Lucile H. Bluford and the Kansas City Call: Activist Voice for Social Justice

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This book on publisher and editor Lucile H. Bluford examines her journalistic writings on social, economic, and political issues; her strong opinionated views on African Americans and women; and whether there were consistent themes, biases, and assumptions in her stories that may have influenced news coverage in the Kansas City Call. It traces the beginnings of her activism as a young reporter seeking admission to the graduate program in journalism at the University of Missouri and how her admissions rejection became the catalyst for her seven-decade career as a champion of racial and gender equality. Blufords work at the Kansas City Call demonstrates how critical theorists used storytelling to describe personal experiences of struggle and oppression to inform the public of racial and gender consciousness. Lucile H. Bluford and the Kansas City Call illustrates how she used her social authority in the formidable power base of the weekly Black newspaper she owned, shaping and mobilizing a broader movement in the fight for freedom and social justice. This book focuses on a selection of Blufords news stories and editorials from 1968 to 1983 as examples of how she articulated a Black feminist standpoint advocating a Black liberation agendaequal access to decent jobs, affordable health care and housing, and a better education in Kansas City, Missouri. Blufords writings represented what the mainstream news ignored, exposing injustices and inequalities in the African American community and among feminists.

Reviews

Brooks and Wilsons intersectional examination of Lucile Blufords dual roles as advocate and journalist for both the womens rights and civil rights movements is recovered history at its best. They bring to life a lesser known figure in American journalism who became a central spokesperson through her paper the Kansas City Call for both black women and the broader black community as the civil rights and modern feminist movements built up in the 1960s. Grounded in archival research and interviews, this book contains extensive details about Bluford and the times, while also extending black feminist and critical race theories. This is a brilliant, readable text that should be required reading for all those in journalism, history, political science, and womens studies. -- Carolyn M. Byerly, Howard University
Only recently has the intersection of gender and racial discrimination with the suppression of journalistic inquiry garnered the national attention that pioneering journalist and editor Lucile Bluford exposed over a half century ago. Sheila Brooks and Clint Wilson astutely examine the foundations of Blufords groundbreaking engagement of controversies that help to explain our continuing struggles. Their astute search of history exposes a great deal about inequality in the politics and communications of today. -- Lorenzo Morris, Howard University
As women take back their history, its high time Lucile Bluford received her due. With Lucile H. Bluford and the Kansas City Call: Activist Voice for Social Justice readers are reminded of (and some introduced to) the pioneering work of Kansas City Call reporter and editor Lucile Blufords work championing women and civil rights in the United States. Brooks and Wilson use Blufords news stories and commentaries from 1968 to 1983 to show how she helped craft both the womens rights and civil rights agendas of the time. Her voice, so well documented in this work, reflects the challenges Bluford faced by having her work judged by others, whether she was writing under her name or as Louis Blue. And therein lies the importance of this bookplacing economic progress and sexual emancipation in the context of a second phase social/feminist revolution. Its an important read for our time. -- Barbara B. Hines, Howard University
Little known outside the Missouri-Kansas area, Lucile Bluford nonetheless is one of the true heroines of the US civil rights movement. Her tireless editorial campaign for social change is chronicled in this book. -- Brian S. Brooks, University of Missouri

Author Bio

Sheila Brooks is founder, president, and CEO of SRB Communications, an award-winning, full-service advertising and marketing agency in Washington, D.C. specializing in multicultural markets. Clint C. Wilson II is professor emeritus of journalism, communication, culture and media studies at Howard University and recipient of the University of Missouri Honor Medal for Distinguished Service in Journalism.