Editors' Introduction

Writing by black women authors and poets of the African Diaspora—from Lucille Clifton and Elizabeth Alexander to British writer Bernardine Evaristo and Toni Morrison—takes center stage in this issue of Palimpsest. Rounding out the issue's literary focus is historical-sociologist Michael O. West's seminal rumination on global Black Power and Caribbean and Afro-Canadian politics in "History vs. Historical Memory: Rosie Douglas, Black Power on Campus, and the Canadian Color Conceit" in our Art of Engagement Forum. Divided into two parts that will be extended over the next two issues of Palimpsest, part one of West's essay dovetails with the primarily literary thrust of this issue as it explores the literary and "androcentric," in West's words, dimensions of the global Black Power movement via the Congress of Black Writers and Artists, the Congress of Black Writers, and other lesser known Black Internationalist's interventions.