Let Us Make Men

September 15, 2018

Haywood (history, Hunter Coll., City Univ. of New York) offers a fascinating look at the major players of the influential 20th-century black press and their active roles in the Great Migration and civil rights protests. Chapters cover figures such as Robert Sengstacke Abbott and John Sengstacke, publishers of the Chicago Defender; Marcus Garvey and his paper Negro World; Muhammad Speaks, the journal of the Nation of Islam under Malcolm X; and W.E.B. Du Bois and The Crisis, the official magazine of the NAACP. Haywood argues that through the efforts of these publishers came opportunities for young black men. The history viewed in this particular gendered way, focusing primarily on masculinity, relegates women's participation in the press to little mention. Yet Haywood is not disparaging of women reporters, and there is certainly scholarship in this area to complement this work. VERDICT For readers interested in the history of the black freedom struggle, this work delivers an alternative and important view of the actors involved in producing the black press.--Amy Lewontin, Northeastern Univ. Lib., Boston

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