Liberator, Vol. III, No. 12, December 1963
New York: Afro-American Research Institute, Inc., 1963. An issue of one of the most important, yet often overlooked, magazines of radical black, which began in 1961 as the organ of the short-lived Liberation Committee for Africa (LCA). Inspired by the liberation movements in Africa, the LCA was formed by the once-promising architect, Daniel H. Watts, along with veteran black journalist Richard Gibson and white activist Pete Beveridge, a Communist Party member who’d previously been education director for the Brooklyn chapter of the Association for the Study of Negro Life and History (Beveridge was married to an African American Communist named Hortense “Tee” Sie who was an organizer for the Council on African Affairs). Beveridge would later be nudged out of his role at the Liberator due to the racialization of black organizations during the 1960s. The noted intellectual John Henrik Clarke was also an early member of the magazine’s editorial board, although he wasn’t involved with the day-to-day operations.
Initially focused on African independence movements and the African diaspora, the magazine increasingly focused on black power, black nationalism, and black arts in the United States with articles supporting Malcolm X, Rev. Albert Cleage, Robert F. Williams, SNCC, and other militant groups and individuals. In 1963, the magazine featured a three-part series by former New York Black Panther Eddie Ellis on “Semitism and the Black Ghetto,” which caused a backlash among some supporters and the resignation of Ossie Davis and James Baldwin from its Advisory Board. By 1970 the magazine was in dire financial straits and the last issue appeared in March 1971.
This issue features an editorial by Watts, C. E. Wilson’s commentary on a Newsweek article, “What the White Man Thinks of the Negro Revolt,”a brief tribute to JFK, a poem by Carol J. Lawson (“Black and White”), a tribute to Liberator’s ‘Man of the Year’, the Rev. Albert B. Cleage, Jr. by Sterling Gray, “The Crux of Black Non-Violence” by Edith Schomburg, an interview with Ossie Davis by Charlie L. Russell, “Apartheid’s Allies” by L. P. Beveridge, Jr., part three of a four-part series by Harold Cruse on “Rebellion or Revolution,”, letters to the editor, “Thru Women’s Eyes: A Mother’s Responsibility” by Jeannette, and a poem by Eugene 3X Rivers (“The Wailing Tree”).
Magazine format, photo-illustrated cover, 22 p. A near fine copy. Item #12409
Price: $150.00