Clark Atlanta Professor Releases Afro-Latin Journal, Negritud

Atlanta, May 5, 2008, 11:20 a.m. - African studies in Latin America and the Caribbean found its headquarters for American academia in Atlanta with the launch of the scholarly journal, Negritud.

Luis Miletti, an Afro-Puerto Rican and assistant professor of Spanish at Clark Atlanta University, released the journal in March after an overwhelming global response to his announcement last year to start the publication. Negritud is published in English, Spanish, French and Portuguese. Some academic fields of study will include literature, history, anthropology and archeology.

"This is the only journal that accepts all writing styles within American academia," Miletti said. "That is unheard of because in the US, they tend to be very uniform."

Negritud could indeed be setting a new precedent for the academic medium. In addition to the Web edition, a weekly public radio program for the annually published journal is also under development. The radio show will showcase lectures, panel discussions, and current events regarding Afro-Latinos in the US and abroad.

Bobby Vaughn, an assistant professor of anthropology at Notre Dame de Namur University in California and an expert on the African Diaspora in Mexico, lauded the effort.

"Being exposed to quality work on the African Diaspora from different fields and genres would afford us the ability to see our work within a larger creative context," Vaughn said. "The exemplary scholarship that illuminates the expressive arts, literature, culture, politics, and history of the Afro-Latin people would illuminate the complexity inherent in any people's lived experience."

The word, Negritud, means blackness. Miletti says he uses the term to reference a consciousness of and pride in the cultural and physical aspects of the African heritage.

The Caribbean recently lost one of its greatest contributors to the Negritud movement in the French-speaking world with the recent passing of poet and politician, Aime Cesaire of Martinique. He is most famously known for the poem, "Notes From a Return to the Native Land." In 1946 Cesaire was instrumental in moving Martinique from a French colony to an overseas department. He died at 94 in the capital, Fort-de-France in April where he served as mayor for over 50 years.

"It is with sadness that we received that news because we were counting on his contribution," Miletti said. "I was trying to contact him from about a month and a half before he died.
It's a loss to the academic community and to this journal."

Since Redding News Review broke the story during its planning stage in July 2007, Miletti says he has gained support from scholars representing the English-speaking Caribbean as well. This comes after the newly formed National Association of Caribbean-American Journalists held their first annual convention in South Florida shortly after the journal's release. Ann Marie-Adams, who is the president of NACAJ, welcomes the invitation.

"The time is ripe for a scholarly journal that spotlights the Afro-Caribbean," she said. "Our presence is muted on the national and international stage. Therefore, we will look to Negritud as one avenue that continuously embraces the many diverse voices that come from the Caribbean."

A conference for Negritud is scheduled to be held on the Clark Atlanta University campus for March 2009 and is expected to attract academic professionals from across the globe. The agenda includes panel discussions, films, plays and a live web broadcast for radio affiliates to carry.