White Is…
Preston Wilcox, Editor.
lllustrations by Sandy Huffaker.
Published 1970 by Grove Press ©1970 Grove Press, Inc. and Preston Wilcox.
This online reproduction of White Is has been made possible by the kind permission of Grove/Atlantic, Inc., and the estates of Preston Wilcox and Sandy Huffaker.
The project has been completed voluntarily and without seeking any profit.
If you’d like to make a demonstration of its value to you please consider a donation to The Encampment.
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non-Commercial-No Derivatives 4.0 International License.
In 1970 White Is was a powerful statement. The words were the truth of a diverse group of teenagers in 1969 who would have all been over 70yrs old when #BlackLivesMatter happened. The illustrations are funny, and grotesque, often referencing real public figures.
Over 50 years later its power has not diminished. It has become another reminder of what has changed, and what has not.
I’ve made notes about the content of some of illustrations. I’m confident about the identities of the public figures but you might know better, and if so I’d be pleased to hear from you. You might also know about some of the illustrations that currently have no notes.
I have also included notes and links for further information about the authors. If you are interested in the content I recommend you see how the authors were very well qualified for this project.
The identities of the young people who completed the ‘White is…’ statements is not known.
Original Prologue by Preston Wilcox, 1970:
The statements that comprise this book were elicited from the teenage participants in a camp experience at the Encampment for Citizenship in White Plains during the summer of 1969.
The editor, Preston Wilcox, was serving as discussion leader when this book was conceived. The illustrations were developed separately by Sandy Huffaker.
Original Introduction by Preston Wilcox, 1970:
White Is is designed to provide white Americans with a mirror with which to examine themselves.
The full meaning of ‘white is’ unfolded as the young people involved in the writing the book began to see and identify the meaning of being white in America. The group, composed of Jews, Blacks, Puerto Ricans, Indians, WASPS, and Chicanos, discovered that they were forming a portrait of the the white Anglo-Saxon Protestant ‘authentic American deception’ that had blinded them all.
Many of the young people were able to accept the reality of white institutional racism, but they were critical of the system and not of the people who had been victimized by it–both Black and white. These kids could accept the racism and /or subservience of their parents and continue to love them without approving of their behavior.
All of us found out a little more about ourselves and each other during the writing of this book. We began to see that there is an individual and collective responsibility to learn how to be human and interdependent, and it was the first time that many of the young people had engaged the issue of their own right to be human in such an open setting.
–Preston Wilcox
The authors:
Preston Wilcox (1923-2006)
Edit of Obituary:
Preston Wilcox, human rights activist and professor, was a proponent of black studies and advocated community control over education. He was born in 1923 and raised in Youngstown, Ohio along with his four siblings. He attended Morehouse College in Atlanta, Georgia, but left to serve in the United States Army. He later returned to school and completed his Bachelor of Science in Biology at City College in 1949. He later earned a Masters of Social Work from Columbia University where he taught for several years.
During the Civil Rights movement of the 1950s and 1960s, Wilcox became a prominent leader and activist for the decentralization of public schools in Central Harlem. He was a leader in the movement for community control, which placed power over education into the hands of community members. …
His association with Malcolm X earned him credibility with many working class blacks. Wilcox was strongly influenced by Malcolm X’s support of Black Nationalism and later assisted in the founding of the National Association of Afro-American Educators.
Archive of work on Malcolm X research site.
Sandy Huffaker (1943-2020)
Sandy Huffaker was a cartoonist and painter specializing in political satire. He illustrated numerous covers for Time, Sports Illustrated, Business Week, and The New York Times Sunday Magazine, as well many other publications around the globe.
Obituary on DailyCartoonist.com
Huffaker was a highly acclaimed political cartoonist who started his career with The Birmingham News and the Raleigh News and Observer. He later moved to New York City and illustrated covers and articles for such publications such as Time Magazine, The New York Times, Sports Illustrated, Businessweek, People and Fortune Magazine. Some of the accolades awarded for his artwork include two Page-One Awards from the New York Newspaper Guild,three nominations for Cartoonist-of-the-Year by the National Cartoonists Society, A Desi Award of Excellence (Graphic Design Magazine), 20 Award Of Merit citations from the Society of Illustrators, and was twice nominated for a Pulitzer Prize for illustration.
Sandy Huffaker’s political cartooning years spanned the exciting years of the 1960s, through the Civil Rights Movement, Vietnam, and current events from the Nixon administration up through the Trump administration, always bringing his own original stamp of wit, truth, and humor.