Cities Burning

Created by the Black poet Dudley Randall in 1965 without any blueprint, savings, or investors, Broadside Press survived and grew through the support of Black artists and its international Black readership. In the press’s early years, Randall and his associates worked out of a single room in his home. The first publications were high quality but produced in relatively small numbers, which allowed them to be printed quickly and at a low cost. Like the press’s broadside poems, the covers of its books featured bold designs by Black artists. Randall also used Broadside to print his own work, which mainstream publishers had refused due to its subject matter, including discussions of state violence and the need for new representations of Black life.