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Description of  The Activist Collector: Lida Clanton Broner s 1938 Journey from Newark to South Africa

1978836155 pdf Published by the Newark Museum. Distributed worldwide by Rutgers University Press. After twenty-eight years of desire and determination, I have visited Africa, the land of my forefathers. So wrote Lida Clanton Broner (18951982), an African American housekeeper and hairstylist from Newark, New Jersey, upon her return from an extraordinary nine-month journey to South Africa in 1938. This epic trip was motivated not only by Broners sense of ancestral heritage, but also a grassroots resolve to connect the socio-political concerns of African Americans with those of black South Africans under the segregationist policies of the time. During her travels, this woman of modest means circulated among South Africas Black intellectual elite, including many leaders of South Africas freedom struggle. Her lectures at Black schools on race consciousness and race pride had a decidedly political bent, even as she was presented as an American beauty specialist. Read more