Introduction

This introductory chapter provides historical context for situating key developments in African American literature and culture at the turn into the twentieth century. In particular, this chapter examines the major shifts that happened in the immediate decade following the Plessy v. Ferguson decision to legalize racial segregation, showing how African American writers, artists, athletes, and intellectuals advocated for civil and political rights, even as they turned inward to strengthen and fortify the infrastructures of their own communities. Illuminating reasons why this decade still remains largely underappreciated in African American literary history, this chapter argues for attention to geography, genre, and publication circumstance, as inflected through questions of gender, sexuality, class, and the politics of race and representation, to bring to light new ways of reading these critical years at the beginning of the twentieth century.