That our identities came from the outside, not the inside subjectivity, a question of doing rather than being. In his 1996 essay, ‘Music and Identity’, sociologist and music critic Simon Frith argued that identity was not a thing but a process. These opening notes toward a Black fantastic remain resonant, and demand retheorization of Black speculation’s origins beyond Afrofuturism. the magazine’s larger interest in the fantastic and mystical has been overlooked” (219). As Kate Capshaw notes, “One distinguishing feature of The Brownies’ Book material is its investment in fantasy.
Kilpatrick’s “Gyp: A Fairy Story” were selected for the magazine’s debut. Delightful tall tales such as Peggy Poe’s “Pumpkin Land,” thrilling horror like Edna May Harrold’s “The Ouija Board,” and even problematic fairy tales like A. While the pages of The Brownies’ Book’s first issue include the reality of segregation and the necessity of protest, there are many evocative glimpses of whimsy and wonder as well. DuBois and Jessie Fauset, one recalls Fern Kory’s observation that “The fact that the first stories offered to children by the editors of Crisis were folktales and fairy stories suggests that these genres were central to their conception of an African American children’s literature” (91). As we commemorate the centenary of The Brownies’ Book, edited by W. We are in a cultural moment where speculative storytelling reigns supreme.
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