In recent years, scholars have reevaluated the chronology, content and impact of the black power movement, arguing that it ran parallel to and sometimes intersected with the civil rights movement and had a significant, widespread and positive effect on the African American community. Despite innovative work on the cultural impact of the black power movement by scholars like William van Deburg and Jeffrey Ogbar, children's books as examples of black power's cultural impact are overlooked.Footnote ¹ What follows is a contribution to addressing this neglect within black power historiography by focussing on the work of Julius Lester. Lester was an activist closely tied to the black power movement but also a writer who moved into children's literature, carrying with him many ideas reflective of the black power movement. Julia Mickenberg and Philip Nel's work on radical children's books emphasizes that “neither children nor literature for them can be extricated from politics.”Footnote ² Julius Lester's work was intrinsically political; the artwork and content of the books served to entertain, but also referenced and connected with black power ideas. This article argues that books for children in the black power era changed; black writers increasingly focussed on black pride and cultural efflorescence rather than on integration and multiracial ideas. Lester's work is used because as he began to write for children, he still retained aspects of his black power activism and thinking: an approach that emphasizes the power and pride in black history and cultures. Examinations of black power culture tend to focus on its close relation – the black arts movement – but children's books are never scrutinized within the context of either this movement or black power more widely. However, whilst children's literature did not reflect the fractious nature of the black power movement, nor all of its facets, Julius Lester reflected ideas and themes common to the movement in ways more palatable for children.

Born in 1939 in St. Louis, Missouri, by 1963 Julius Lester was involved with the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) as a photographer, folk singer and activist in the South. By 1968 he was living in New York with his wife and two young children and had become involved in the nascent black power movement that was being popularized by another former SNCC activist, Stokely Carmichael. In 1968, two years after the first cries of “Black Power!”, Lester wrote the seminal text Look Out, Whitey! Black Power's Gon’ Get Your Mama. This was one of the earliest books to provide a context for black power that focussed on the history of oppression that had led to the burgeoning black power movement.Footnote ³ His editor appreciated his very simple writing style, and wanted to know if he had ever thought about writing children's books.Footnote ⁴ This suggestion inspired Lester and he became a children's writer, not only through his activism, but also as a father, concerned about how the entrenched prejudice in many children's books of the time would affect children. His writing is a very early example of works that tried to explore the meanings and importance of black power through children's literature. He decided to write books for children that included black history and traditional black folktales, putting stories he had listened to in his youth into print for children. Children's literature specialist Katherine Capshaw-Smith argues that much African American literature emerged out of the movement for racial uplift and it tended to focus on social progress, integration and an educated black elite.Footnote ⁵ Julius Lester's work, however, reflected the more radical class elements of black power that specifically did not seek entry into and progression in US society. But his work also echoes oral tales from his childhood where relatives would poke fun at white authority figures. Reflecting on his time during the 1960s, Lester remembers “daring to try and change the values by which American society defined itself and us.”Footnote ⁶ Lester's words evoke sentiments of prominent black power activist Stokely Carmichael, who questioned whether black people had any desire to join a society that had tried to exclude them.Footnote ⁷ Historiography has not replicated the fervour for the study of black children's literature that was present in the late 1960s and the 1970s when educators, parents and activists cried out for children's literature that was culturally relevant to African American children.Footnote ⁸ Elements of black consciousness and racial pride in literature has been in evidence since the late nineteenth century in works by authors such as Amelia Johnson, Langston Hughes and Lucille Clifton. As black power notions of black pride became more widely popular, many black authors moved away from an integrationist approach and began to set their books in black cultural environments with black protagonists, as they sought to emphasize African American cultures, history and daily lives.Footnote ⁹ Children's literature during the period of the black power movement drew on many familiar themes of focussing on black history, racial pride and inculcating a sense of black consciousness but with a more radical approach than in prior literature. The black power movement's fiery rhetoric, uncompromising attitude towards whites and focus on more radical history fed into children's literature and gave it a radical bent previously absent in the canon.

Julius Lester was amongst a set of pioneering authors within children's literature who dealt with issues of black pride, racial relations and black history in a new and radical way. A flurry of powerful literature dealing with these issues arose quickly in the early 1970s and Lester is an immediate precursor to a canon of literature that engaged with the movement's central themes of black pride and self-definition.Footnote ¹⁰ He is featured in a litany of black power historiography, but this is just in reference to his Revolutionary Notes or Look Out, Whitey! Black Power's Gon’ Get Your Mama, both books for adults, rather than his children's literature.Footnote ¹¹ But children's literature deserves its own focus of study. For many black power activists, the movement gave them a sense of self-worth and pride and it was this feeling that was often then replicated in children's literature. It was believed that the very act of children seeing images and reading about black people as realistic humans was crucial in making a child feel valued in their social climate.Footnote ¹² In his founding address in March 1969 for the Black Academy of Arts and Letters (BAAL), Eric Lincoln proclaimed, “There is something happening in America … Something that is beautiful. It is the coming of age of the Black American.”Footnote ¹³ Lincoln's statement encapsulated the cultural fervour of the black power movement that Julius Lester channelled in children's literature.

Lester and other children's authors were quite deliberately reacting against the state of children's books for black children. In 1965 over 6.3 million racialized children were learning to read within the United States. During this time the four largest publishers of children's books – Doubleday, Macmillan, Franklin Watts and Harper & Row – only featured references or illustrations of black children in 4.2 percent of their output.Footnote ¹⁴ Furthermore, the depictions of black people within these books were seldom positive. In 1966 Adam Clayton Powell chaired the House of Representatives Committee on Education and Labor that focussed upon racism in books for children.Footnote ¹⁵ Witnesses testified that books for children projected a distorted and racist image of minorities in books and had contributed greatly to spreading mistrust and division among the races.Footnote ¹⁶ Young black children perused books in their nurseries and their schools only to find, for the most part, that their place in society had been omitted as the books revealed page after page of white faces and white characters. The lack of identifiable black figures in children's literature was symptomatic of a larger problem that African Americans faced. Many felt dislocated from their ancestry yet not accepted within contemporary American society. Eric Lincoln lamented that “you will not find the black contribution in the textbooks or in the archives; for that is not in the American tradition.”Footnote ¹⁷

Amiri Baraka, a leader in the black arts movement, the cultural wing of the black power movement, decried that if you “tickle a Pole … he will surely polka you to death or remind you that Chopin was one of his own.” However, he then put the question to American blacks: “who is your Sholem Aleichem, the recorder of your African folk tales? You do not know, nor your children?”Footnote ¹⁸ Baraka's words resonated with many African Americans, who had limited access to materials that had any African American representation. Zoe Burkholder's work Color in the Classroom reveals how teachers avoided speaking and teaching about blacks in terms of culture; even as the trend within the US in the 1930s for incorporating the history and culture of other minorities increased, black people were absented from this development.Footnote ¹⁹ Whilst African American culture was often rich and diverse, this was not reflected in the materials available for children. Black children suffered as the books available in schools reflected the dominant white culture, and the commercial books for children followed this trend.

Unlike children of Irish, German or other European descent, black children found themselves adrift in a cultural wasteland when they went to school. Folktales and history could be enjoyed at home but in schools it was more problematic because materials relating to black culture and history were absent. In 1933 black educator Wilhelmina Crosson complained that as a child in Boston she did not like school because “we read stories of every race's contribution to the development of literature but our own, and of every race's part in the laying of bricks in its history but our own.”Footnote ²⁰ Authors like Julius Lester built upon the work of children's authors to rectify this; he moved beyond the tradition of biographies of famous black heroes and wrote works that reflected the black power era's focus on cultural identity and black pride.

Though Lester often shared the ideology and rhetoric of other black power activists he also embodied the wider cultural movement that simply sought to provide black children with black characters that instilled racial pride as he refused to identify with any group's sole ideology. He focussed on the long historical roots of black pride and the importance of black history that black power celebrated rather than identifying with the political creeds such as those of the Black Panther Party or Stokely Carmichael, both of which he openly criticized.Footnote ²¹ Whilst political groups dominated the headlines, there were many individuals, like Lester, who explored and produced works that engaged with black power on a cultural level for African American communities. He summed up the writer's role in carving out a place for black writers and readers in a predominantly white, and often racist, field when he proclaimed that “blacks know their condition on a gut level, but to have that articulated, to read about it in a book is to become conscious where before one was unconscious.”Footnote ²² Not only did Lester and others produce works that featured many black characters, but their works featured everything from African folktales to books written in African American vernacular English. These books sought to promote black consciousness, an understanding of what it meant to be black, and this idea was a precursor to liberation in much black power thought.Footnote ²³

There was a long lineage of black efforts at providing materials for black children and black power adherents reshaped and built upon early efforts at providing black children with a sense of history and culture.Footnote ²⁴ As far back as 1854, the Christian Recorder, a black-owned periodical, featured a section entitled “The Child's Cabinet” which included stories and educational material for children.Footnote ²⁵ In 1919, W. E. B Du Bois recognized the importance of making children “familiar with the history and achievements of the Negro race,” and so established the Brownies Book, a monthly magazine for children that focussed on black history and issues.Footnote ²⁶ Writers of the Harlem Renaissance, such as Arna Bontemps, turned to children's writing because they “felt that black children had nothing with which they could identify.”Footnote ²⁷ Furthermore, the role of the freedom schools established throughout the South during the civil rights movement is an important precursor to the development of black children's literature as teachers taught African American history and black folktales, and even examined the African American vernacular.Footnote ²⁸

However, these efforts at fostering racial pride and knowledge faced great difficulties. The Brownies Book folded within two years in 1921 as publication was difficult and expensive. The freedom schools celebrated blackness but could only reach a few thousand children, and volunteers had to work with very limited materials. However, despite being overshadowed by the constant and permeating portrayals of African Americans within more widely available children's literature, these efforts were crucial precedents in establishing a children's literature that was positive and imbued with black history. Black power-era children's literature, such as Julius Lester's, reiterated many of the themes of these earlier efforts, such as encouraging racial pride and black consciousness. However, the interpretation of black consciousness, black pride and black history was more aligned with the black power movement: more radical, more controversial, and written for a wider black audience.

In the crucible of the black power movement, children's books that encouraged black consciousness became more widely produced. Between 1965 and 1976 the percentage of children's books that featured black characters more than doubled. The funding provided by the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA) of 1965 gave a major boost to children's trade books. From 1965 to 1968 the ESEA funded 193,600 library expansion projects benefiting millions of children as by 1978 the number of books per child in schools tripled from 1960 levels.Footnote ²⁹ The vast majority of books purchased under Title II of the ESEA were trade books.Footnote ³⁰ Moreover, it was not just a quantitative improvement but a qualitative one; black characters had more positive roles and were depicted in more contemporary settings.Footnote ³¹ These books were celebrated by institutions such as BAAL in yearly awards from 1972. Prominent newspapers, such as the New York Times, featured reviews and interviews with black children's authors. In 1969, the Coretta Scott King Award for black-interest children's books was established at the American Library Association's (ALA) annual conference. The creation of this award revealed that the growth of black children's books not only stemmed from external black arts and black power groups but from within the industry too. The Coretta Scott King Award proved crucial in the recognition of black illustrators and authors and helped establish African American children's books as a growing and important canon. This was reflected in several black children's books being recognized by the Newbery Medal, an award for distinguished contributions to American children's literature. From the late 1960s this award was increasingly bestowed on authors who not only featured black protagonists but also specifically focussed on African American culture. Winners like Julius Lester's To Be a Slave in 1969, Virginia Hamilton's Time-Ago Tales of Jahdu in 1969 and Mildred Taylor's Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry in 1977 demonstrated that the black power era had a powerful effect upon children's literature. Books like these, that dealt explicitly with racism, slavery and African American folklore, reached children across the USA. The poet Langston Hughes wrote that previously “what's written down for white folks ain't for us a-tall” but by the late 1960s there were writers and publishers ensuring that works were written for black children.Footnote ³²

During the late 1960s and early 1970s publishers increased their output of racially diverse materials. Black children's literature changed during the black power period, not only in tone but in wider support networks that made publishing of material easier. Black publishing houses increased significantly from the mid-1960s to cater for the increase in demand for works that documented and catered to black experience.Footnote ³³ Publishers such as Third World Press, Broadside Press and Lotus Press were all established in the late 1960s. Joseph Okpaku, who established a black publishing house in 1970, claimed that such ventures were necessary because for decades white publishers either rejected or simply never returned the calls of black authors.Footnote ³⁴

Publishers began to recognize the market for black children's books and there was a boom in children's literature in the late 1960s.Footnote ³⁵ Publishing houses such as Boni & Liverlight and Knopf had, for decades, published works centred on African American issues and even books which critically looked at racial issues such as Langston Hughes's The Ways of White Folks.Footnote ³⁶ For children's writers, however, the primary publishers of children's literature such as Doubleday and Macmillan only featured black characters in a small number of books. For aspiring black writers, the Black Power Movement provided more opportunities as publishers, librarians and activists sought to help children's writers. Groups that advocated a cultural approach to black power gave advice and money and encouraged the continued production of black cultural art forms. BAAL's 1971 “Manual for Black Writers” provided advice and contacts for aspiring black children's writers.Footnote ³⁷ As many more black-owned publishers were established it became easier for writers to establish themselves and release their work as intended. Children's author Harriet Ellis in a 1972 questionnaire on publishers recommended most black publishers because at least they “try to be fair.”Footnote ³⁸ Even the larger publishing houses began to recognize the market available to them. At children's publisher Albert Whitman in the late 1950s one editor claimed that interracial books had caused sales to plummet, yet by 1971 Whitman had published Glennette Turner's Surprise for Mrs Burns about a black teacher.

Julius Lester benefited from an environment where publishers were increasingly interested in black material for children. He received support from the radical Grove Press and Dial Press, both of which published his materials and radical black power works. Grove Press began to include radical black works in the mid-1960s, most famously The Autobiography of Malcolm X. Literature historian Loren Glass asserts that Grove Press published works that proved instrumental in the development of black power.Footnote ³⁹ That Grove Press published Lester's Black Folktales in 1969 is indicative of the esteem the work was held in but also of its radical nature. A supportive publisher and, subsequently, sympathetic educators and librarians ensured that the works of Julius Lester and other authors reached children across the United States.

Over the years many librarians had sought to alleviate the issues faced by African American children and this role only increased with the advent of black power. Librarians knew materials available to children better than most. There are numerous examples of librarians tackling the issues that African American children faced when it came to literature. From 1937 until 1974 librarian Augusta Baker removed books that fostered “prejudice by planting false images in the minds of children.”Footnote ⁴⁰ Baker spent decades trying to foster positive images of African Americans in the children's libraries of New York, publishing a bibliography of appropriate works and heading the New York Library Children's Service in 1961. The American Association for School Librarians highlighted, in the Library Bill of Rights, the responsibility of providing materials “representative of many religions, ethnic, and cultural groups.”Footnote ⁴¹ The American Library Association (ALA) and librarians across the country tried to diversify their holdings and this was supported at federal level by Adam Clayton Powell's hearings on books for schools. The lack of available materials, however, hampered their efforts. Charlamae Rollins of the George C. Hall library in Chicago lamented that “there were only thirty books that we could recommend wholeheartedly without some little explanation and a long list of others that we couldn't.”Footnote ⁴² The precedents set by figures such as Baker meant that librarians could capitalize on the increase in black-oriented material as school boards and publishers slowly acknowledged a demographic that had been systematically ignored. As materials were produced there was already the framework from which to disseminate, and librarians able to encourage young black readers with appropriate materials.

Lester's work is important because it is demonstrative of black power as a cultural phenomenon. In the burgeoning black power movement, he focussed on the critical role culture could play in overcoming some aspects that limited African American children. In correspondence with George Woods, the Times’s children's book editor, Lester argued that children's literature was crucial because the system of white oppression began in childhood and books could provide black children with an important source for black consciousness and identity.Footnote ⁴³ Lester's arguments reflect the arguments of Richard Wright, who in 1937 stressed the social importance of black writers writing for a black audience and molding black “lives and consciousness toward new goals.”Footnote ⁴⁴ Wright's repudiation of black literature that did not address black audiences was reiterated within the black arts movement as the necessity for black literature to “link itself concretely to [the black] community,” and reflecting the spirit of that community became an important guideline for black literature, even work aimed at children.Footnote ⁴⁵ In 1966, as activists tried to encourage black consciousness, Julius Lester made his contribution as a black writer and compiled a book of traditional stories called Our Folktales. The book was printed by the civil rights group SNCC, the group from which some important figures of black power, like Stokely Carmichael, emerged. In 1967 SNCC distributed the compilation of stories free to poor blacks in Mississippi and Alabama as a way of showing that the stories had value and that the culture they took for granted was worth preserving and building on.Footnote ⁴⁶

He wrote to provide children with a sense of not just African American history but also folklore. From slave history and African history to complete fantasy, they gave children a sense of their own history and provided folklore in print that had been absent beforehand. Lester's choice of these genres, rather than writing stories in contemporary settings, suggests a degree of conservatism. Rather than being aligned with new radical politics, Lester's early work fits into traditional genres that had been covered by both black and white authors. It is important to note that many black authors of this period focussed on history, biography and folklore, but this does not necessarily negate any radicalism. Working within these genres can be subversive and Lester breathed new life into them and infused them with radical elements espoused by the black power and black arts movements. However, Lester's dedications to Zora Neale Hurston and H. Rap Brown at the beginning of his Black Folktales reveals his conscious desire to connect the past with his radical present.Footnote ⁴⁷

Lester worked within these genres but, echoing Richard Wright's call for black writers, instead of showcasing black humanity to a white audience he directed his work to a black audience. The content encompassed history, fantasy and humour to lampoon white treatment of black communities. From slave narratives to fictional lands he used stories to demonstrate black characters overcoming the hurdles laid out before them by whites. Lester's works are important because they came very early on within the black power movement and are early examples of works during the era that focussed on aspects of history and folklore and addressed racial dynamics in a way that had not been done before in children's literature.

Lester's first foray into children's literature was To Be a Slave in 1968, the material all chosen from the Archive of Folksong at the Library of Congress. Most representations of slavery for children prior to this book focussed on slave revolt heroes and omitted the violence and the everyday oppression that slaves faced. One of the most significant works that came out of the Archive of Folksong was B. A. Botkin's Lay My Burden Down: A Folk History of Slavery published in 1945. For Lester, and many others, Botkin's portrayal of slavery was not sufficient and even negative, as he argued it focussed too heavily upon the positive impacts slavery had on black culture, such as the songs that developed amongst slaves.Footnote ⁴⁸ However, Botkin's compilation of slave oral testimonies and narratives still stood out over the years as a work that sought to find the slaves’ story. To Be a Slave was Lester's attempt to improve on Botkin's notion of slavery and to present to African Americans not just where they came from but what their forgotten ancestors had had to endure.Footnote ⁴⁹

Within Lester's work there is no recurrence of Botkin's implication that some slaves were loyal to their masters and some masters were kind. Instead, Lester focussed upon the various methods that were employed to keep blacks subjugated. Many black children were unable to trace back their roots, so Lester's compilation of slave testimonies enabled children to engage with the thoughts and feelings of those who could have been their ancestors. The book attempted to give a voice to black history and provide children with a broad spectrum of slavery to allow them to have some semblance of their origins. Tom Feelings, the book's illustrator, felt that exposing the harsh realities, such as brutal physical work, to children was an important step in creating “well-rounded, compassionate human beings,” and Lester and Feelings intended for the material to strengthen their spirits and prepare them for reality.Footnote ⁵⁰ To Be a Slave was intended to initiate admiration in black children of how their ancestors overcame struggles, and Lester also sought to give black children a connection with their past.

Writing during the onset of a movement of black pride and consciousness, Lester's work addressed what he regarded as the inaccurate portrayals of slavery prior to his work. He rejected the notion that slaves’ “sole attributes were found in working, singing and dancing.”Footnote ⁵¹ The majority of literary representations of slaves up until the 1960s were of unvoiced characters like an “uncomplicated Sambo” – simple, even childlike, depictions of slaves who appeared content with their lot.Footnote ⁵² These representations permeated the consciousness of American society as the only voices heard were occasional heroes like Harriet Tubman rather than the majority of African Americans’ predecessors. In Barbara Hochman's examination of children's adaptions of Uncle Tom's Cabin, she demonstrates that publishers reinforced the racist and hierarchical status quo. Whilst there was a slightly more nuanced portrayal of black children in the original, what most children received was only strengthened racist stereotypes through Grace Duffie Boylan's Young Folks’ Uncle Tom's Cabin.Footnote ⁵³ In her analysis of children's books that deal with slavery, Paula Connolly describes the black power era as a “renaissance” of literature about slavery that focussed on black characters rather than white abolitionists or “Uncle Toms.”Footnote ⁵⁴ Within this “renaissance,” Julius Lester was a pioneering figure as his book preceded many others and gave children the opportunity to read about how slavery really occurred. It is pioneering as it looks at all aspects of slavery, and this focus on the harsh realities continued in later children's books, such as Gary Paulsen's Nightjohn and Walter Dean Myer's The Glory Field.

Black power ideas of pride and resistance to white hegemony permeated To Be a Slave, as Lester emphasizes slaves’ pride in their culture and the work was filled with admiration for how slaves retained their humanity in the face of such brutality. Even those slaves who were loyal to their masters were victims of racism, brought up without a sense of self, not even their own name.Footnote ⁵⁵ The importance of identity was prominent throughout the book, as was the theme of how racist whites had traditionally tried to limit identity. Thomas Hall, the final ex-slave quoted in the book, reflects on Stowe's Uncle Tom's Cabin, saying, “I didn't like the book and I hate her.”Footnote ⁵⁶ He loathed her representation of slavery as one that could have mutual understanding and claims that “white folks have been and are now and always will be against the Negro.”Footnote ⁵⁷ Lester's inclusion of such provocative claims highlight how, during the black power era, there was a rejection of many white representations of black life.Footnote ⁵⁸ Throughout the book, Lester includes the voices of real ex-slaves to give their experience rather than a distilled white version. Unlike Botkin, Lester was highly critical of “benevolent” masters, instead emphasizing that any form of benevolence was a type of brainwashing to keep slaves feeling inferior.Footnote ⁵⁹

Lester also emphasized how song became a symbol of resistance and how slaves fused West African musical heritage with European music.Footnote ⁶⁰ The importance of keeping cultural heritage to overcome difficulties is a common theme throughout Lester's work. Lester not only provided a link with individuals who represented African American ancestors but provided his readers with songs and tales told by ex-slaves. Lester's work gave children access to material that was often absent in school.Footnote ⁶¹ His work combated the historical material available in school that misrepresented slavery as an institution that was often benign and even beneficial to the slaves.Footnote ⁶² The book echoed many black power ideas of exposing the true nature of white supremacy and black communities’ humanity and strength in overcoming such hardship.

A connection to history was important but Lester also emphasized a connection to folklore. In most folktale books, like the popular The Bumper Book of 1961 and 365 Bedtime Stories of 1955, white figures dominated creation stories of the world and its contents.Footnote ⁶³ During the black power era, however, Julius Lester, among others, wrote and re-created folktales that featured black characters prominently. More than ever before, black children's books were challenging the hegemony of white folktales and creation tales. Whether it was retelling old allegorical slave stories in print or simply caricaturing whites in origin stories, the black power movement, with increased support from educators, activists and publishing houses, enabled black folktales to become more widely available than before.

During the late 1960s, there was a renaissance among black children's authors of old allegorical stories or folk stories that had been popular with slaves. The focus of many of these stories was of a smaller, weaker animal, such as a rabbit, representing the enslaved, using its cunning to overcome a more powerful creature that was symbolic of the white oppressors, like a snake.Footnote ⁶⁴ In the wake of the unrest across the country during the 1960s, the clamour for integration dissipated within many communities; the resurgence of tales of these sorts demonstrates that during this era there was an increased appreciation for stories in which the underdog prevailed and got the best of their oppressor. Such stories had been part of African American culture for decades prior to the black power movement but they had been recounted by an older relative rather than being displayed in print. The stories connected children to their ancestry as animal tales were African fables adapted by slaves and therefore provide a strong link with their history.Footnote ⁶⁵ Not only were slave narratives now in print but old tales passed down generations from times of slavery became more widely available in print for children to pore over.

Published in 1972, Julius Lester's The Knee-High Man and Other Tales featured several animal tales that subtly addressed race relations. The stories within the book were retellings of traditional stories that had been passed on orally for generations. Significant figures within the black power movement from Ron Karenga to Lester himself claimed that their black pride stemmed from hearing stories from their families.Footnote ⁶⁶ Therefore, with the wide publication of these stories, more children could experience the lessons of the tales. In “The Farmer and the Snake,” the relationship between whites and blacks is most easily inferred. After the black farmer helps the injured snake, it turns to bite him, even after promising not to. The stories were intended to impart lessons to children and this story's message was “if it's in the nature of a thing to hurt you, it'll do just that, no matter how kind you are to it.”Footnote ⁶⁷ As well as providing a connection to a historical culture during the black power, era these stories flourished because, as Lester asserts, “the black–white problem, and in the stories (but not in life), blacks got the best of whites.”Footnote ⁶⁸ Stories like these were important because they addressed issues of intimidation and inferiority which advocates of black power sought to address. For example, in the SNCC's Basis of Black Power the author emphasizes that the “effects that one is trying to achieve cannot succeed because whites have an intimidating effect.”Footnote ⁶⁹ Lester described the process of the black writer as a “reinvention of themselves.”Footnote ⁷⁰ For children, this reinvention as an underdog that overcomes an intimidating creature is an important way of understanding race relations and power dynamics.

With increased interest in black-oriented work and more black publishing houses, black children's writers could address in print race relations that critics often deemed radical and subversive. As well as allegorical tales, stories referenced race relations in more explicit ways. In his analysis of children's books, Paul Cornelius argues that Lester's work attacked whites and was part of the more extreme side of the black power movement.Footnote ⁷¹ However, his assessment of Lester's work was part of the reactionary response of commentators to works that simply poked fun at whites. In her review of Black Folktales, Zena Sutherland, children's literature expert and reviewer, lambasted the book as a “a vehicle for hostility” in which whites were “pictured as venal or stupid or both.”Footnote ⁷² However, far from being hostile, the tales use a playful dynamic in which whites are no longer threatening or dangerous but are instead often foolish or conceited.

The playful attitude of Black Folktales in satirizing racial dynamics, whilst alienating to some white readers, was not just for entertainment but clearly demonstrated that this material was written for black children. It was about creating positive black stories and showing black children that whites were not to be feared. The first story described the creation of butterflies and how they got their name but it also teased white attitudes and claims of superiority. In the story, blacks create the name for butterflies but whites refer to them as “flutter-bys” as they “put their tongues through all kinds of contortions trying to talk.”Footnote ⁷³ However, as the name “butterfly” is far better, it is adopted, but then claimed, by whites “wanting people to believe that they'd had enough sense to think of a word that pretty.”Footnote ⁷⁴ This satirical view of white behaviour as ridiculous and incompetent reflected other works of the black arts movement such as the seminal dem by William Melvin Kelley which sought to undermine ideas of white supremacy by emphasizing the insecurities and weaknesses of many white people.Footnote ⁷⁵ Children's authors often distilled many of the concepts and ideas of the black arts and black power movements and created works that echoed cultural products aimed at adults.

Humour was a common way for black writers to address white notions of superiority.Footnote ⁷⁶ It had the effect of portraying whites as the outsiders and placing black readers as part of the printed culture. White people were not demonized but instead caricatured. White claims to American culture were ridiculed. The hatred of whites that Paul Cornelius and Zena Sutherland claimed was not present; however, Lester unequivocally attacked the treatment that whites had conducted against blacks. Stories like this gave children something to be proud of as they acknowledge black contributions rather than depicting them as outsiders not central to the development of mankind. This was achieved in the context of short, funny stories for children, but this was no less part of the black power movement than anything else.

Stories also included black heroes who had previously been missing from children's literature: black heroes who elicited fear, demanded respect and outwitted their opponents. No longer was the primary black character an associate, or defined by criminality. Broadly reflective of black power activists, black protagonists did not answer to whites. Black characters were often rebellious and disavowed white control. As black children became a target audience for children's books, the characters reflected this and did not compromise for fear of alienating whites. William van Deburg described black power as a “psychological antidote to despair,” and it was an empowering force for black communities.Footnote ⁷⁷ A fellow black children's author, John Steptoe, succinctly described why focussed works for black children were important: “I think black children need this. I wrote it this way because they are never spoken to.”Footnote ⁷⁸ Steptoe echoes Lester's work, writing books for black children as their role had always been inferior within children's books.

Lester tried to empower his readers by focussing on black heroes. They were heroes precisely because they held power and refused to be subjugated. Whether it is through their strength, wit or charm, they come out on top. The first hero within Black Folktales was High John the Conqueror, a slave who outwits his master and plays upon his greed to best him. Through a series of schemes High John eventually outwits his master and gains his freedom, and his white master dies in the pursuit of more wealth. The thrust of the story is that even though he is subjugated, John is smarter and able to overcome his difficulties; he does not just accept his position. High John is put in direct contrast with the “Uncle Tom” slaves who “wanted to be white folks so bad that they always tried to walk in the shade.”Footnote ⁷⁹ The pejorative references to these “Uncle Tom” figures within the story emphasize how Lester's work was a product of a black power context. The villains are not just the white slave-owners but black slaves who were compliant and did not take pride in themselves. Though not as extreme as many of the works within the black arts movement, Lester's stories reflected a desire to make children proud of their race rather than adapt to mollify others.

The most uncompromising character in Lester's work is the protagonist of his “Stagolee” story. A traditional mythic character dating back to the 1890s in many iterations of ballads, Stagolee was a fearless character. Lester's version of the story arose from songs he sang to his own children. As a folk singer, he also performed a Stagolee ballad in various cafes and clubs in New York. The audience's reaction to the bold character of Stagolee inspired him to include it in his book for children. Stagolee is a fearsome character described as “the baddest nigger that ever lived,” so bad that “flies wouldn't fly around his head in summertime and the snow wouldn't fall on his house in winter.”Footnote ⁸⁰ In previous literature, black characters who were fearsome and brutal were traditionally menacing villains. Lester's Stagolee, adapted for children, retains a fierce nature but his terrifying characteristics make him a black hero as he does not succumb to white authority. Stagolee calmly informs the sheriff why he is not scared: “You may be the Sheriff and you may be white, but you ain't Stagolee.”Footnote ⁸¹

The story is another example of an adapted African American folktale finally put into print. Stagolee was popular legend within the South under the Jim Crow laws as Stagolee represented resistance and freedom because he was not limited by white society. He inspired fear in the Ku Klux Klan and the local white authorities, and Lester's telling of the story reiterates much black power ideology. It is not didactic but instead is humorous. After Stagolee defies Death and refuses to join him, the Lord pauses for thought and asks, “St Peter, have the librarian bring me all the files on white folks. Seems to me that white folks sho’ done outlived their time.”Footnote ⁸² Even though he kills a white man, steals his wife and frightens the local police, Stagolee is a hero simply because he refuses to accept the role assigned to him. He even opts to go to Hell when he discovers that Heaven is boring and dominated by white people. In the retelling of the story, Julius Lester explicitly invokes the black power movement and associates it with the bold, unremitting character of Stagolee. After Stagolee travels to Hell, because Heaven is too white, he is welcomed by a “big BLACK POWER sign on the gate” and quickly he usurps the position of the Devil. He leads the barbecue-cooking, music-playing Hell populated by all black people not deemed “nice, respectable people” and “the hip” white population, an overt criticism of black efforts to integrate and try to appeal to whites.Footnote ⁸³

Powerful black characters resonated with political groups and individuals because they provided strong fictional figures who did not acquiesce to societal norms. The fact that the story is included in a section entitled “Heroes” is indicative of how children's books were freer to publish black-oriented material without concern for the attitudes of white consumers.

With a focus on strong black characters came a bigger focus on the artwork of children's books in representing the idea that “black is beautiful.” In her indictment of racial stereotyping in children's books, Nancy Larrick argued that even when black characters were drawn, “the litho-pencil sketches leave the reader wondering whether a delicate shadow indicates a racial difference or a case of sunburn.”Footnote ⁸⁴ Joan Baronberg's study confirmed Larrick's attack on illustrations. She claimed that half of supposedly integrated preschool books contained illustrations in which the colour of the children is unclear.Footnote ⁸⁵ Publishers in the 1960s began to listen to complaints about stereotypical images of black children; however, the response was far from ideal. The Rooster Crows, written and illustrated by Maud and Miska Petersham in 1945, featured a black child with bright red lips and bulging eyes adorned in filthy clothes. In the 1964 reissue, the publisher responded to complaints and omitted the images and created yet another all-white book.Footnote ⁸⁶ However, as black children's books became more popular, illustrations of black characters became far more prominent and important.

Illustrations are crucial to how a children's book is read and understood.Footnote ⁸⁷ The accompanying imagery in Lester's books represented a movement that wanted to portray realistic images of black people as opposed to the litany of caricatures and archetypes that had dominated illustrations before. Lester ensured that in every book contract he was involved in choosing the artist and having final say over which pictures were included, as he did not trust white publishers properly to evaluate pictures of black characters.Footnote ⁸⁸ Lester worked closely with the artist Tom Feelings in both To Be a Slave and Black Folktales. From his comic strip Tommy Traveller in the World of Negro History in the late 1950s to his painting for Julius Lester, Feelings's work focussed on providing black people with positive images.Footnote ⁸⁹

Writing during the black power era, children's author Helen King felt that “black art is terribly important to the image of a people who have lived for so long with so few [positive] images of themselves.”Footnote ⁹⁰ Indeed, Tom Feelings stated that he wanted art that could reach as many African Americans as possible and was specifically produced to counter the illustrations in wider children's books to which black children were exposed.Footnote ⁹¹ The artwork for To Be a Slave and Black Folktales accentuates the themes of black pride, as characters as diverse as God and Stagolee are illustrated as realistic black people rather than simple caricatures. Dianne Johnson in her work on African American children's literature has argued that artwork in books aimed at black children holds far more importance than artwork in wider children's literature because it becomes a social issue.Footnote ⁹² Illustrations emphasize the content of the words and engage children with the visual representation of the story and in tales that focussed on blackness imagery became crucial. Feelings's artwork attends to, and complements, Lester's efforts to provide children with accurate depictions of black figures as well as displaying the brutality inherent in parts of black history.

Feelings's artwork was about portraying realistic African Americans in emotive paintings that consciously depict the true pain and suffering of slavery whilst also contrasting black and white to make striking, beautifully created images. The depictions of slaves encouraged the readers to see the anguish, fear and humiliation that slaves felt. From illustrations of the cramped conditions on slave ships to slave auctions, slave life was documented in all its brutality, encouraging readers to imagine the complexity and difficulties of what their ancestors went through. Many of the images situate the viewer within the picture, forcing them to view it as an active participant in the scene, rather than as an outside observer. Julius Lester opined that his focus on black history was to educate children, but it was always relevant because “the past is not something completed and forever pinioned to memory.”Footnote ⁹³ Tom Feelings's paintings reiterate this idea as readers are forced to confront slavery, not as historical observers, but as intimately connected with their ancestors. Feelings's artwork visually emphasizes Lester's desire to provide a true account of black history, and the humanity and bravery of slaves in the face of such violent white oppression. To Be a Slave used expressive figures and bold contrasts to evoke empathy in the viewer and connect them to the images. They are not simple illustrations of slavery but layered with emotion and drama.

Black Folktales, however, approached artwork in a different way. It was about portraying black characters as strong to elicit admiration in the reader. One of the most striking images, however, was that of a black God in print. Lester's confluence of children's writing and black power ideas is emphasized in this image as the black nationalist elements of the black power movement had a long history of consciously representing God as black.Footnote ⁹⁴ Sitting in his rocking chair with a cigar in his mouth, God was portrayed as a relaxed, wise, old black man. Lester's text reinforces this representation of God as he speaks in a Southern dialect and complains about his wife trying to get him to stop smoking. The images of God reinforce the idea that black people were the original people but, as with the butterflies, whites took credit and whitewashed religion. Lester and Feelings's depiction of a black God is important because it is an image key to black liberation struggles and emphasizes that religion is not a white oppressive force but that God is on the side of the oppressed. The black Christian nationalist Albert B. Cleage Jr. argued that black deities are important because otherwise black people are beholden to the white conception of religion.Footnote ⁹⁵ Feelings's drawing simultaneously depicts a relaxed, southern black figure whilst making subtle connections to black power and black consciousness arguments of black religion being a source of liberation. For black power figures like James Cone, religion was a key site for black consciousness and discussions of black liberation and Feelings immediately connects religion and blackness with a single image.Footnote ⁹⁶ Children's literature has long been a place for adroit social critiques, and Lester and Feelings's depiction of a black God challenges traditional white conceptions of religion and identity.

Although his material's primary aim was to entertain children, a strong message about black identity was threaded through his work. Many black children's authors felt that the new climate of black consciousness and black power enabled them to tackle issues that had previously been absent. Authors such as Helen King and Kristen Hunter felt that black children needed material that celebrated blackness because, for decades, children had been subjected to the “wrong things too soon, and there's so much they don't know.”Footnote ⁹⁷ Through a combination of text and imagery, the books of Julius Lester channelled the black power movement's reshaping of ideas of blackness in a form for children.

Lester reinforced ideas of black identity and pride to redress the imbalance between white and black representation of culture. In the final story of Black Folktales, “Keep on Stepping,” Lester explicitly addressed his readers with his message. The final paragraph informs his readers, “You ain't free long as you let somebody else tell you who you are. We got black people today walking around in slavery ’cause they let white folks tell ’em who they are.”Footnote ⁹⁸ Lester's works are imbued with black consciousness. The stories sought to encourage children to recognize their blackness and understand the fight for liberation that comes with that.

The canon of children's literature to which Julius Lester contributed addressed growing up black in America. From slave narratives to stories about how butterflies were created, Lester reflected the social and cultural traditions of African Americans whilst also addressing contemporary issues that young black people faced. The black power movement involved children in many ways but a significant focus was emphasizing their distinct culture and the importance of retaining a strong hold upon it. Children's literature during the movement did not just feature a higher percentage of black characters but reflected the wider movement in attempts to foster self-pride and black consciousness.

When Julius Lester brought his Black Folktales to the first publisher that he approached, the publisher dismissed it because it was too closely tied to the ideals of the black power movement and thus too contemporary.Footnote ⁹⁹ However, their judgement proved to be spectacularly wrong as the book has been in continuous print for almost fifty years. Lester's work has faced a wide range of criticism as he faced charges of “reverse racism” and an antiwhite bitterness for his early works and many black children's librarians refused to stock his books.Footnote ¹⁰⁰ However, the innovative, and often confrontational, style of Lester's works demonstrates how the fractious and provocative black power movement made an impact on children's literature. But he is just one of many authors, all influenced differently by the context they wrote in. The movement provided the framework for a diverse range of children's books to become more reflective of black history and culture and fostered an environment in which African Americans could increasingly explore black identity and promote their own history and culture.

The black power movement enabled a significant step for millions of children who have been able to read books and magazines that do not omit their race but include them as heroes and characters. Certainly, many works in the 1960s and 1970s were a breakthrough in black literature. Times have changed from when author Tanya Byrne grew up, with little representation in the books she read as a child, claiming, “it's something I've always been aware of – that most of the characters in books aren't like me.”Footnote ¹⁰¹ Julius Lester was an important figure in children's literature as he brought with him elements of radicalism and politics. Children's literature specialist Jodi Eichler-Levine contends that for Lester childhood is a “complex, challenging time, and as an experience that varies according to one's racial, historical, regional, and socioeconomic position.”Footnote ¹⁰² From the era of black power, Lester never shied away from providing works that dealt with the brutalities of white oppression and his writings, such as The Old African, have continued to address issues of racism and hardship.Footnote ¹⁰³ The protagonist suffers immensely as the reader learns that his wife threw herself overboard a slave ship; whippings are described in vivid detail and the artwork again vividly captures the brutality, yet also the humanity of slaves.Footnote ¹⁰⁴ Themes of blackness and black identity, so crucial to the black power movement, have been sustained by Lester in books such as Black Cowboy, Wild Horses as he has tried to reclaim a whitewashed past and assert the place of black figures in periods of history that have powerful figures for children, yet have always been depicted as predominantly white. During the late 1960s and the 1970s Lester's work was irrevocably linked with ideas of black power. However, many of the same themes and ideas have continued to permeate his work. Julius Lester ruminated that “story provides us with ways to see ourselves, ways to affirm our struggles to overcome adversities,” and during the black power period Lester used his stories to connect children with ideas of black consciousness, black pride and the history of oppression that the black community have faced.