| This project is an investigation of Ebony Jr.!, a popular periodical targeting an audience of Black children in the five to eleven-age range. It was published by Johnson Publishing Company (JPC) from 1973 until 1985, and combined elements of popular culture, Black history and culture, and elementary school curriculum. My primary interest is in viewing EJ as an education tool. In so doing I use the interdisciplinary and Afrocentric theoretical framework of Black Studies. As this will be the first comprehensive study of Ebony Jr.! I pay particular attention to the historical, political, educational and literary contexts and how events and ideologies associated with each context informed EJ. I also highlight the magazine as a tool associated with developing a child's academic skills and ethnic identity.; Although similar to mainstream children's magazines, Ebony Jr.! entered the arena as the only popular African American children's magazine of the early 1970s. Its academic curriculum exceeded its contemporaries and its companion curriculum on Black history and culture had no contemporaries in children's magazines. Yet for some (e.g., Black Nationalists), EJ, with its conservative Racial Uplift orientation, was insufficient at best. As a periodical targeting African American children, however, it had no peer and nothing comparable has taken its place. |
