Introduction:

Introduction: Atlantic interventions of Black editorship in the long nineteenth century

“…The resolutions thus speak to the fact that "[t]he structures that govern tend toward preserving white power, but [that] African American expression has always challenged this power through the affordances of whichever infrastructures have been available." 9 Three years after the riots in Cincinnati, the Black editors of the Jamaica Watchman did not merely provide a powerful example of the radical potential and critical capacities of Black print. More so, in their opening editorial from 14 January 1832, they reflect on the role of the Black editor, specifically, as acting from within and against white infrastructures: Our sentiments are before the public; they have not been whispered in a corner, but published to the world, and in the first Number of this volume we recapitulated them for the benefit of all concerned.…”

“…35 While the Black editors and authors presented here are "index[ed]" by the meaning-making processes of race "within authoritative discourses of white supremacy," their Black print ventures and publications also stand as attempts to work against these "infrastructures of inscription." 36 The figure of Josiah Henson, for example, illustrates well the tension between white editorship and Black authorship but also particularizes the various ways in which this tension plays out. As Hannah-Rose Murray shows, Henson strategically engages the struggle over authorial control from within the "infrastructures of inscription" Fielder and Senchyne refer to on both the micro and macro levels, from the material pages of the introduction to his presence during the publishing tour.…”

“…45 Following the calls for a methodological shift toward centering the activity and agency (rather than passivity) of Black print agents as articulated, for example, on the newspaper page, we consider "how black expression has extended, recoded, and transformed some of these very structures, affording new possibilities." 46 Our perspectives on these forms of interventions serve as further pieces in the puzzle to understand Black people's "participation in [the world of] letters" and the print sector. 47 In so doing, we commit to the ongoing importance of the project of "recover[ing]" texts and people from the archives (an idea discussed in the roundtable below as well), while recognizing the need to move beyond.…”