Negro Digest / Black World magazine & Poetry

May 1970 Cover

Black World magazine (formerly known as Negro Digest) was indispensable to the increased visibility of African American poetry and black arts poets during the 1960s and 70s.

Hoyt Fuller, the publication’s editor, was a leading facilitator for conversations about black artistic thought, African American literary artists, and aesthetic qualities and possibilities of black writing. The periodical published hundreds of poems, essays, and reviews of poetry volumes. Overall, the publication amplified dominant themes in black arts discourse and consolidated the interests of a wide range of poets by getting them on the same pages, so to speak.

Sept. 1972 cover

The September issues of the magazine were especially important for the production of poetry. Those special poetry issues published essays about verse and more than two dozen poets. The special issues reminded readers that poetry and poets were an integral part of the artistic and political discourse of the day.

Negro Digest / Black World was sold across the country and thus gave poets that it published such as Dudley Randall, Amiri Baraka, Nikki Giovanni, Sonia Sanchez, Larry Neal, Haki Madhubuti, and more than 100 more wide exposure. The periodical also featured photographs of writers and thus gave poets a level of visibility that they had never received.




This entry is part of a series--30 Days of Black Arts Poetry.