Abstract:This essay argues that Essence magazine provides a crucial intertext for understanding Toni Morrison's engagement in Tar Baby with the political debates that surrounded the "Black Is Beautiful" slogan in the black power era and her use of the Tar Baby story to dramatize and interpret those debates. Tar Baby responds to early scandals at the magazine spurred by white capitalist investment in the "Black Is Beautiful" slogan as well as the magazine's coverage of a splintering black liberation movement, its Caribb… Show more
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