What constitutes "blackness" in American culture? And who gets to define whether or not someone is truly African American? Is a struggling hip-hop artist more "authentic" than a conservative Supreme Court justice? In "Authentic Blackness" J. Martin Favor looks to the New Negro Movement--also known as the Harlem Renaissance--to explore early challenges to the idea that race is a static category.
"Authentic Blackness" looks at the place of the "folk"--those African Americans "furthest down," in the words of Alain Locke--and how the representation of the folk and the black middle class...

What constitutes "blackness" in American culture? And who gets to define whether or not someone is truly African American? Is a struggling hip-hop artist more "authentic" than a conservative Supreme Court justice? In "Authentic Blackness" J. Martin Favor looks to the New Negro Movement--also known as the Harlem Renaissance--to explore early challenges to the idea that race is a static category.
"Authentic Blackness" looks at the place of the "folk"--those African Americans "furthest down," in the words of Alain Locke--and how the representation of the folk and the black middle class...