ABSTRACT
Nationalist writing in general and nationalist poetry in particular offers the opportunity of witnessing the evolution of a cadre of writers and a canon of literary works. The tendency to derogate black women was reversed only when women began to assert themselves in nationalist organizations and to establish their voices through nationalist literary works and nationalist poetry in particular. The nationalist attempt to redefine blackness and reject white judgments of worth generally followed a three-step process: rejection of negative images perpetuated by white people, assertion of Afro-centric values, images, and perspectives; and replacing stereotypes and historical inaccuracies with a body of African-American generated folklore, histories, and other artifacts. Even before Marxism became widely advocated in revolutionary nationalism, condemnation of capitalism figured prominently in nationalist ideology. Attitudes and actions of white-dominated police forces in black communities were of ongoing concern to nationalists.
