Looking at the Stars

As early as 1900, when moving-picture and recording technologies began to bolsterentertainment-based leisure markets, journalists catapulted entertainers to godlike status,heralding their achievements as paragons of American self-determination. Not surprisingly,mainstream newspapers failed to cover black entertainers, whose "inherent inferiority"precluded them from achieving such high cultural status. Yet those same celebrities came alive in thepages of black press publications written by and for members of urban black communities. In Looking at the StarsCarrie Teresa explores the meaning of celebrity as expressed by black journalists writing against the backdrop of Jim Crow-era segregation. Teresaargues that journalists and editors workingfor these black-centered publications, rather than simply mimicking the reporting conventions ofmainstream journalism, instead framed celebrities as collective representations of the racewho were then used to symbolize the cultural value of artistic expression influenced by the black diasporaand to promote politicalactivism through entertainment. The socialconscience that many contemporary entertainers of color exhibit today arguably derives from the wayblack press journalists once conceptualized the symbolic role of "celebrity" as a tool in the fightagainst segregation. Based on a discourse analysis of the entertainment content of the period's most widely read black press newspapers, Looking at the Stars takes into account both the institutional perspectives and the discursive strategies used inthe selection and framing of black celebrities in the context of Jim Crowism.