And as I groped in darkness and felt the pain of millions, gradually, like day driving night across the continent, I saw dawn upon them like the sun a vision. ―Dudley Randall, from "Roses and Revolutions" In 1963, the African American poet Dudley Randall (1914–2000) wrote "The Ballad of Birmingham" in response to the bombing of a church in Alabama that killed four young black girls, and "Dressed All in Pink," about the assassination of President Kennedy. When both were set to music by folk singer Jerry Moore in 1965, Randall published them as broadsides. Thus was born the Broadside Press, whose popular chapbooks opened the canon of American literature to the works of African American writers. Dudley Randall, one of the great success stories of American small-press history, was also poet laureate of Detroit, a civil-rights activist, and a force in the Black Arts Movement. Melba Joyce Boyd was an editor at Broadside, was Randall's friend and colleague for twenty-eight years, and became his authorized biographer. Her book is an account of the interconnections between urban and labor politics in Detroit and the broader struggles of black America before and during the Civil Rights era. But also, through Randall's poetry and sixteen years of interviews, the narrative is a multipart dialogue between poets, Randall, the author, and the history of American letters itself, and it affords unique insights into the life and work of this crucial figure.

Wrestling with the Muse: Dudley Randall and the Broadside Press

Biographies & Memoirs

Boyd, Melba Joyce

Community & Culture

Columbia University Press

Poetry. African American Studies. Melba Joyce Boyd's latest poetry offering is an insightful examination of her relationships with family, friends, and collegues. She writes of the complexities, joys and sadnesses of lives shared, and the influences of daily living on them. As Jayne Cortez notes, "Life opposed to death, death opposed to life in New Orleans, in Detroit, in DEATH DANCE OF A BUTTERFLY. Melba Joyce Boyd's most important volume of poetry is filled with interactions, eulogies, and 'streets beneath water stains.' It is a collection flashing with poetic development."

Death Dance of a Butterfly

Literature & Fiction

Poetry

Past Tents Press

Frances E. W. Harper is a central figure in the history of nineteenth- and twentieth-century African-American literature and intellectual thought. The foremost poet of the "free colored community," she was also a lecturer, educator, essayist, and novelist. A prolific champion of the abolitionist and feminist causes, she has come to be recognized for the critical role she played in the rise of the women's movement, particularly in the development of the black women's movement. Yet neither her art nor her political insight was preserved by subsequent generations until recently.
In this important study, poet Melba Joyce Boyd analyzes Harper not simply as a feminist and an activist, but as a writer. Boyd reads her in context, placing Harper's life, poetry, novels, and speeches within the nineteenth century African-American quest for "freedom and literacy."
Harper's genius is illuminated as Boyd traces her radicalism through her struggles with issues of race, gender, and class, and the other personal and social injustices she confronted. Discarded Legacy comprises three parts: "The Abolitionist Years," "The Pursuit of the Promised Land," and "The Woman's Era." These divisions characterize the thrust of the historical periods which encompass Harper's lifetime and the thematic focus of her writings. Though Harper's primary political emphasis is on slavery and the Reconstruction, she sustains a strong feminist voice throughout these times and in all of her writings. Likewise, during the women's era, she maintains an anti-racist stance and strongly criticizes racism in white feminist politics.
Boyd's response to Harper's work is interactive and improvisational, and whenever possible, she maintains Harper's voice, allowing her to speak about her own work. When analyzing Harper's language, Boyd provides insight into Harper's aesthetic by discussing the writings thematically and structurally within a biographical framework. Finally, by examining Harper's use of traditional poetic techniques, language, oral tradition forms, and other tools, Boyd demonstrates how Harper's art and politics are synthesized into a dynamic whole.
This book weaves Harper's radical vision with the intuitive and analytical dimensions of her imagination and language. Through perceptive explication of Harper's writings and consideration of her thematic inclinations and political and social affiliations, Boyd is able to show how Harper crafted her subjects and how the literature and speeches interrelated in theme and historical experience. Boyd has successfully arranged Harper's work in a manner that connects our present to Harper's past and that re-envisions her consciousness.

Discarded Legacy: Politics and Poetics in the Life of Frances E. W. Harper, 1825-1911 (African American Life)

Wayne State University Press

10 1/8"x7 5/8" softcover poetry book published by Fallen Angel Press in 1978

Cat eyes and dead wood

Fallen Angel Press

The Inventory of Black Roses

Poetry. African American Studies. "Melba Joyce Boyd has drunk deep of the Waters of Remembrance. Thesepoems are grounded in her fierce humanity: they are songs of historyand dreams of revolution. They invite us to read, learn, and set towork" -- Diane di Prima. "...a creator of healing songs, spinner of syllables that stand inour defense against despair. Here are passionate poems that do notshrink before today's harsh realities yet powerfully remind us thathope and dignity are ours, a priceless gift from those who- invarious ways- 'paid freedom's bill.' Here are wise words. Here arepoems that light the way" -- Lorenzo Thomas.

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