E James West
Biographic Data
| ID | 3597331 |
|---|---|
| NAME | E James West |
| GIVEN NAMES | E James |
| FAMILY NAME | West |
| SIGNATURE | WEST E J |
| AFFILIATIONS | Northumbria University |
| ORCID | 0000-0001-8928-7682 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 20 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 4 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 20 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2013 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2025 |
| H-INDEX | 1 |
The Race Racket: Black Rights, Confidence Men, and the Lives and Crimes of Z. W. Mitchell
This article focuses on the career of Zedekiah W. Mitchell, a prolific African American con man, and the Loyal Legion of Labor, his fraudulent movement “to uplift the race.” It reads Mitchell as an example of the civil rights confidence man, who profiteered from the desires of Black and White Americans to address the “negro problem.” Operating at the intersections of the “golden age of con artistry” and the nadir of race relations in the United S…
Book Forum
Searching for Black Santa: The Contested History of an American Holiday Tradition
This article explores the contested history and complex politics of the Black Santa in the United States from the antebellum period to the present day. For white journalists and entertainers during the nineteenth and early twentieth century, the blackface Santa reinforced white dominance and the supposed inferiority of Black people. From the 1910s into the 1950s, Black educators and civic reformers saw the ‘Negro Santa Claus’ as a way of elevatin…
Johnson Publishing Company and the Search for a White Audience
Johnson Publishing Company, the publisher of Negro Digest and Ebony, made efforts to expand its white audience during the 1940s and early 1950s. Johnson Publishing aggressively sought “to sell white readers the idea that a Negro magazine is worth buying,” through the regular publication of letters from “white” readers, consistent references to its influence among whites, fundraising and subscription drives to circulate its magazines among white r…
Looking Backwards, Moving Forwards: The Ahmed Iqbal Ullah Race Centre and Education Trust, Community Activism and Public History Programming
Founded in memory of a Bangladeshi schoolboy who was stabbed to death in a racially motivated attack in 1986, the Ahmed Iqbal Ullah Education Trust works to archive the life stories of racial and ethnic minority communities in Greater Manchester. The Trust is partnered with the Ahmed Iqbal Ullah RACE (Race Archives and Community Engagement) Centre, a specialist library focusing on the history of race, ethnicity and migration. This roundtable with…
Getting on the Negro History Bandwagon: Selling Black History from World War II to the Dawn of Black Power
Drawing on a diverse range of archival material, oral histories, market research literature, and Black periodicals, this article sheds new light on the development of Black history-themed advertising and public outreach campaigns by White-owned corporations from World War II to the dawn of Black Power. While not universally celebrated, corporate Black history campaigns often received tremendous public support and played an important role in promo…
Hunt the Wizard! Race, Immigration, and British Tabloid Coverage of David Duke’s 1978 Tour
Drawing on a range of material from the British Newspaper Archives, the University of Northampton, the Institute of Race Relations, and other institutions, this article sheds new light on a widely overlooked British tour by American Ku Klux Klan leader David Duke in 1978. Duke’s arrival was a cause célèbre for the British press and for the British tabloids in particular, which eagerly kept readers up-to-date on police efforts to ‘hunt the wizard.…
Ebony Magazine and Lerone Bennett Jr.: Popular Black History in Postwar America
Ebony Magazine and Lerone Bennett Jr.: Popular Black History in Postwar America
This study reveals the previously hidden impact of Ebony magazine as a major producer and disseminator of popular black history during the second half of the twentieth century, stretching from its formation in 1945 to its role in the movement to establish a national holiday for Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. during the 1980s. Benefitting from unprecedented access to new archival materials at Chicago State and Emory University, it focuses on the impac…
Class, Culture, and Coming of Age in Alice Browning's Chicago Girl
Among the many contributors to Chicago’s Black Renaissance, a creative movement which reached its height during the 1930s and ’40s, was Alice Browning, an African American educator, publisher, and writer. Best known as the coeditor of Negro Story, a short-lived but influential Black literary magazine, Browning was also a frustrated novelist who worked on an unpublished manuscript titled Chicago Girl for much of her adult life. A flawed but fascin…
Immigrants & Minorities 2020 Special Issue: Race, Immigration, and the British Media since 1945
In June 1948, a small contingent of British media representatives clustered at Tilbury Docks in London to document the arrival of the HMS Empire Windrush. A news-bulletin from British Pathe charact
Newsworthy to Whom? A Conversation with Kennetta Hammond Perry
Kennetta Hammond Perry is the founding Director of the Stephen Lawrence Research Centre and a Reader in History at De Montford University. The Centre, which was officially opened by Baroness Doreen
Bare-Knuckle Britons and Fighting Irish: Boxing, Race, Religion and Nationality in the Eighteenth and Nineteenth Centuries
Book Review| October 01 2019 Bare-Knuckle Britons and Fighting Irish: Boxing, Race, Religion and Nationality in the Eighteenth and Nineteenth Centuries Chill, Adam. Bare-Knuckle Britons and Fighting Irish: Boxing, Race, Religion and Nationality in the Eighteenth and Nineteenth Centuries. Jefferson: McFarland & Company, Inc. Publishers, 2017. Pp. x + 237. $35.00, pb. E. James West E. James West Northumbria University Search for other works by this…
Reading the Radical American Periodical
This special issue probes our definitions and understandings of both the ‘radical’ and the ‘American’ in North American print and periodical culture. As many of the subsequent papers demonstrate, notions of radicalism as expressed in American periodicals often necessitate(d) looking beyond the nation state. Similarly, this issue highlights the fluidity of ‘radicalism’ as a temporal and technological concept; relatable not only to literary content…
Black power print
This photographic essay focuses on the cover art of a wave of black radical periodicals which emerged in the United States during the 1960s to shed light on the intersections between Black Power, graphic design and black print culture. By examining the graphic design and artwork employed by ‘little black magazines’ such as Liberator, Soulbook and Black America, we can see the origins of a Black Power visual aesthetic which was most memorably rend…
We are an African People: Independent education, Black Power, and the radical imagination
Since Peniel E. Joseph first called attention to the emergence of ‘Black Power Studies’ in the mid-2000s, a growing body of work has cemented its importance as a vibrant subfield of African America
Lerone Bennett, Jr: A Life in Popular Black History
In the August 1972 issue of Ebony magazine, the nation‘s largest black periodical attempted to identify the 10 most important black men in American history.1 To help adjudicate, Ebony assembled a p
Power is 100 years old: Lerone Bennett Jr., Ebony magazine and the roots of black power
In November 1965, Lerone Bennett, Jr. began a new series in Ebony magazine titled “Black Power”, which focused on the economic and political gains made by blacks during Reconstruction. In the middle of Bennett’s “Black Power” series, Stokely Carmichael issued his own proclamation for Black Power at the Meredith March in June 1966. Just a few issues later, Ebony published an in-depth profile of Carmichael by Bennett, which provided one of the most…
I see enough queers walking the streets in this city: Homosexuality and Sexual Geographies in Black Consumer Magazines during the 1970s
This article examines the representations of black homosexuality during the 1970s in Ebony and Jet, America’s most popular black periodicals. As two of the most important “indigenous information sources” available to black communities during this period, Ebony and Jet played a critical role in shaping broader public perceptions and anxieties over black respectability, queer identity, and homosexual desire. Through the contributions of predominant…
Darkest America: Black Minstrelsy from Slavery to Hip-Hop by Yuval Taylor, Jake Austen
Reviewed by: Darkest America: Black Minstrelsy from Slavery to Hip-Hop by Yuval Taylor, Jake Austen James West (bio) Taylor, Yuval, and Jake Austen. Darkest America: Black Minstrelsy from Slavery to Hip-Hop. New York: W.W. Norton, 2012. This entertaining study develops an expansive history of black minstrelsy dating from the nineteenth century. Darkest America sits alongside the forthcoming reissue of Akil Houston’s Beyond Blackface (2012) and a …
We are an African People: Independent education, Black Power, and the radical imagination
Since Peniel E. Joseph first called attention to the emergence of ‘Black Power Studies’ in the mid-2000s, a growing body of work has cemented its importance as a vibrant subfield of African America
Getting on the Negro History Bandwagon: Selling Black History from World War II to the Dawn of Black Power
Drawing on a diverse range of archival material, oral histories, market research literature, and Black periodicals, this article sheds new light on the development of Black history-themed advertising and public outreach campaigns by White-owned corporations from World War II to the dawn of Black Power. While not universally celebrated, corporate Black history campaigns often received tremendous public support and played an important role in promo…
Lerone Bennett, Jr: A Life in Popular Black History
In the August 1972 issue of Ebony magazine, the nation‘s largest black periodical attempted to identify the 10 most important black men in American history.1 To help adjudicate, Ebony assembled a p
Darkest America: Black Minstrelsy from Slavery to Hip-Hop by Yuval Taylor, Jake Austen
Reviewed by: Darkest America: Black Minstrelsy from Slavery to Hip-Hop by Yuval Taylor, Jake Austen James West (bio) Taylor, Yuval, and Jake Austen. Darkest America: Black Minstrelsy from Slavery to Hip-Hop. New York: W.W. Norton, 2012. This entertaining study develops an expansive history of black minstrelsy dating from the nineteenth century. Darkest America sits alongside the forthcoming reissue of Akil Houston’s Beyond Blackface (2012) and a …
Power is 100 years old: Lerone Bennett Jr., Ebony magazine and the roots of black power
In November 1965, Lerone Bennett, Jr. began a new series in Ebony magazine titled “Black Power”, which focused on the economic and political gains made by blacks during Reconstruction. In the middle of Bennett’s “Black Power” series, Stokely Carmichael issued his own proclamation for Black Power at the Meredith March in June 1966. Just a few issues later, Ebony published an in-depth profile of Carmichael by Bennett, which provided one of the most…
I see enough queers walking the streets in this city: Homosexuality and Sexual Geographies in Black Consumer Magazines during the 1970s
This article examines the representations of black homosexuality during the 1970s in Ebony and Jet, America’s most popular black periodicals. As two of the most important “indigenous information sources” available to black communities during this period, Ebony and Jet played a critical role in shaping broader public perceptions and anxieties over black respectability, queer identity, and homosexual desire. Through the contributions of predominant…
We are an African People: Independent education, Black Power, and the radical imagination
Since Peniel E. Joseph first called attention to the emergence of ‘Black Power Studies’ in the mid-2000s, a growing body of work has cemented its importance as a vibrant subfield of African America
Lerone Bennett, Jr: A Life in Popular Black History
In the August 1972 issue of Ebony magazine, the nation‘s largest black periodical attempted to identify the 10 most important black men in American history.1 To help adjudicate, Ebony assembled a p
Reading the Radical American Periodical
This special issue probes our definitions and understandings of both the ‘radical’ and the ‘American’ in North American print and periodical culture. As many of the subsequent papers demonstrate, notions of radicalism as expressed in American periodicals often necessitate(d) looking beyond the nation state. Similarly, this issue highlights the fluidity of ‘radicalism’ as a temporal and technological concept; relatable not only to literary content…
Black power print
This photographic essay focuses on the cover art of a wave of black radical periodicals which emerged in the United States during the 1960s to shed light on the intersections between Black Power, graphic design and black print culture. By examining the graphic design and artwork employed by ‘little black magazines’ such as Liberator, Soulbook and Black America, we can see the origins of a Black Power visual aesthetic which was most memorably rend…
Immigrants & Minorities 2020 Special Issue: Race, Immigration, and the British Media since 1945
In June 1948, a small contingent of British media representatives clustered at Tilbury Docks in London to document the arrival of the HMS Empire Windrush. A news-bulletin from British Pathe charact
Newsworthy to Whom? A Conversation with Kennetta Hammond Perry
Kennetta Hammond Perry is the founding Director of the Stephen Lawrence Research Centre and a Reader in History at De Montford University. The Centre, which was officially opened by Baroness Doreen
Bare-Knuckle Britons and Fighting Irish: Boxing, Race, Religion and Nationality in the Eighteenth and Nineteenth Centuries
Book Review| October 01 2019 Bare-Knuckle Britons and Fighting Irish: Boxing, Race, Religion and Nationality in the Eighteenth and Nineteenth Centuries Chill, Adam. Bare-Knuckle Britons and Fighting Irish: Boxing, Race, Religion and Nationality in the Eighteenth and Nineteenth Centuries. Jefferson: McFarland & Company, Inc. Publishers, 2017. Pp. x + 237. $35.00, pb. E. James West E. James West Northumbria University Search for other works by this…
Ebony Magazine and Lerone Bennett Jr.: Popular Black History in Postwar America
Ebony Magazine and Lerone Bennett Jr.: Popular Black History in Postwar America
This study reveals the previously hidden impact of Ebony magazine as a major producer and disseminator of popular black history during the second half of the twentieth century, stretching from its formation in 1945 to its role in the movement to establish a national holiday for Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. during the 1980s. Benefitting from unprecedented access to new archival materials at Chicago State and Emory University, it focuses on the impac…
Class, Culture, and Coming of Age in Alice Browning's Chicago Girl
Among the many contributors to Chicago’s Black Renaissance, a creative movement which reached its height during the 1930s and ’40s, was Alice Browning, an African American educator, publisher, and writer. Best known as the coeditor of Negro Story, a short-lived but influential Black literary magazine, Browning was also a frustrated novelist who worked on an unpublished manuscript titled Chicago Girl for much of her adult life. A flawed but fascin…
Hunt the Wizard! Race, Immigration, and British Tabloid Coverage of David Duke’s 1978 Tour
Drawing on a range of material from the British Newspaper Archives, the University of Northampton, the Institute of Race Relations, and other institutions, this article sheds new light on a widely overlooked British tour by American Ku Klux Klan leader David Duke in 1978. Duke’s arrival was a cause célèbre for the British press and for the British tabloids in particular, which eagerly kept readers up-to-date on police efforts to ‘hunt the wizard.…
Johnson Publishing Company and the Search for a White Audience
Johnson Publishing Company, the publisher of Negro Digest and Ebony, made efforts to expand its white audience during the 1940s and early 1950s. Johnson Publishing aggressively sought “to sell white readers the idea that a Negro magazine is worth buying,” through the regular publication of letters from “white” readers, consistent references to its influence among whites, fundraising and subscription drives to circulate its magazines among white r…
Looking Backwards, Moving Forwards: The Ahmed Iqbal Ullah Race Centre and Education Trust, Community Activism and Public History Programming
Founded in memory of a Bangladeshi schoolboy who was stabbed to death in a racially motivated attack in 1986, the Ahmed Iqbal Ullah Education Trust works to archive the life stories of racial and ethnic minority communities in Greater Manchester. The Trust is partnered with the Ahmed Iqbal Ullah RACE (Race Archives and Community Engagement) Centre, a specialist library focusing on the history of race, ethnicity and migration. This roundtable with…
Getting on the Negro History Bandwagon: Selling Black History from World War II to the Dawn of Black Power
Drawing on a diverse range of archival material, oral histories, market research literature, and Black periodicals, this article sheds new light on the development of Black history-themed advertising and public outreach campaigns by White-owned corporations from World War II to the dawn of Black Power. While not universally celebrated, corporate Black history campaigns often received tremendous public support and played an important role in promo…
Book Forum
Searching for Black Santa: The Contested History of an American Holiday Tradition
This article explores the contested history and complex politics of the Black Santa in the United States from the antebellum period to the present day. For white journalists and entertainers during the nineteenth and early twentieth century, the blackface Santa reinforced white dominance and the supposed inferiority of Black people. From the 1910s into the 1950s, Black educators and civic reformers saw the ‘Negro Santa Claus’ as a way of elevatin…
The Race Racket: Black Rights, Confidence Men, and the Lives and Crimes of Z. W. Mitchell
This article focuses on the career of Zedekiah W. Mitchell, a prolific African American con man, and the Loyal Legion of Labor, his fraudulent movement “to uplift the race.” It reads Mitchell as an example of the civil rights confidence man, who profiteered from the desires of Black and White Americans to address the “negro problem.” Operating at the intersections of the “golden age of con artistry” and the nadir of race relations in the United S…
Sociology (16 works) · History (12 works) · Political science (12 works) · Art (10 works) · Gender Studies (10 works) · Law (10 works) · Race, History, and American Society (9 works) · Art history (8 works) · Media studies (8 works) · Gender Studies (6 works)