Amos Paul Kennedy, Jr., Letterpress, and Black American Print Culture

Abstract

Despite his international reputation and storied career, the work of letterpress printer Amos Paul Kennedy, Jr. has never received sustained scholarly analysis. This article parses Kennedy’s rhetoric, placing his choices and work in the context of the Black American print tradition that animates it. The self-identified “humble negro printer’s” life is indelibly influenced by the institutions of twentieth-century Black American racial uplift, including the Civil Rights movement and historically black colleges and universities.