...COMPS!

You got it. My proposal for the Senior Comprehensive Exercise is due at noon tomorrow. As prospective students, I figured I'd give you a sneak peak into what I'm proposing to investigate.

In its August 1967 publication, Ebony Magazine published a special issue titled: “Negro Youth in America: Anxious, Angry, and Aware.” The publication printed a series of reports exploring “the challenging and bewilderingly complex world of more than eleven hundred Negroes who are below the age of twenty five.” Black America, the issue argued, had changed. There existed a stark generational gap between African Americans of the World War II era, and those who proclaimed ‘no more’. This dynamic declaration of independence gained ground in the Motown Movement, transforming popular music while broadcasting a new sound to the free world: a new consciousness had arisen among America’s long-marginalized African American community.

As per John H. Johnson’s editorial, how did the black press craft stories that highlighted a shift in consciousness, a mixed juxtaposition between the number of college-educated African Americans and those who were unemployment, and a collective defiance against years of political exploitation were articulated to bring into focus “different, yet complementary challenges” facing the nation? What were these challenges? Moreover, is the historiography of this type of journalism useful in better understanding the multiple factors that exploded into the 1967 summer race riots of Newark and Detroit?

If approved, I'll be able to answer these complex, yet intriguing questions. Wish me good luck...