Houston Baker, Blyden Jackson, James Olney, and John Sekora discuss the major themes and aesthetic concerns that unify and divide black writers, and the effects of the emergence of African-American studies on both the academy and society as a whole.
In the second segment [22:59], Laurence Thomas comments on social patterns among black and white American college students, criticizing a phenomenon he calls the “black huddle,” which describes the idea that blacks in predominantly white environments need to “huddle” with people of their own race to defend against the effects of racism.
At the time of this interview, all of the speakers had been Fellows at the National Humanities Center and were professors of English at various institutions. Baker (University of Pennsylvania), Jackson (emeritus, the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill), and Sekora (North Carolina Central University) were Fellows in 1982-83. Olney (Louisiana State University) was a Fellow in 1980-81.
Thomas, a Fellow at the Center (1982-83), was professor of philosophy at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
This edition of Soundings was conducted by Wayne J. Pond.
