MR bills itself as "A Quarterly of Literature, the Arts, and Public Affairs." A key early focus was on
civil rights as well as
African-American history and culture; the
Review published, among many others,
Gwendolyn Brooks,
Sterling A. Brown,
Lucille Clifton,
W.E.B. Du Bois, and
Martin Luther King Jr. Sidney Kaplan, a founder of the Du Bois Department of Afro-American Studies at the University of Massachusetts, was a founding member of
MR as well; Ekwueme Michael Thelwell, also a founder of Afro-American Studies at UMass, continues to serve as a contributing editor. In 1969, co-editor
Jules Chametzky and Kaplan put together a collection of essays from the first ten years of
MR;
Julius Lester, in the
New York Times, called
Black and White in American Culture "a rare anthology [...] with a higher degree of relevance than almost any other book of its kind." In 1972,
MR published a double issue, entitled
Woman: An Issue, edited by Lisa Baskin, Lee Edwards, and Mel Heath, featuring work from
Bella Abzug,
Angela Davis,
Audre Lorde,
Norman Mailer,
Anaïs Nin,
Tina Modotti, and
Sonia Sanchez. Recent special issues include the 2008
Especially Queer Issue (edited by John Emil Vincent, and featuring new work from
Frank Bidart,
Michael Moon, and
Jack Spicer, as well as an interview with
Judith Butler and a conversation between
Michael Snediker and
Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick) as well as the 2011
Casualty Issue (co-edited by Kevin Bowen and Jim Hicks, with work from
John Berger,
Erri De Luca,
Juan Goytisolo,
Yusef Komunyakaa,
David Rabe, and Nora Strejilevich). ==Achievements==