Read All About It: African Americans, Marriage, and the Politics of Wedding Announcements in Black and White Newspapers

This article explores how African Americans used wedding announcements to resist the implications of white supremacy. On the pages of Black newspapers, Black wedding announcements challenged hegemonic discourse about Black family dysfunction and Black inferiority; demonstrated Black participation in civic life; and publicized Black educational and financial advancement. In short, wedding announcements of African American unions countered negative images of Black people in American society, evoked race pride, and demonstrated Black joy throughout the late nineteenth and twentieth centuries.