In 1963, at the height of the southern civil rights movement, Cecil Brathwaite (1936-2014), under the pseudonym Cecil Elombe Brath, published a satire of Black leaders entitled
Color Us Cullud! The American Negro Leadership Official Coloring Book. The book pillories a variety of Black leaders--from political figures like Adam Clayton Powell and Whitney Young to civil rights activists like Martin Luther King, Bayard Rustin, and John Lewis, and even entertainers like Sammy Davis Jr., Lena Horne, and Dick Gregory--critiquing the inauthenticity of movement leaders while urging a more radical approach to Black activism. Despite the strong illustrations and unique commentary presented in the coloring book, it has virtually disappeared from histories of the movement.
The Artistic Activism of Elombe Brath restores the coloring book and its creator to a place of prominence in the historiography of the Black left. It begins with an analysis of Brath''s influences, describing hi
