The Broadside Press records include correspondence, typescripts, broadsides, books, financial records, audiovisual material, photographs, realia, and other printed material. The ten linear feet span the years 1968 to 1998, with the bulk of materials falling between 1985 and 1996. Records are arranged in ten series: Correspondence (0.5 linear feet), Book Production Material (1 linear foot), Broadsides (0.25 linear feet), Programs and Events (0.5 linear feet), Business Records (1 linear foot), Financial Records (1 linear foot), Photographic Material (0.5 linear feet), Audiovisual Material (0.5 linear feet), Ephemera (1.5 linear feet), and Realia (.25 linear feet).
The Broadside Press is one of America's oldest African American owned presses, having published more that 200 poets and writers in broadsides, individual collections, anthologies, phonograph records, and videotapes.
Poet Dudley Randall founded the Broadside Press in 1965. The original mission of the Press was to publish single poems as broadsides, cloth books, and poetry tapes that could be purchased inexpensively. The first broadside was Randall's own, "The Bombing of Birmingham." The mission was later expanded to serve a broader segment of African American poets and writers whose works were not being published by the traditional presses. The establishment of the Broadside Press fostered the careers of just about every major poet to emerge during the sixties. Many of these poets document the Black Arts Movement, the Civil Rights Movement and cultural awareness in the African American community. Nikki Giovanni, the late Etheridge Knight, the late Audre Lorde, Haki Madhubuti (formerly Don L. Lee, co-founder of Third World Press), Sonia Sanchez, and Margaret Walker attained national prominence as a result of their work being published and distributed by the Broadside Press. Others, including Gwendolyn Brooks, elected to move from well-known publishers to the Broadside Press as an expression of support and ethnic unity. Three Broadside authors, Houston A. Baker, James Emanuel, and Lance Jeffers, were also authors of Lotus Press Books in the 1970s.
In 1977 ownership of the Broadside Press was transferred to the Alexander Cromwell Center, which insured the continued distribution of existing titles. No new titles were produced until 1981, when ownership reverted back to Dudley Randall, with the publication of "Homage to Hoyt Fuller."
In 1985 ownership of the Broadside Press was acquired by Don and Hilda Vest, and restructured as a non-profit organization. Hilda Vest served as editor/publisher, using her skills as an educator in the Detroit Public School System, while and Don Vest, formerly a corporate recruiter, served as the business manager. Under new ownership the outstanding inventory was consolidated and distribution network reestablished. Their primary goal was to continue the mission of preserving the artistic integrity and creative freedom that distinguished the Broadside Press through the publication, distribution, and sale of books; and emphasizing educational, literary, and cultural arts programs with schools, libraries, churches, and community organizations; and reactivating the Broadside Poets Theater.
In 1988 they began publishing new writers, including James Emanuel, Michele Gibbs, Keorapetse and Aneb Kgositsile (formerly Gloria House), Irene Rosemond, Sharon Smith-Knight, Hilda Vest, and Rayfield Waller. HIP*ology, an anthology of 65 poets, a local oral history, Reflections: An Oral History of Detroit, and a children's coloring book, Island Images, depicting Caribbean life by poet and graphic artist Michele Gibbs, were among the new publications.
