How the New York Times Covers Black Writers
October 12, 2022
Published by Public Books in the series called Hacking the Culture Industries

Many African American writers and commentators have followed John A. Williams, critiquing the practice in the US whereby “only one” or a few Black writers are elevated by white publishing outlets, while many other authors are ignored. For example, Geneva Smitherman, Ron Milner, Rita Dove, Ishmael Reed, and others have made this claim.1 During Richard Wright’s time, explained biographer Faith Berry in 1968, “only one black writer at a time … could be eminent in American letters.” In his 1972 autobiography, Chester Himes noted that “the powers that be have never admitted but one black at a time into the area of fame.” In 1974, June Jordan noted that “we have lost many jewels to the glare of white, mass-media manipulation,” which celebrates only individual Black writers. But has this critique—of elevating only the minimum number of Black writers at a time, at the expense of all others—ever been proven? We are unaware of any efforts to quantify the complaint. That is, until now.