of providing alternative visions of African-American thought, imagery and creativity.
It was more than 25 years ago that I was introduced to Haki Madhubuti and his business doppelganger in the form of a gift; an early and critical mentor gave me a copy of Madhubuti’s 1978 book Enemies: The Clash of Races. The book stayed in my back-pack for two years as I regularly re-read passages in between my college classes, eventually seeking out many of the books that Madhubuti cited including Chancellor Williams’ The Destruction of Black Civilization and Jerry Mander’s Four Arguments for the Elimination of Television. I was also drawn to Madhubuti’s own poetry—his collection From Earthquakes to Sunrise Missions in particular—as his poetic cadences, like my father’s dance and Marvin Gaye’s use of falsetto continue to punctuate my own use of language.
Madhubuti awakened my interest in scholarly non-fiction and helped me tap into my creativity, but more critically his work with the press was an early example of why it was important for artists, writers and musicians have control of the means of production and distribution of their own work. Well before the explosion of Black literature and non-fiction that marked the 1990s and early 20th Century when, to borrow a line from historian David levering Lewis, the “Negro was in vogue,” Madhubuti simply went about the business of publishing the books he wanted and the books he thought needed to be read in Black communities.
The array of authors who published for Third World Press is pretty impressive including Gil Scott-Heron, legal scholar Derrick Bell, poet Gwendolyn Brooks, literary critic Joyce A. Joyce, television journalist Roland Martin, poet Kalamu Salaam and The Isis Papers’ author Frances Cress Welsing. Third World Press also published the Tavis Smiley edited New York Times best-seller The Covenant. Part of the story of Third World Press is that during the 1980s and 1990s, when the dominant mainstream corporate model with regards to Blackness, was to buy up Black owned companies and set them up as boutique operations (see Def Jam, Roc-a-Fella, Bad Boy, Essence Magazine and Black Entertainment), the publishing company remained in family hands.
Madhubuti’s commitment to keep Third World Press in Black hands is the product of the political era in which it was founded.
Read the Full Essay @ theLoop21
Third World Press Faces the Future
by Mark Anthony Neal | TheLoop21
The recent announcement that Third World Press, the legendary Black owned publishing company founded by Haki Madhubuti (Don L. Lee) was struggling, should come as no surprise. In the midst of a recession (despite what the economists say) the publishing industry is struggling across the board, whether it be magazine, newspaper or book publishing. Third World Press, though, has never been simply a Black owned publishing house—it has been a community institution, run by a family that has been committed to the city of Chicago for more than four decades. More importantly Third World Press has been on the front lines of providing alternative visions of African-American thought, imagery and creativity.
It was more than 25 years ago that I was introduced to Haki Madhubuti and his business doppelganger in the form of a gift; an early and critical mentor gave me a copy of Madhubuti’s 1978 book Enemies: The Clash of Races. The book stayed in my back-pack for two years as I regularly re-read passages in between my college classes, eventually seeking out many of the books that Madhubuti cited including Chancellor Williams’ The Destruction of Black Civilization and Jerry Mander’s Four Arguments for the Elimination of Television. I was also drawn to Madhubuti’s own poetry—his collection From Earthquakes to Sunrise Missions in particular—as his poetic cadences, like my father’s dance and Marvin Gaye’s use of falsetto continue to punctuate my own use of language.
Madhubuti awakened my interest in scholarly non-fiction and helped me tap into my creativity, but more critically his work with the press was an early example of why it was important for artists, writers and musicians have control of the means of production and distribution of their own work. Well before the explosion of Black literature and non-fiction that marked the 1990s and early 20th Century when, to borrow a line from historian David levering Lewis, the “Negro was in vogue,” Madhubuti simply went about the business of publishing the books he wanted and the books he thought needed to be read in Black communities.
The array of authors who published for Third World Press is pretty impressive including Gil Scott-Heron, legal scholar Derrick Bell, poet Gwendolyn Brooks, literary critic Joyce A. Joyce, television journalist Roland Martin, poet Kalamu Salaam and The Isis Papers’ author Frances Cress Welsing. Third World Press also published the Tavis Smiley edited New York Times best-seller The Covenant. Part of the story of Third World Press is that during the 1980s and 1990s, when the dominant mainstream corporate model with regards to Blackness, was to buy up Black owned companies and set them up as boutique operations (see Def Jam, Roc-a-Fella, Bad Boy, Essence Magazine and Black Entertainment), the publishing company remained in family hands.
Madhubuti’s commitment to keep Third World Press in Black hands is the product of the political era in which it was founded.
Read the Full Essay @ theLoop21
