Lee’s recognition that French’s Billy is destined to
be a classic novel, examining as hers did the South,
childhood, and racism in a timely and emotionally
moving manner.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Berben-Masi, Jacqueline. “From Billy to I Can’t
Wait on God: Building the Case for Victimiza-
tion vs. Self-Affirmation.” Cycnos 19, no. 2 (2002):
241–251.
Tracie Church Guzzio
Fuller, Hoyt (1923–1981)
Scholar, writer, and activist Hoyt Fuller was born
in Detroit, Michigan; he attended Wayne State
University, where he majored in literature and
journalism. An ardent critic of the representation
of African Americans in mainstream American
literature and cultural production, Fuller inspired
African-American writers to examine African and
African-American art forms in all of their mani-
festations to produce an art that celebrated Afri-
can-American culture. He served as a leader of the
BLACK ARTS MOVEMENT and as mentor to a new
generation of African-American writers.
Fuller served as executive editor of Negro Di-
gest, one of the premier journals featuring creative
and journalistic writing on African-American life.
Negro Digest became BLACK WORLD during the
Black Arts Movement, and Fuller remained the
editor. The name change signaled Fuller’s deter-
mination to illustrate connections among blacks
across the diaspora, to develop and further ex-
plain the BLACK AESTHETIC, and to pay homage to
African-American writers and the literature they
produced.
Fuller dedicated his life to providing a venue
for African-American writers and their works.
He sought to keep African Americans informed
about current social and political events affect-
ing black people throughout the world. As one
of the key figures in developing the Black Arts
Movement, Fuller dedicated himself to mentor-
ing African-American writers and exposing bias
in education, publishing, and literary criticism. As
part of his mission to empower and elevate the
African-American artist and advance the fight for
equality, Fuller shared his talents as a teacher and
writer with other African Americans. He founded
the Organization of Black American Culture, a
Chicago-based writer’s workshop.
Fuller was a controversial figure. Many people,
especially mainstream academics with ideological
perspectives that differed from his, as well as those
who felt threatened by the Black Arts Movement,
were disturbed by the seemingly militant tone and
focus of Black World. They were equally bothered
by Fuller’s speeches and written works on the state
of black America and his critique of American
educational institutions and the bias found in the
curriculum in most American schools, from kin-
dergarten through college. As a result of this per-
ception; the threats received by Johnson Publishers,
where Black World was housed; and constant sur-
veillance by the police and COINTELPRO, Black
World was discontinued in the mid-1970s. Unde-
terred, Fuller founded First World. He left Cornell
University and returned to Atlanta in 1977.
In addition to editing important journals asso-
ciated with the Black Arts Movement, Fuller wrote
Journey to Africa, an autobiographical narrative,
book reviews; and essays on African-American
literature. In Journey to Africa Fuller describes the
Pan-African movement of the 1960s and 1970s,
urges African Americans to study their history, and
encourages them to develop a sense of identity in
connection with their African roots.
As a critic, Fuller is best known for his effort,
along with contemporaries ADDISON GAYLE, LeRoi
Jones (AMIRI BARAKA), and others, to shape the
Black Arts Movement. In his essay “Towards a Black
Aesthetic,” Fuller attempted to define an African-
American aesthetic. In it he connects the Black
Arts Movement with the BLACK POWER movement
of the 1960s. He examines the conflict between
the white critic and the black writer and discusses
how this conflict is rooted in American racism
and the perpetuation of stereotypical images of
African Americans found in literature by white
authors, book reviews by white critics reviewing
black texts, and images in American media. Fuller
asserted that “the revolutionary black writer, like192 Fuller, Hoyt