Keywords
picturebooks
Black Geographies
the South Bronx
hip-hop
How to Cite
Abstract
Moving beyond conventional thinking that equates Black space with fearsome locality or dysfunction, contemporary African American children’s authors define Black geographies as generative, joyful and secure. They offer alternative narratives of blackness by focusing on cultural achievements of Black communities, as well as the ways they transform the popular perception of their homeplaces.
Drawing on the concept of Black Geographies (McKittrick 2006; Hawthorne 2019), which argues that Black people’s contributions to geographical locations have always been political, this paper aims to analyze two picturebooks about the Black community of the South Bronx: I can write the world (2019), written by Joshunda Sanders and illustrated by Charly Palmer, and When the beat was born by Laban Carrick Hill and Theodore Taylor III (2013). It focuses on verbal and visual portrayals of the South Bronx as an urban landscape that became the birthplace of hip-hop culture as well as a site of resistance. By analyzing nuanced images of the South Bronx, the article offers an alternative reading of Black urban locations. It conceptualizes Black space as a site to be discovered and a project to be constructed for a better, more just, future. It also argues that Black joy and creativity are necessary survival strategies for those who claim the space as their own.
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