SOURCE: Cruz, Victor Hernández, Clarence Major, and Walt Shepperd. “An Interview with Clarence Major and Victor Hernandez Cruz.” In New Black Voices: An Anthology of Contemporary Afro-American Literature, edited by Abraham Chapman, pp. 545-52. New York: New American Library, 1972.

In the following interview with Cruz and Major, originally published in 1969, Shepperd discusses the place of minority literature in the publishing industry and in educational curricula.

Clarence Major, (see note in poetry section, p. 298) and Victor Hernandez Cruz (see note in poetry section, pp. 237-38) were among the writers participating in the Summer Institute on Black Excellence at Cazenovia College in Cazenovia, New York, in 1969. Walt Shepperd, editor of The Nickel Review, a literary publication which published many contributions by Black writers, published this joint interview with Clarence Major and Victor Hernandez Cruz at this Institute in The Nickel Review, September 12, 1969.

[Shepperd:] Clarence, in your anthology The New...