Book contents
- African American Literature in Transition, 1960–1970
- African American Literature In Transition
- African American Literature in Transition, 1960–1970
- Copyright page
- Contents
- Contributors
- Preface
- Acknowledgments
- Chronology
- Introduction
- I Poetry and Music
- II Culture and Politics
- III Beyond the Canon
- Chapter 9 Meanwhile, Back on the Home Front
- Chapter 10 Radio Free Dixie, Black Arts Radio, and African American Women’s Activism
- Index
- References
Chapter 10 - Radio Free Dixie, Black Arts Radio, and African American Women’s Activism
from III - Beyond the Canon
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 10 November 2022
Edited by
Book contents
- African American Literature in Transition, 1960–1970
- African American Literature In Transition
- African American Literature in Transition, 1960–1970
- Copyright page
- Contents
- Contributors
- Preface
- Acknowledgments
- Chronology
- Introduction
- I Poetry and Music
- II Culture and Politics
- III Beyond the Canon
- Chapter 9 Meanwhile, Back on the Home Front
- Chapter 10 Radio Free Dixie, Black Arts Radio, and African American Women’s Activism
- Index
- References
Summary
From 1962 to 1966, exiled African American revolutionaries Robert and Mabel Williams broadcast a weekly English language radio program from Havana, Cuba. As its name suggests, Radio Free Dixie was aimed primarily at African Americans in the U.S. South, for whom radio, of all the mass media, was key for information sharing and consciousness raising. But the show’s potent blend of music, news, literature, and commentary quickly garnered audiences throughout the Americas. Scholarship on Radio Free Dixie has focused on Robert Williams’ printed or transcribed editorials while marginalizing Mabel Williams. By studying the program as both text-based archive and performative repertoire – drawing on performance studies scholar Diana Taylor – I amplify the Williamses’ overlooked Black radio arts. Moreover, I show that Radio Free Dixie’s women co-hosts, Mabel Williams and Jo Salas, ostensibly relegated to minor roles, in fact maximized radio’s capacities to re-articulate revolutionary internationalism through Black women’s histories and experiences.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- African American Literature in Transition, 1960–1970Black Art, Politics, and Aesthetics, pp. 253 - 275Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2022
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