African American Literature & Education
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Guest(s) Appearing on this Episode | ||
Janice Cheatham Bell After graduating from Indiana University in 1964, Janet Cheatham Bell began her professional career as a high school librarian in Saginaw, Michigan. In early 1968 she accepted a position at the Ohio University Library in Athens. A few months later, in the wake of student responses to Martin Luther King Jr.’s assassination, the university recruited her to teach freshman composition and African American literature. Bell left Ohio University in 1970 to work as associate editor of The Black Scholar in Sausalito, California. Several months later she was recruited as a research associate for the African and Afro-American Studies Program at Stanford University where she worked with the director and eminent scholar, the late St. Clair Drake. Under the auspices of Dr. Drake's Multi Ethnic Education Resource Center, they published Teaching Black: an Evaluation of Methods and Resources. When that project was completed, Dr. Drake requested that Bell develop a basic collection of books by and about African Americans for Stanford's undergraduate library. He also encouraged her to apply to graduate school and she enrolled in Stanford's doctoral program in English. When her proposed research was rejected, Bell took a leave from her doctoral studies in 1973. The following year she accepted the position of Ethnic Studies Consultant for the Indiana Department of Education in Indianapolis. The position was created to take advantage of her particular skills and experience. In late 1978 she moved to Boston to assist Ginn & Company, textbook publishers in Lexington, Massachusetts, to develop, diversify and edit a series of literature anthologies for grades seven through twelve. That was her last full-time position. She resigned in 1984 and moved to Chicago where she became an entrepreneur and published her own books. Read More About Ms. Bell |
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