{"id":294,"date":"2018-05-08T11:29:21","date_gmt":"2018-05-08T15:29:21","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/sites.miamioh.edu\/tellingapeoplesstory\/?p=294"},"modified":"2018-05-10T18:19:56","modified_gmt":"2018-05-10T22:19:56","slug":"contextualizing-the-firsts","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sites.miamioh.edu\/tellingapeoplesstory\/2018\/05\/contextualizing-the-firsts\/","title":{"rendered":"3. Contextualizing The Firsts"},"content":{"rendered":"<p style=\"text-align: left\">African-American books were slow to gain attention within\u00a0mainstream readership, publishers, and organizations\u00a0that recognized and awarded creativity. In 1922, the John\u00a0Newbery Medal was first presented to an author of children\u2019s\u00a0books. In 1938, illustrators garnered recognition with the\u00a0Randolph Caldecott Medal. A disparity in diversity is evident\u00a0as it was not until 1949 that Arna Bontemps became the\u00a0first African American to receive a Newbery honor for his\u00a0book, <em>Story of the Negro<\/em>. As a result of little recognition, the\u00a0Coretta Scott King Award was founded in 1969 to recognize\u00a0books by African Americans about the African-American\u00a0experience. In 1975, Virginia Hamilton, a native of Yellow\u00a0Springs, OH, became the first African-American author to win\u00a0the Newbery Medal for her book, <em>M. C. Higgins, the Great.<\/em><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: left\">The first African-American illustrator to receive national\u00a0attention was author and illustrator, John Steptoe. His\u00a0first picture book, <em>Stevie<\/em>, was featured in a 1969 issue of\u00a0Life magazine. It was hailed for its fresh perspective in\u00a0representing African-American children. However, it wasn\u2019t\u00a0until 1976 that Leo Dillon became the first African-American\u00a0illustrator to receive the Caldecott Medal for his work with\u00a0wife Diane Dillon on the book <em>Why Mosquitoes Buzz in\u00a0People\u2019s Ears<\/em>. These authors and illustrators paved the\u00a0way for the many books presented in this exhibition, the\u00a0hundreds of other books published over the past decades,\u00a0and the many more to come&#8230;<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-296\" src=\"http:\/\/sites.miamioh.edu\/tellingapeoplesstory\/files\/2018\/04\/Screen-Shot-2018-04-22-at-4.24.45-PM.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"1414\" height=\"328\" srcset=\"https:\/\/sites.miamioh.edu\/tellingapeoplesstory\/files\/2018\/04\/Screen-Shot-2018-04-22-at-4.24.45-PM.png 1414w, https:\/\/sites.miamioh.edu\/tellingapeoplesstory\/files\/2018\/04\/Screen-Shot-2018-04-22-at-4.24.45-PM-300x70.png 300w, https:\/\/sites.miamioh.edu\/tellingapeoplesstory\/files\/2018\/04\/Screen-Shot-2018-04-22-at-4.24.45-PM-768x178.png 768w, https:\/\/sites.miamioh.edu\/tellingapeoplesstory\/files\/2018\/04\/Screen-Shot-2018-04-22-at-4.24.45-PM-1024x238.png 1024w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1414px) 100vw, 1414px\" \/><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<div class=\"mh-excerpt\"><p>African-American books were slow to gain attention within\u00a0mainstream readership, publishers, and organizations\u00a0that recognized and awarded creativity. In 1922, the John\u00a0Newbery Medal was first presented to <a class=\"mh-excerpt-more\" href=\"https:\/\/sites.miamioh.edu\/tellingapeoplesstory\/2018\/05\/contextualizing-the-firsts\/\" title=\"3. Contextualizing The Firsts\">[&#8230;]<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"author":2408,"featured_media":300,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_bbp_topic_count":0,"_bbp_reply_count":0,"_bbp_total_topic_count":0,"_bbp_total_reply_count":0,"_bbp_voice_count":0,"_bbp_anonymous_reply_count":0,"_bbp_topic_count_hidden":0,"_bbp_reply_count_hidden":0,"_bbp_forum_subforum_count":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[6],"class_list":["post-294","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-online-exhibition","tag-firsts"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.miamioh.edu\/tellingapeoplesstory\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/294","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.miamioh.edu\/tellingapeoplesstory\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.miamioh.edu\/tellingapeoplesstory\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.miamioh.edu\/tellingapeoplesstory\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2408"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.miamioh.edu\/tellingapeoplesstory\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=294"}],"version-history":[{"count":12,"href":"https:\/\/sites.miamioh.edu\/tellingapeoplesstory\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/294\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":433,"href":"https:\/\/sites.miamioh.edu\/tellingapeoplesstory\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/294\/revisions\/433"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.miamioh.edu\/tellingapeoplesstory\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/300"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.miamioh.edu\/tellingapeoplesstory\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=294"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.miamioh.edu\/tellingapeoplesstory\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=294"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.miamioh.edu\/tellingapeoplesstory\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=294"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}