The Black Scholar

The Black Scholar was founded by Robert Chrisman and Robert Allen in 1969 in Oakland, California. It has become one of the most important intellectual journals in the black world by virtue of its high standards. Almost all of the major contemporary African American intellectuals have published in its pages. The journal has regularly featured such authors as Audre Lorde, Toni Morrison, Maulana Karenga, Cornel West, Molefi Kete Asante, Henry Louis Gates, Amiri Baraka, Manning Marable, and Haki Madhubuti.

The purpose of The Black Scholar was from the start to provide an instrument for the dissemination of the current social, political, economic, and cultural [Page 147]ideas of the black intelligentsia. Over the course of its lifetime, the journal has shown a remarkable flexibility in themes and subjects. Thus, it has provided a much needed outlet for black intellectuals' essays detailing their political and ideological perspectives.

Over the past 20 years, the journal has struggled to support itself with funding from private sources. In 2004, the journal was acquired by the University of Nebraska Press. Robert Chrisman, who is chair of Black Studies at the University of Nebraska at Omaha, is the editor of the internationally acclaimed journal. The journal has firmly established itself as one of the leading journals of black cultural and political thought in the United States. Among its recent contributors have been Amiri Baraka, Angela Davis, Julian Bond, Shirley Chisholm, Nelson Mandela, and Maya Angelou. The Black Scholar remains a strong and vibrant journal after nearly 40 years of publication.