| Summary: | Abstract This article explores the use of the concept of a transnational imagined community as a theoretical tool for the study of the black press of São Paulo and Chicago from 1900 to 1950. In doing so, I aim to connect the local with the global; associating the uniqueness of the historical trajectories of these specific Afro-descendant communities, to the commonalities of the struggles endured by members of the black Diaspora in the Americas. The paper's macro-narrative is informed by the story of capitalism's structural changes in the late 19th and early 20th century. These transformations provided the necessary socio- political conditions for the development of the black press; a press that aimed to articulate a counter-hegemonic discourse on race, different from the mainstream press, the 'white men's press'. At a micro-level this paper proposes the use of the black press in the Amercas as a door to understand how a fraction of the afro-descendant community in São Paulo and Chicago - namely the black middle class - negotiated race and citizenship through a complex process of national and transnational dialogue, both locally and globlly. Overall, despite the limitation of 'the black press' as a primary source due to its limited circulation and audience, the black press offers a unique opportunity to depict afro-descendants everyday urban life in two rapidly modernizing cities.
|
|---|
