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In 1956 W. E. B. Du Bois was denied a passport to attend the Présence Africaine Congress of Black Writers and Artists in Paris. So he sent the assembled a telegram. "Any Negro-American who travels abroad today must either not discuss race conditions in the United States or say the sort of thing which our State Department wishes the world to believe." Taking seriously Du Bois's allegation, Juliana Spahr breathes new life into age-old questions as she explores how state interests have shaped U.S. literature. What is the relationship between literature and politics? Can writing be revolutionary? Can art be autonomous, or is escape from nations and nationalisms impossible? Du Bois's Telegram brings together a wide range of institutional forces implicated in literary production, paying special attention to three eras of writing that sought to defy political orthodoxies by contesting linguistic conventions: avant-garde modernism of the early twentieth century; social-movement writing of the 1960s and 1970s; and, in the twenty-first century, the profusion of English-language works incorporating languages other than English. Spahr shows how these literatures attempted to assert their autonomy, only to be shut down by FBI harassment or coopted by CIA and State Department propagandists. Liberal state allies such as the Ford and Rockefeller foundations made writers complicit by funding multiculturalist works that celebrated diversity and assimilation while starving radical anti-imperial, anti-racist, anti-capitalist efforts. Spahr does not deny the exhilarations of politically engaged art. But her study affirms a sobering reality: aesthetic resistance is easily domesticated.--

American literature --- Politics and literature --- Nationalism and literature --- Political aspects. --- 1950s America. --- American Committee for Cultural Freedom. --- Congress for Cultural Freedom. --- Multicultural literature. --- Poetry Foundation. --- U.S. Department of State. --- Political aspects

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American Bandstand, one of the most popular television shows ever, broadcast from Philadelphia in the late fifties, a time when that city had become a battleground for civil rights. Counter to host Dick Clark's claims that he integrated American Bandstand, this book reveals how the first national television program directed at teens discriminated against black youth during its early years and how black teens and civil rights advocates protested this discrimination. Matthew F. Delmont brings together major themes in American history-civil rights, rock and roll, television, and the emergence of a youth culture-as he tells how white families around American Bandstand's studio mobilized to maintain all-white neighborhoods and how local school officials reinforced segregation long after Brown vs. Board of Education. The Nicest Kids in Town powerfully illustrates how national issues and history have their roots in local situations, and how nostalgic representations of the past, like the musical film Hairspray, based on the American Bandstand era, can work as impediments to progress in the present.

African Americans - Civil rights - Pennsylvania - Philadelphia - History - 20th century. --- African Americans -- Civil rights -- Pennsylvania -- Philadelphia -- History -- 20th century. --- American Bandstand (Television program). --- Civil rights movements - Pennsylvania - Philadelphia - History - 20th century. --- Civil rights movements -- Pennsylvania -- Philadelphia -- History -- 20th century. --- Minorities on television. --- Philadelphia (Pa.) - Race relations - History - 20th century. --- Philadelphia (Pa.) -- Race relations -- History -- 20th century. --- Segregation - Pennsylvania - Philadelphia - History - 20th century. --- Segregation -- Pennsylvania -- Philadelphia -- History -- 20th century. --- African Americans --- Segregation --- Civil rights movements --- Minorities on television --- Minorities in television --- Television --- Civil liberation movements --- Liberation movements (Civil rights) --- Protest movements (Civil rights) --- Human rights movements --- Desegregation --- Race discrimination --- Minorities --- Afro-Americans --- Black Americans --- Colored people (United States) --- Negroes --- Africans --- Ethnology --- Blacks --- Civil rights --- History --- American Bandstand (Television program) --- Bandstand (Television program : Burbank, Calif.) --- Philadelphia (Pa.) --- Philadelphie (Pa.) --- Filadelfia (Pa.) --- Filadelʹfii︠a︡ (Pa.) --- Филадельфия (Pa.) --- Philly (Pa.) --- City of Philadelphia (Pa.) --- Lower Dublin (Pa. : Township) --- Philadelphia County (Pa.) --- Race relations --- Black people --- Filadelfiyah (Pa.) --- פילדלפיה (Pa.) --- 1950s america. --- 1950s us history. --- 20th century america. --- 20th century entertainment. --- african american history. --- american bandstand era. --- american civil rights movement. --- american segregation. --- american studies. --- black history. --- brown vs board of education. --- color discrimination. --- entertainment and african americans. --- entertainment industry. --- hairspray musical. --- history of race and ethnicity. --- history of television. --- minority studies. --- philadelphia civil rights. --- segregation and entertainment. --- segregation and television.