BIBLIOGRAPHY
Karenga, Maulana. Kawaida Theory: An Introductory
Outline. Inglewood, Calif.: Kawaida Publications,
1980.
Koolish, Lynda, comp. African American Writers,
Portraits and Visions. Jackson: University Press of
Mississippi, 2001.
Magistrate, Tony, and Patricia Ferreira. “Sweet Mama
Wanda Tells Fortunes: An Interview with Wanda
Coleman.” Black American Literature Forum 24,
no. 3 (Fall 1990): 491–507.
Wilfred D. Samuels
College Language Association Journal,
The (CLAJ)
Founded in 1957, The College Language Associa-
tion Journal is published by the College Language
Association (CLA), a predominantly black orga-
nization of college professors that began in 1937.
CLA grew out of correspondence between then-
leading scholars of African-American literature
and culture, professors Hugh M. Gloster and
Gladstone Lewis Chandler, which culminated in
a meeting of eight English professors who ini-
tially named the organization the Association of
English Teachers in Negro Colleges. However, in
1941, the organization’s name was changed to the
Association of Teachers of Languages in Negro
Colleges to encompass both literature and for-
eign languages. In yet another effort to broaden
the organization’s scope to include all academics
interested in scholarship on languages and litera-
ture, including that written by and about African
Americans, the name was changed, in 1949, to the
College Language Association.
To extend opportunities for more scholarly ex-
change, CLA’s Planning Board founded, in 1957,
The College Language Association Journal (CLAJ) as
CLA’s official organ of printed scholarship in litera-
ture and languages. CLAJ continues to serve multi-
ple functions: providing information about annual
CLA conventions, publishing the president’s an-
nual convention address, informing readership of
CLA member publications, offering job placement
service listings in languages and literature, encour-
aging the historical continuity of CLA by paying
tribute to its prominent scholars and supporters
who have passed on, encouraging undergraduate
and graduate students through its essay and study
abroad competitions, using its book reviews and
lists to keep its readership updated on scholarship
in the field, helping preserve the interest and sup-
port in historically black colleges and universities,
and including articles on pedagogy. Published
quarterly, CLAJ offers publication opportunities
to members and subscribers. Much of the history
of CLA and CLAJ is available at the Clark Atlanta
University Center Archives.
Australia TarverColor Purple, The Alice Walker (1982)
ALICE WALKER’s Pulitzer Prize–winning novel,
The Color Purple, tracks the torturous journey
of CELIE, a rural black female adolescent, toward
womanhood and self-awareness. In a larger vein,
Walker’s third novel offers her vision of the pos-
sibility for healthy, cooperative relationships be-
tween women and men. The Color Purple quickly
became a subject of controversy for its explora-
tions of abusive and otherwise problematic re-
lationships between black men and women. If
LANGSTON HUGHES’s “Negro artist” had to con-
front the “racial mountain,” Walker and other
black women writers have had to confront the ra-
cial and “gender mountain.”
An epistolary novel (composed of letters from
Celie to God and to her younger sister, Nettie,
and from Nettie to Celie), The Color Purple is set
for the most part in rural Georgia, though some
scenes take place in Memphis, Tennessee, and Af-
rica. Celie’s first letter, written when she is 14, tells
of her sexual and emotional abuse at the hands of
Alphonso, the man she believes to be her father. He
not only impregnates her but also refuses to allow
her to keep either of the two children he fathers;
he admonishes her to tell no one but God. The
situation, including the separate sleeping quarters
for Celie and Nettie, invokes the slaveholder/bond-
woman relationship of freedom narratives, and
Celie’s inner transformation parallels the outer112 College Language Association Journal, The (CLAJ)