South End Press Comes to Medgar Evers in Collaboration with the DBC and the Center for Black Literature
South End Press, one of the country’s oldest independent, nonprofit book publishers, has opened its new headquarters on the Medgar Evers College campus of the City University of New York. Through the joint efforts of the college’s Center for Black Literature and the DuBois Bunche Center for Public Policy, the 32-year-old publisher has taken residence at Medgar Evers’ offices in the MetroTech Centre in downtown Brooklyn.
Founded in Boston, South End Press is dedicated to publishing books that encourage critical thinking and constructive action on the key political, cultural, social, economic, and ecological issues shaping life in the United States and in the world, while providing an alternative to the practices and products of corporate publishing. South End’s author list—which includes bell hooks, Noam Chomsky, Winona LaDuke, Andrea Smith, Manning Marable, Cherríe Moraga, Arundhati Roy, Vandana Shiva, and Howard Zinn—reflects South End’s commitment to publish on diverse issues from diverse perspectives, while developing the publishing capacity of individuals and groups from diverse communities.
South End Press and both the Center for Black Literature and the DuBois Bunche Center for Public Policy will collaborate closely on joint programming that will directly benefit all members of the college as well as the broader community. At the same time the collaboration will help sustain one of the country’s most respected independent presses and the broad-based democratic social movements it has helped advance for over three decades.
Medgar Evers College was founded as a result of collaborative efforts by community leaders, elected officials, the chancellor, and the board of trustees of the City University of New York. The college, named for the late civil rights leader Medgar Wiley Evers (1925-1963) was established in 1969 and named in 1970. Its mandate is to meet the educational and social needs of the central Brooklyn community. In keeping with the philosophy of The City University and Medgar Evers College, the college is committed to the power of education to positively transform lives and to the right of all individuals in the pursuit of self-actualization. Consequently, the college’s mission is to develop and maintain high quality, professional, career-oriented undergraduate degree programs in the context of liberal education.
The mission of the Center for Black Literature is to expand, broaden, and enrich the public’s knowledge and aesthetic appreciation of the value of black literature. Through a series of programs that build an audience for the reading, discussion, and critical analysis of contemporary black literature and that serve as a forum for the research and study of black literature, the Center convenes and supports various literary programs and events such as author signings, writing workshops, panel discussions, conferences, and symposia. The DuBois Bunche Center for Public Policy is a think tank that includes scholar activists and advocates dedicated to forging solutions to the challenges confronting people of color living within urban communities in the United States and throughout the African Diaspora. The DuBois Bunche Center produces research, formulates policies, sponsors conferences and produces public affairs media programming that advances economic and social justice.
To read more about South End Press, click here.
