Researching Black History at the BPL
Introduction
The first B
lack-run periodical in the United States was Freedom’s Journal, a New York City-based paper founded in 1827 by John B. Russworm and Samuel E. Cornish. It lasted only two years, with its last issue dated October 9, 1829. Since its abolitionist beginnings, the Black press has expanded to touch on all aspects of life. Particularly since the founding and success of the Johnson Publishing Company in 1942, magazines with a special focus on Black news, achievements, and culture have become much more widespread. The Johnson Publishing Company demonstrated that there was a large market for magazines among Black Americans and became the yardstick against which other Black magazines measured themselves. (From the University of Missouri Special Collections and Archives)
On This Page:
- General Magazines (including news, fashion, and finance)
- Political and Literary Magazines (including Civil Rights and Black Liberation Movement publications)
- Black Studies Journals
- Related subject headings
- Websites where you can learn more about this topic
Note: The following is not an all-inclusive list of Black magazines that have been digitized. It is for particularly popular or historically important magazines. There is also crossover between categories (for example, a political magazine with short stories), and magazines were placed in the category in which the majority of the content fitted.
Image Right: The 20th Anniversary Issue of Ebony Magazine, from November 1965. If features several previous Ebony covers with photos of Lena Horne, Mary McLeod Bethune, Jackie Robinson, Martin Luther King Jr., and others. (Image via manhhai on Flickr)
Example Library of Congress Subject Headings for Black magazines:
Image Right: The October 13, 1955 edition of Jet magazine. The cover features Mary E. Vroman, Black woman to join the Screen Writers Guild. The cover also advertises an exclusive for "What the Public Didn't Know About the Till Trial" and an interview with Moses Wright, who took the witness stand and identified the men who kidnapped and killed Till, who was his great-nephew. At the time of publication, Emmett Till's murder had occurred less than two months prior.
Life in America: Sixteen Black Magazines from 1953 to 1998
A digital exhibit about Black magazines in the latter half of the 20th century. The exhibit highlights several genres: beauty and fashion, celebrities and music, news and lifestyle, and youth and teenagers.
Image Right: The Februrary 1949 edition of Ebony Magazine advertising skiing as a new popular sport for Black Americans. It is reflective of the middle class aspirations of many Black people in the post-WWII era.
General Interest Magazines
- Black Enterprise (1970-Present)
Black Enterprise magazine covers African American businesses. It publishes an annual listing of the largest African-American companies in the country, or "B.E. 100s", first compiled and published in 1973. Digital archive available for 1970-2000.
Black World/Negro Digest (1941-1951; 1961-1976) (link to later run)
The Negro Digest, later renamed Black World, was a magazine for the African-American market. Founded in November 1942 by publisher John H. Johnson of Johnson Publishing Company, Negro Digest was first published locally in Chicago, Illinois. The magazine was similar to the Reader's Digest but aimed to cover positive stories about the African-American community.[1] The Negro Digest ceased publication in 1951 but returned in 1961. In 1970, Negro Digest was renamed Black World and continued to appear until April 1976.
- Black World/Negro Digest (link to earlier run)
- Ebony Jr! (1973-1985)
In 1973, the Johnson Publishing Company expanded its readership to include children by producing Ebony Jr!. Targeting Black children in the five to eleven age-range, the magazine featured stories, comics, puzzles, and cartoons. Its contents combined elements of Black culture, Black history, and elementary school curriculum. Digitized collection includes the entire run.
- Ebony Magazine (1945-Present)
Ebony is a monthly magazine that focuses on news, culture, and entertainment. Its target audience is the African-American community, and its coverage includes the lifestyles and accomplishments of influential black people, fashion, beauty, and politics. This collection features issues for November 1959 - December 2008. Scattered other issues are available through Internet Archive.
- Half-Century Magazine (1916-1925)
Half-Century Magazine was published from 1916 to 1925 for an African American audience. It was named for the 50th anniversary of the Emancipation Proclamation. The magazine began as a general publication but shifted toward a female audience by 1918.
- Jet Magazine (1951-2014 (In Print); 2014-Present (Digital))
Jet is an American weekly digital magazine focusing on news, culture, and entertainment related to the African-American community. Founded in November 1951 by John H. Johnson of the Johnson Publishing Company in Chicago, Illinois, the magazine was billed as "The Weekly Negro News Magazine." Digital archive available for 1951-2008.
- The Half-century Magazine (1916-1925)Call Number: E185.5 .H22
Indexes for various years available through Internet Archive.
Compiled by a librarian at the University of Northern Iowa, this index includes links to digitized copies of Black periodicals as well as general information about the publications.
Image Right: The October 1920 edition of The Half-Century Magazine. The cover advertises "General Race News," as well as several articles, including an excerpt of James Weldon Johnson's novel Autobiography of an Ex-Colored Man. In addition to being a prominent writer and NAACP leader, Johnson wrote the lyrics to Lift Every Voice and Sing.
The Best of Emerge Magazine by Call Number: E185.615 .B478 2003xISBN: 9780345462282Publication Date: 2003-07-29The 1990s. African Americans achieved more influence–and faced more explosive issues–than ever before. One word captured those times. One magazine expressed them. Emerge. In those ten years, with an impressive circulation of 170,000 and more than forty national awards to its credit, Emerge became a serious part of the American mainstream. Time hailed its “uncompromising voice.” The Washington Post declared that Emerge “gets better with each issue.” Then, after nearly a decade, Emerge magazine closed its doors. Now, for the first time, here’s a collection of the finest articles from a publication that changed the face of African American news. From the Clarence Thomas nomination to the Bill Clinton impeachment . . . from the life of Louis Farrakhan to the death of Betty Shabazz . . . from reparations for slavery to the rise of blacks on Wall Street . . . the most important people, topics, and turning points of this remarkable period are featured in incisive articles by first-rate writers. Emerge may have ended with the millennium, but–as this incomparable volume proves–the quality of its coverage is still unequaled, the extent of its impact still emerging. Stirring tribute, uncanny time capsule, riveting read–The Best of Emerge Magazine is also the best of American journalism.
The Man from Essence by Call Number: Z473.L545 A3 2014ISBN: 9781476703480Publication Date: 2014-06-10Essence magazine is the most popular, well respected, and largest circulated black women's magazine in history. Largely unknown is the remarkable story of what it took to earn that distinction. The Man from Essence depicts with candor and insight how Edward Lewis, CEO and publisher of Essence, started a magazine with three black men who would transform the lives of millions of black American women and alter the American marketplace. Throughout Essence's colorful and storied history, Ed Lewis remained the cool and constant presence, a quiet-talking corporate captain and business strategist who prevailed against the odds and the naysayers. He would emerge to become the last man standing--the only partner to survive the battles that raged before the magazine was sold to Time, Inc. in the largest buyout of a black-owned publication by the world's largest publishing company. By the time Lewis did the deal with Time, a little magazine that limped from the starting gate in 1970 with a national circulation of 50,000 had grown into a powerhouse with a circulation of more than a million and a pass along readership of eight million. The story of Essence is ultimately the story of American business, black style. From constant battles with a racist advertising community to hostile takeover attempts, warring partners packing heat, mass firings, and mass defections--all of which revealed inherent challenges in running a black business--the saga is as riveting as any thriller steeped in high drama, hijinks, and juicy dishing. In this engaging business memoir, Ed Lewis tells the inspiring story of how his own rise from humble South Bronx beginnings to media titan was shaped by the black women and men in his life. This in turn helped shape a magazine that has changed the face of American media.
Special Moments in African-American History, 1955-1996 by Call Number: E185.615 .S5735 1998 FOLIOISBN: 9780874850871Publication Date: 1998-11-01The photographs of Moneta Sleet Jr. are internationally acclaimed collector’s items encapsulating special moments in the history of African Americans around the world in the latter half of the 20th century. Now, for the first time, these works that have been coveted by many are presented in one remarkable book. Many of these rare photographs have never been seen before.
Political and Literary Magazines
In 1965, a group of Black students at San Francisco State College (now University) created a publication dedicated to the legacy of Malcolm X. It was designed to give voice to fellow students, as well as to artists, writers and other thinkers in the surrounding community.
The Crisis, founded by W.E.B. Du Bois as the official publication of the NAACP, is a journal of civil rights, history, politics, and culture and seeks to educate and challenge its readers about issues that continue to plague African Americans and other communities of color. Collection coverage from 1911-2011.
- The Crusader Magazine (1918-1922)
The Crusader was one of the most prominent and important black communist publications that period. It was the work of Cyril Valentine Briggs, who came to New York City in 1905 from the Leeward Islands, at the outermost eastern edge of the Caribbean. It was published initially with the support of a West Indian merchant, and later with support from the Communist Party. In December 1918, in exchange for financial support, The Crusader became the official magazine of George Well Parker’s Hamitic League of the World, a pan-African nationalist group. Parker proclaimed Africa was the cradle of civilization and that the black race was superior to all other races.
- Freedomways (1961-1985)
Freedomways was a leading African American theoretical, cultural, and political journal tackling major social and political issues, especially the Civil Rights Movement. The journal’s founders, led by editor Esther Jackson, included Louis Burnham, Edward Strong, W.E.B. Du Bois, and Shirley Graham Du Bois. Under Jackson’s direction, Freedomways became the leading radical Black left publication that gave a platform to veteran and newer writers, thinkers, activists, artists, and educators. The periodical ran their works and tackled issues of progressive politics, civil rights, colonialism, Pan-Africanism, prison and justice reform, education activism, art, literature, poetry, and urban decay.
- Liberation (1956-1977)
Liberation, published by New Social Perspectives, Inc., was a periodical that aimed to provide a platform for progressive political and social ideas. The publication, which was first launched in 1956, served as a voice for various social movements and advocated for civil rights, anti-war efforts, and the expression of countercultural perspectives. It was published until 1977. Scattered issues available.
- The Colored American Magazine (1900-1909)
The Colored American Magazine served a vital role in promoting the development of African American literature, protesting injustice, and contesting dominant representations of African American culture and history. Especially in its early years, the periodical—whose contributors included Pauline Hopkins, W. E. B. Du Bois, Paul Laurence Dunbar, and Booker T. Washington—was committed to the development of Black literary culture through the publication of poetry, fiction, and book reviews. The magazine also foregrounded Black women’s issues in its early years. The advertising pages at the front and back of each issue furthered, in their own way, this project of reflecting and constructing an aspirational Black middle-class identity. The magazine crucially paved the way for more well-known magazines like the NAACP’s Crisis (founded 1910) and Ebony (founded 1945).
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Opportunity: A Journal of Negro Life (1923-1949)
Opportunity was a Harlem Renaissance literary magazine. Charles S. Johnson, the magazine editor and the first Black president of historically Black Fisk University, aimed to create a magazine dedicated to the Black culture ignored by mainstream publishing. To encourage young writers to submit their work, Johnson sponsored literary contests with winners that included Zora Neale Hurston, Langston Hughes, and Countee Cullen. Ebony and Topaz was an anthology of the best works published in the magazine. Note: the link above is to the Internet Archive collection, which included black and white scans of varying quality. The Yale University Archives have also digitized scattered issues in full color.
A Harlem Renaissance literary magazine which included works by writers such as Countee Cullen, Zora Neale Hurston, and Langston Hughes. A more readable reproduction can be found here.
The Brownies Book was an early magazine for young readers, and the first especially designed with African American children in mind. The magazine sought to “teach Universal Love and Brotherhood for all little folk—black and brown and yellow and white.” Published by W.E.B. Du Bois and others, The Brownies’ Book featured photographs, stories, songs, and letters from young readers and parents. You can read more about the creation of the magazine here.
- African Voices byPublication Date: 1993-
- Muhammad Speaks (1961-1975)Call Number: E185.61 .M953
Radical Intellect by Call Number: E185.615 .T59 2017ISBN: 9781469634555Publication Date: 2017-10-09The rise of black radicalism in the 1960s was a result of both the successes and the failures of the civil rights movement. The movement's victories were inspirational, but its failures to bring about structural political and economic change pushed many to look elsewhere for new strategies. During this era of intellectual ferment, the writers, editors, and activists behind the monthly magazine Liberator (1960-71) were essential contributors to the debate. In the first full-length history of the organization that produced the magazine, Christopher M. Tinson locates the Liberator as a touchstone of U.S.-based black radical thought and organizing in the 1960s. Combining radical journalism with on-the-ground activism, the magazine was dedicated to the dissemination of a range of cultural criticism aimed at spurring political activism, and became the publishing home to many notable radical intellectual-activists of the period, such as Larry Neal, Ossie Davis, Ruby Dee, Harold Cruse, and Askia Toure. By mapping the history and intellectual trajectory of the Liberator and its thinkers, Tinson traces black intellectual history beyond black power and black nationalism into an internationalism that would shape radical thought for decades to come.
Historical Academic Journals
- Journal of Black Studies
The
Journal of Black Studies (JBS) was an active peer-reviewed interdisciplinary academic journal of social sciences focused on African-American culture and the experience of peoples of the African diaspora in a wider context. Scattered issues available. - The Negro History Bulletin/The Black History Bulletin (1937-2014)
Black History Bulletin was an active peer-reviewed scholarly periodical currently published biannually by the Association for the Study of African American Life and History (ASALH). Launched in 1937, it briefly paused publication in 1987 before resuming in 1993. Digitized collection includes 1937-1959 and then scattered issues from 1960-2004. This is also digitized through Internet Archive.
- The Griot: A Journal of African American Studies
The journal covers a range of issues related to Black life and culture world wide. Each issue also features contemporary poetry and book reviews.
Image Right: A 1923 photo of Carter G. Woodson. Woodson was an American historian, author, journalist, and the founder of the Association for the Study of African American Life and History. In addition to founding the Negro History Bulletin, Woodson founded Black History Week (later Black History Month).
- Africology : the Journal of Pan African StudiesPublication Date: 2018-
- The Black Politician: A Quarterly Journal of Political ThoughtCall Number: E185.5 .B54Publication Date: 1969-1971
- Fire: The Multimedia Journal of Black Studies byCall Number: E185.5 .F57Publication Date: 2012-2013
- The Negro Quarterly: a Review of Negro Life and CultureCall Number: E185.5 F422Publication Date: 1942
- Souls: a Critical Journal of Black Politics, Culture, and SocietyCall Number: E185.5 .S68Publication Date: 1999-