Popular Fronts

Book excerpt: In a stunning revision of radical politics during the Popular Front period, Bill Mullen redefines the cultural renaissance of the 1930s and early 1940s as the fruit of an extraordinary rapprochement between African-American and white members of the U.S. Left struggling to create a new American Negro culture. A dynamic reappraisal of a critical moment in American cultural history, Popular Fronts includes a major reassessment of the politics of Richard Wright's critical reputation, a provocative reading of class struggle in Gwendolyn Brooks's A Street in Bronzeville, and in-depth examinations of the institutions that comprised Chicago's black popular front: The Chicago Defender, the period's leading black newspaper; Negro Story, the first magazine devoted to publishing short stories by and about black Americans; and the WPA-sponsored South Side Community Art Center.