As a doctoral student at Wayne State University in Detroit, the author taught, along with a few other doctoral students, some of the undergraduate courses in children's literature. One year in the early 1970s, they graduate student-instructors were recruited as helpers at a book fair. Among the books to be displayed was a set of children's books, all related to African Americans, that the late Donald J. Bissett, director of the children's literature program, had named the Darker Brother collection. The exciting thing about the Darker Brother collection was that it was a sign that what Larrick (1965) had labeled the "all-White world" of children's literature was no longer all White. By the end of the decade, combined social, political, and economic forces had begun to propel the field of children's literature toward greater diversity. The numbers of contemporary children's books focused on Black characters and Black life and history were beginning to increase, offering opportunities for scholarly examinations of their content. In this article, the author reflects on her scholarship in the field of African American children's literature and the emergence of that literature as a cohesive body of work.