Book contents
- African American Literature in Transition, 1900–1910
- African American Literature in Transition
- African American Literature in Transition, 1900–1910
- Copyright page
- Contents
- Figures
- Contributors
- Preface
- Acknowledgments
- Chronology, 1900–1910
- Introduction
- Part I Transitions in African American Authorship, Publishing, and the Visual Arts
- Part II New Negro Aesthetics and Transitions in Genre and Form
- Part III Modernist Masculinities and Transitions in Black Leadership
- Chapter 7 Charting the Tensions between Optimism and Despair at Mid-Decade
- Chapter 8 W. E. B. Du Bois and Transitions in Black Intellectual Thought
- Chapter 9 Celebrity and Transitions in Black Masculinity at the Turn of the Century
- Part IV Remapping the Turn of the Twentieth Century
- Index
Chapter 9 - Celebrity and Transitions in Black Masculinity at the Turn of the Century
from Part III - Modernist Masculinities and Transitions in Black Leadership
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 29 April 2021
- African American Literature in Transition, 1900–1910
- African American Literature in Transition
- African American Literature in Transition, 1900–1910
- Copyright page
- Contents
- Figures
- Contributors
- Preface
- Acknowledgments
- Chronology, 1900–1910
- Introduction
- Part I Transitions in African American Authorship, Publishing, and the Visual Arts
- Part II New Negro Aesthetics and Transitions in Genre and Form
- Part III Modernist Masculinities and Transitions in Black Leadership
- Chapter 7 Charting the Tensions between Optimism and Despair at Mid-Decade
- Chapter 8 W. E. B. Du Bois and Transitions in Black Intellectual Thought
- Chapter 9 Celebrity and Transitions in Black Masculinity at the Turn of the Century
- Part IV Remapping the Turn of the Twentieth Century
- Index
Summary
This chapter explores Black masculinity and celebrity at the turn of the century through the lives of American statesman Frederick Douglass, educator Booker T. Washington, scholar/activist W. E. B. DuBois, fiction writer Charles W. Chesnutt, and boxer Jack Johnson, the first African American world heavyweight champion. Johnson’s athletic accomplishments and diverse cultural interests, along with his uncompromisingly bold personality, set a new tone for Black masculinity in the first decade of the twentieth century. His celebrity status, mediated by his status as a Black man, provided him a public platform unprecedented for an African American man. On that platform, he embraced his Black working-class heritage, critiqued the dubious history and practice of colonialism, and unapologetically revealed his preference for socializing with white women. Johnson presented, in both his actions and his physical dominance of white men in the ring, the major issues, aspirations, and concerns in the lives and work of this quartet of Black men.
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- African American Literature in Transition, 1900–1910 , pp. 222 - 246Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2021