_Dear Sirs:_
Please find enclosed my subscription of one dollar in cash to THE JOURNAL OF NEGRO HISTORY, and permit me to congratulate you on your first publication.
Very truly yours,
Oswald Garrison Villard
_Dear Sir:_
The first number of your magazine reached me a few days ago. It is a fine publication, doing credit to its editor and to the a.s.sociation. I think it has a fine field.
Sincerely yours,
T. G. Steward, _Captain, U. S. Army, Retired_
_Dear Dr. Woodson:_
I have the first number of THE JOURNAL OF NEGRO HISTORY. Permit me to congratulate you and to earnestly hope that it may live long and prosper.
It is excellent in purpose, matter and method. If the present high standard is maintained, you and your friends will not only make a most valuable contribution to a dire need of the Negro, but you will add in a substantial measure to current historical data.
Truly yours,
D. S. S. Goodloe, _Princ.i.p.al, Maryland Normal and Industrial School_
"Why then, should the new year be signalized by the appearance of a magazine bearing the t.i.tle THE JOURNAL OF NEGRO HISTORY? How can there be such a thing as history for a race which is just beginning to live? For the JOURNAL does not juggle with words; by "history" it means history and not current events. The answer is to be found within its pages...."
"But the outstanding feature of the new magazine is just the fact of its appearance. Launched at Chicago by a new organization, the a.s.sociation for the Study of Negro Life and History, it does not intend "to drift into the discussion of the Negro Problem," but rather to "popularize the movement of unearthing the Negro and his contributions to civilization ... believing that facts properly set forth will speak for themselves.""
"This is a new and stirring note in the advance of the black man.
Comparatively few of any race have a broad or accurate knowledge of its part. It would be absurd to expect that the Negro will carry about in his head many details of a history from which he is separated by a tremendous break. It is not absurd to expect that he will gradually learn that he, too, has a heritage of something beside shame and wrong. By that knowledge he may be uplifted as he goes about his task of building from the bottom."
_The New York Evening Post._
When men of any race begin to show pride in their own antecedents we have one of the surest signs of prosperity and rising civilization. That is one reason why the new JOURNAL OF NEGRO HISTORY ought to attract more than pa.s.sing attention. Hitherto the history of the Negro race has been written chiefly by white men; now the educated Negroes of this country have decided to search out and tell the historic achievements of their race in their own way and from their own point of view. And, judging from the first issue of their new publication, they are going to do it in a way that will measure up to the standards set by the best historical publications of the day.
The opinions which the American Negro has. .h.i.therto held concerning his own race have been largely moulded for him by others. Himself he has given us little inkling of what his race has felt, and thought and done. Any such situation, if long enough continued, would make him a negligible factor in the intellectual life of mankind. But the educated leaders of the race, of whom our colleges and universities have been turning out hundreds in recent years, do not propose that this shall come to pa.s.s. They are going to show the Negro that his race is more ancient than the Golden Fleece or Roman Eagle; that Ethiopia had a history quite as ill.u.s.trious as that of Nineveh or Tyre, and that the Negro may well take pride in the rock from which he was hewn. The few decades of slavery form but a small dark spot in the annals of long and great achievements. That embodies a fine att.i.tude and one which should be thoroughly encouraged. It aims to teach the Negro that he can do his own race the best service by cultivating those hereditary racial traits which are worth preserving, and not by a fatuous imitation of his white neighbors.
At any rate, here is a historical journal of excellent scientific quality, planned and managed by Negro scholars for readers of their own race, and preaching the doctrine of racial self-consciousness. That in itself is a significant step forward.
_The Boston Herald._
A new periodical, to be published quarterly, is the journal of "The a.s.sociation for the Study of Negro Life and History," a society organized in Chicago in September, 1915. The commendable aim of the a.s.sociation is to collect and publish historical and sociological material bearing on the Negro race. Its purpose, it is claimed, is not to drift into discussion of the Negro problem, but to publish facts which will show to posterity what the Negro has so far thought, felt, and done.
The president of the a.s.sociation, George C. Hall, of Chicago; its secretary-treasurer, Jesse E. Moorland, of Washington, D.C.; the editor of the JOURNAL, Carter G. Woodson, also of Washington; and the other names a.s.sociated with them on the executive council and on the board of a.s.sociate editors, guarantee an earnestness of purpose and a literary ability which will doubtless be able to maintain the high standard set in the first issue of the JOURNAL. The table of contents of the January number includes several historical articles of value, some sociological studies, and other contributions, all presented in dignified style and in a setting of excellent paper and type. The general style of the JOURNAL is the same as that of the _American Historical Review._
_The Southern Workman._
An undertaking which deserves a cordial welcome began in the publication, in January, of the first number of the _Journal of Negro History_, edited by Mr. Carter G. Woodson, and published at 2223 Twelfth Street, N.W., Washington, by the a.s.sociation for the Study of Negro Life and History, formed at Chicago in September, 1915. The price is but $1 per annum. The objects of the a.s.sociation and of the journal are admirable--not the discussion of the "negro problem," which is sure, through other means, of discussion ample in quant.i.ty at least, but to exhibit the facts of negro history, to save and publish the records of the black race, to make known by competent articles and by doc.u.ments what the negro has thought and felt and done. The first number makes an excellent beginning, with an article by the editor on the Negroes of Cincinnati prior to the Civil War; one by W. B.
Hartgrove on the career of Maria Louise Moore and Fannie M. Richards, mother and daughter, pioneers in negro education in Virginia and Detroit; one by Monroe N. Work, on ancient African civilization; and one by A. O.
Stafford, on negro proverbs. The reprinting of a group of articles on slavery in the _American Museum_ of 1788 by "Oth.e.l.lo," a negro, and of selections from the _Baptist Annual Register_, 1790-1802, respecting negro Baptist churches, gives useful aid toward better knowledge of the American negro at the end of the eighteenth century.
_The American Historical Review._
THE JOURNAL OF NEGRO HISTORY
VOL. I--JUNE, 1916--No. 3
PUBLISHED QUARTERLY
CONTENTS
JOHN H. RUSSELL, Ph.D.: Colored Freemen as Slave Owners in Virginia
JOHN H. PAYNTER, A.M.: The Fugitives of the Pearl
BENJAMIN BRAWLEY: Lorenzo Dow
LOUIS R. MEHLINGER: The Att.i.tude of the Free Negro Toward African Colonization
DOc.u.mENTS: TRANSPLANTING FREE NEGROES TO OHIO FROM 1815 TO 1858: Blacks and Mulattoes, New Style Colonization, Freedom in a Free State, The Randolph Slaves, The Republic of Liberia.
A TYPICAL COLONIZATION CONVENTION: Convention of Free Colored People, Emigration of the Colored Race, Circular, Address to the Free Colored People of the State of Maryland, Proceedings of the Convention of Free Colored People of the State of Maryland
REVIEWS OF BOOKS: ABEL"S _The Slaveholding Indians. Volume I: As Slaveholder and Secessionist_; GEORGE"S _The Political History of Slavery in the United States_; CLARK"S _The Const.i.tutional Doctrines of Justice Harlan_; THOMPSON"S _Reconstruction in Georgia, Economic, Social, Political, 1865--1872_