A Weather Vane for Black Writers : Founder of Third World Press Provides a Platform

WASHINGTON —  When Haki Madhubuti teaches black poetry to his students at Chicago State University, he is often asked why the poets of the 1960s were so angry.

“It shows the lack of political involvement of today’s students,” says Madhubuti, 46, whose own expressions of identity and protest under the name Don L. Lee created some of the ‘60s most vivid poetry.

Yet now, sitting on a borrowed beige couch at the University of the District of Columbia, with many of those ‘80s students banging in and out of a nearby door, Madhubuti expresses the reluctant acceptance of an elder. “It is a good question,” he says, “because I can explain the context (of the times).”

Social Debates of America

For 20 years, Madhubuti has not only been living and writing about the shifting social debates of America, but providing an important platform. The publishing house he founded in 1967, Third World Press, is seen by some as both a textbook case of a struggling minority business and a weather vane for the treatment of works by black writers in the marketplace.

The survival of Third World--it is now the oldest continually operating black-owned publisher in the country--”means black people are readers and disproves the myth that we do not support our own,” Madhubuti says, adding that “80% to 90% of our supporters are black.”

Newer Black Writers

The press is planning to publish the work of newer black writers such as Pearl Cleage of Atlanta, Darryl Holmes of New York, Estella Conwill Alexander of Louisville and Ralph Cheo Thurmon of Gary, Ind.

“We want to bring them out in a fashion where they will be received well,” Madhubuti says. Third World, based in Chicago, also is committed to reissuing out-of-print books and helping the 103 writers on its list continue to be circulated, says Madhubuti.

Today’s black writers, he says, use their personal experiences as departure points. Politics is often secondary. “For example, Pearl Cleage has a wealth of personal experiences that she is trying to work through. Yet at the same time all the political (themes) keep creeping in.” The ‘60s poets were just the opposite but for most writers politics has always taken a back seat to experience.

Experiences and Philosophy

Madhubuti’s own work, dating from 1966 when he paid a printer to publish “Think Black,” has been a strong blend of his own life experiences and his sociopolitical philosophy.

He was born in Little Rock, Ark., and raised in Detroit by his mother, who became an alcoholic and died when he was 16. When he was 18, he joined the Army for three years, then earned an undergraduate degree from Chicago City College and later a master’s from the University of Iowa.

Once his words made him a voice of the ‘60s, Madhubuti taught at several universities and has lectured at more than a thousand colleges and community centers.

“I am where I am because of black people,” says the poet, who has had his 14 books of essays and verse published by black presses. Of his eight books of poetry, only one has been published by Third World. In the early 1970s he turned down an offer from Random House to publish his work. And, despite the erratic distribution system of most of the independent press, Madhubuti says, he has sold more than a million copies of his work, including his “Think Black” and “Don’t Cry, Scream” poetry collections.

Since 1967, Third World’s writers have included Pulitzer Prize-winning poet Gwendolyn Brooks, actress Ruby Dee, sociologist Useni Eugene Perkins, poets Sonia Sanchez, Imamu Amiri Baraka (LeRoi Jones), Carolyn Rogers and Dudley Randall and historian Chancellor Williams, whose history “The Destruction of Black Civilization: Great Issues of Race From 4500 B.C. to 200 A.D.” is the press’s best seller.

Though Third World has suffered the same financial upheavals as any small business, and reflects the bottom-line patterns in the larger publishing houses, it has enjoyed two years of profits, Madhubuti reports.

Toting Books

In the mid-1970s Madhubuti successfully lobbied most major bookstores to handle Third World’s books, and has a standing mailing list of more than a thousand customers.

For years, Madhubuti carried books around in his briefcase, a hands-on attempt to circumvent the hazards of distribution. Until the company started making a profit two years ago, he didn’t take any salary or expenses. Now, he says dryly, he takes expenses.

The faculty position he took at Chicago State five years ago enabled him to end his nomadic teaching and spend more time at publishing.

Since then the press has been computerized, received capital from a Chicago bank that gets involved in social causes, and been reorganized to have a profit-sharing plan for its six full-time employees. Some of the newer employees have business backgrounds, he says.

Recent Formation

In addition, Madhubuti spearheaded the recent formation of a trade association for black-owned publishing houses and the 66 black-owned bookstores in the United States, with the aim of bringing more resources to independent black publishers.

Soon-to-be-published books include a poetry volume by singer Gil Scott Heron, a children’s book by Nora Blakley and scholarly works by Dr. Frances Cress Welsing, a Washington psychiatrist, and Acklyn Lynch, a professor at the University of Maryland at Baltimore.

For the past 10 years in his own writing, Madhubuti has been wrestling with the status of black men in America, and is about to publish his conclusions in “Black Men: Obsolete, Single, Dangerous?” The subject has been a growing focus in intellectual circles. “I came from a poor background and am trying to show from personal experiences and research how we cannot let poverty interfere with our manhood. We just have to pull down deeper to overcome our obstacles,” he says.

Last year, in “Were Corners Made for Black Men to Stand On?” a chapter from his forthcoming book published in Black Scholar, he wrote: “Youthful aggression and violence are learned behavior, and cannot be blamed totally on ‘women-headed households’ or the lack of male presence. What is missing is an all encompassing developmental environment where adequate support systems exist.”