Anthologies of African American Writing

Voice of the Negro 1919

"The Voice of the Negro 1919" . Ed. Robert T. Kerlin. New York: Dutton, 1920. xii+188 pp.

• Repr. New York: Arno, 1968. xii+188 pp. (The American Negro, His History and Literature.)

• "The Voice of the Negro (1919): The Classic African American Account of Riots and Lynching in America after the First World War". Comp. Robert T. Kerlin. Ed., annotated, and intro. Thomas Aiello. Foreword William M. Tuttle, Jr. Lewiston, NY: Edwin Mellen, 2013. iv+337 pp.

• 1920 ed. available at Internet Archive (Northeastern U copy) and HathiTrust (Harvard U copy):

The volume consists of extracts from Negro newspapers and magazines and from the Negro Associated Press reports; these are stitched together with the editor's framing and commentary. The table of contents merely outlines the topics covered, rather than the actual items selected for inclusion in the anthology. In what follows, I have added in the substantial items excerpted in each section (omitting items that are merely cited by their headlines).

[Robert T. Kerlin] / Introduction (ix-xii)
Chapter 1: The Colored Press
1.1 Its Comments on Itself
• from the Associated Negro Press / [untitled] (1)
• from "The Freeman" (Indianapolis) 18 Oct. 1919 / [untitled] (1)
• from "The Phoenix Tribune" (Arizona) 6 Sept. 1919 / [untitled] (2)
• from "The Boston Chronicle" 11 Oct. 1919 / [untitled] (2)
• from "The Black Dispatch" (Oklahoma City) 10 Oct. 1919 / "On the Right Trail" (2-3)
• from Associated Negro Press / [untitled] (3-4)

1.2 Its Comments on the White Press
• from "The Chicago Defender" 10 Sept. 1919 / "Fanning the Smoldering Embers" (4)
• from "The Wichita Protest" 31 Oct. 1919 / [untitled] (4)
• from "The Crisis" / "The Riot-Mill" (5-6)
• from "The Denver Star" 11 Oct. 1919 / "Calls Assault a 'Story'" (6-7)
• from "The Monitor" (Omaha) 12 Oct. 1919 / "A Word to the Press" (7)
• from "The East Tennessee News" (Knoxville) 16 Oct. 1919 / [untitled] (7)
• from "The New York Age" 1 Nov. 1919 / "Killing of Policeman Used as Incendiary Text: Abortive Effort So Far" (8-9)

1.3 Radicalism and Conservatism
• from "The New York Age" / [untitled] (9)
• from "The Crusader" (New York), quoting "The Wisconsin Weekly Blade" (Madison) / "Radicalism" (9)
• from "The City Times" (Galveston, Tex.) 1 Nov. 1919 / [untitled] (10)
• from "The Vigil" (Portsmouth, Va.) / "Much to Fight For" (10)
• from "The Gate City Bulletin" (Denison, Texas) 25 Oct. 1919 / "Why We Don't" (11)
• from "The Memphis Times" / [untitled: motto by masthead] (11)
• from "The Memphis Times" / "There Is Power in Truth" (11-12)
• from "The Guardian" (Boston) / [untitled] (12)
• from "The Southern Indicator" (Columbia, SC) / [untitled] (12)
• from "The Dallas Express" / [untitled: editorial statement by masthead] (13)
• from "The Dallas Express" 1 Nov. 1919 / [untitled] (13-14)
• from "The Boston Guardian" / "An Eye for an Eye Is Doctrine Taught by Radical Leader" (15)
• from "The Boston Guardian" 2 Aug. 1919 / [untitled] (15)
• Rev. Wm. A. Byrd / "The Militia in Race Riots" (from "The Cleveland Gazette") (16-17)
• from "The Journal and Guide" (Norfolk, Va) 2 Aug. 1919 / "The National Disgrace and Shame" (17-18)
• from "Challenge Magazine" (New York) Oct. 1919 / "Let Us Stand at Armageddon and Battle for the Lord" (19)
• from "The Crisis" (New York) Sept. 1919 / "Let Us Reason Together" (20-21)
• R. R. Wright Jr. / "To My Dear Brethren and Friends" (from "The Christian Recorder" [Philadelphia]) (21-23)
• from [various periodicals] / [a selection of mottoes from Black newspapers] (23)

Chapter 2: The New Era
2.1 The New Negro and the Old
• from "The Broad Ax" (Chicago) 6 Sept. 1919 / [re the new spirit] (24)
• from "The Crusader" (New York) Oct. 1919 / "The Old Negro Goes: Let Him Go in Peace" (25)

2.2 New Leadership
• from "The People's Pilot" (Richmond, Va) Aug. 1919 / "A League of Leaders" (26)

2.3 Race Traitors
• from "The Fort Worth Hornet" 25 Oct. 1919 / "Beggar Leaders" (27)
• from "The Mobile Forum" 11 Oct. 1919 / "False Leadership" (27)
• from "The Newport News Star" 3 Oct. 1919 / [untitled] (28)
• from "The Washington [D.C.] Bee" 18 Oct. 1919 / "Colored Traitors" (28)

2.4 "Good-by, Black Mammy"
• from "The Christian Index" (Jackson, TN) 31 July 1919 / [untitled] (29)
• from "The Christian Southwestern Advocate" (New Orleans) / "Good-by Black Mammy" (29-30)

Chapter 3: The Negro's Reactions to the World War
3.1 Valor and Sacrifice
• from "The Planet" (Richmond, Va) 30 Aug. 1919 / [untitled: Rev. R. C. Ransom, address to the Order of St. Luke] (31)
• from [widely published] / [summary of the record of heroism achieved by Negro troops in the World War] (31-32)
• from "The Herald" (Austin, Texas) 27 Sept. 1919 / [untitled: E. P. Jones's presidential address to the National Baptist Convention] (32-33)
• from "The Whip" (Chicago) / [untitled] (33-34)
• from "The Houston Informer" 11 Oct. 1919 / [untitled] (34)
• from "The Atlanta Independent" 18 Oct. 1919 / "'A Condition and Not a Theory Confronts Us'" (34-35)

3.2 Discriminations against Colored Service Men
• from "The Crisis" May 1919 / "Returning Soldiers" (35-37)
• from "The Charleston Messenger" (South Carolina) 18 Oct. 1919 / "Our Returned Negro Soldiers" (37-38)
• from "The Savannah Journal" 4 Oct. 1919 / [untitled] (38-39)

3.3 The Treaty and the League of Nations
• from [source unspecified] / "Amendment to the Peace Treaty--New Part Proposed" (39)
• from Century News Service 12 Sept. 1919 / "Wilson's Sayings Torment South: Blame President for Causing General Unrest in Dixie" (40-41)

3.4 The Afro-American Tercentenary [the 300th anniversary of the first arrival of Africans in North America in 1619]
• Lucian B. Watkins / "Three Hundred Years (Tercentenary, August, 1619-1919)" [poem] (41)
• from "The Crisis" Aug. 1919 / "Three Hundred Years" (42)
• from "The Charleston Messenger" 13 Sept. 1919 / "The United Negro" (42-44)

3.5 Negro Congresses
• from "The Afro-American" (Baltimore) / "The Convention Season" (44)
• from "The Odd Fellows Journal" (Washington, DC) 3 July 1919 / [report on the Pan-African Congress held in Paris in February] [summarized] (44-45)
• from NAACP charter (organized 1909, incorporated 1911) / [seven objectives of the organization] (45-46)
• from "The Guardian" 4 Oct. 1919 / [address at 12th annual meeting of the National Equal Rights League] (46-47)
• from "The Washington Eagle" (reprinted from "The Indianapolis Freeman") / "Race Congress Fortunate in Leadership" [re National Race Congress, Oct. 1919 in Washington, DC] (48-49)
• from "The Afro-American" (Baltimore) 10 Oct. 1919 / "Fourth Annual Session of National Body Starts Monday" [re National Race Congress, Oct. 1919] (49-50)

Chapter 4: The Negro's Grievances and Demands
• Dr. Emmet J. Scott (Secretary-Treasurer of Howard University) / [untitled] (from "The Atlanta Post" [no date given]) (51)
• from "The Hot Springs Echo" (Arkansas) 20 Sept. 1919 / "Knowing the Negro" (51-52)
• from "The Commonwealth" (Baltimore) 10 Oct. 1919 / "A Potent Factor in Race Disturbances" (52-53)
• from "The Cleveland Advocate" 18 Oct. 1919 / "President Wilson's Illness" (53-54)
• from "The Chicago Whip" 9 Aug. 1919 / "The High Cost of Being a Negro" (54-56)

4.1 The Ballot
• from "The Afro-American" (Baltimore) 10 Oct. 1919 / [untitled] (56)
• from "The Afro-American" (Baltimore) 24 Oct. 1919 / "Baltimore's Method of Handling Office Seekers" (57)
• from "The Guardian" (Boston) 12 July 1919 / [untitled] (57)
• from "The Savannah Journal" 1 Nov. 1919 / [two untitled items] (58)

4.2 Participation in Government
• from "The Houston Informer" / "Taxation Without ----" (59)
• from "The Houston Observer" 25 Oct. 1919 / "Where Interest Is Centered" (59-60)
• from "The Atlanta Independent" 25 Oct. 1919 / [untitled] (61)

4.3 The Administration of Justice
• from "The Savannah Journal" / "Not Like Savannah" (62)
• from "The Mobile Forum" 18 Oct. 1919 / "Negroes Do Not Condone Crime" (62-63)
• from "The Black Dispatch" (Oklahoma City) 10 Oct. 1919 / [untitled] (63-65)

4.4 Social Equality
• from "The Chicago Whip" 9 Aug. 1919 / "Has the Negro Been Fighting for Social Equality?" (67-68)
• from "The Washington [D.C.] Eagle" 6 Sept. 1919 / "Social Equality Nonsense" (67)
• from "The Guardian" (Boston) 12 July 1919 / [untitled] (67-68)
• from "The New York Age" / [untitled] (65-66)
• from "The Chicago Whip" 9 Aug. 1919 / "Has the Negro Been Fighting for Social Equality?" (66-67)
• from "The Washington [D.C.] Eagle" 6 Sept. 1919 / "Social Equality Nonsense" (67)
• from "The Guardian" (Boston) 12 July 1919 / [untitled] (67-68)
• from "The Houston Informer" 1 Nov. 1919 / "Bosh, Buncombe, 'Bull' 'Bull-sheviki'" (68-70)

4.5 Segregation and Proscription
• from Associated Negro Press / "Something New Under the Sun" (71)
• from "The Vigil" (Norfolk, Va) 4 Oct. 1919 / [untitled] (71)
• from "The Afro-American" (Baltimore) 10 Oct. 1919 / "State Convention of American Legion in Session at Leham's Hall. Colored Delegates Refuse to Eat" (71)
• from "The Guardian" (Boston) 13 Sept. 1919 / "Refusal to Attend Jim Crow School" (71-72)
• from "The Wichita Protest" / "Colored Soldiers of St. Joe, Mo., Resent Snub of Victory Parade Committee" (72)
• from "Hot Springs Echo" / [untitled] (72-73)
• from "The Forum" (Springfield, IL) 18 Oct. 1919 / [untitled] (73)
• from "The Planet" (Richmond) 30 Aug. 1919 / [untitled] (73-74)

Chapter 5: Riots
5.1 Longview
• from Associated Negro Press 12 July 1919 / "Inside Information about Race Riot at Longview, Texas" (75-76)

5.2 Washington
• [unspecified source] / "Capital Mixup Is Explained" (76-77)
• from "The Call" (Kansas City, Mo.) / [untitled] (77)
• from "The Southwestern Christian Advocate" (New Orleans) / "Let Us Look at the Facts Squarely" (78-79)

5.3 Chicago
• from [one of the Chicago weeklies] / "How the Trouble Started" (79-80)
• Lucian B. Watkins / [untitled] (from "The Planet" [Richmond] 25 Oct. 1919) (80-81)
• from "The Chicago Defender" 9 Aug. 1919 / "Heroic Deeds Told" (81)
• from "The Chicago Defender" 6 Sept. 1919 / "Mr. Hoyne's Mistaken View" (82-83)

5.4 Knoxville
• from "The Planet" (Richmond, Va) 6 Sept. 1919 / "The Riot at Knoxville" (83)
• from "The Call" (Kansas City, Mo.) 4 Oct. 1919 / "Soldiers Riot: Mobbism in Knoxville" (83-84)
• from "The New York Age" 6 Sept. 1919 / "More of the Fruits of Lawlessness" (84-85)
• from "The East Tennessee News" (Knoxville) 30 Oct. 1919 / "Jury's Verdict a Surprise" (85)

5.5 Omaha
• from "The Wichita [Kansas] Protest" 30 Sept. 1919 / [re lynching] (85-86)
• from "The Monitor" (Omaha) 9 Oct. 1919 / "Negroes and Assault" (87)

5.6 Elaine
• from "The Hot Springs Echo" 4 Oct. 1919 / "Race Clash in Phillips Co." (87-88)
• from "The Savannah Tribune" 23 Oct. 1919 / "Systematic Robbery Cause of Riots: Arkansas Negroes Had Not Planned Massacre" (88-90)
• from "The National Defender and Sun" (Gary, Indiana) 25 Oct. 1919 / "Almost Entire Johnson Family Murdered by Fiendish Hell-Hounds of Arkansas" (90-92)
• from "The Black Dispatch" (Oklahoma City) 2 Jan. 1920 / "Truth Slips Out: Arkansas Still Washes Dirty Linen" (92-93)
• from "The Hot Springs Echo" 4 Oct. 1919 / "Is It Fair and Just" (93)
• from "The Savannah Tribune" / "The Country Aflame" (94-95)
• from "The Houston Informer" 25 Oct. 1919 / "Some Light on Rapes, Lynchings and Riots: Facts and Figures Cited" [unabridged] (95-99)

Chapter 6: Lynchings
6.1 Number, Causes, Instances
• Robert R. Moton / "75 Negroes Lynched" (from "The Daily Herald" [Baltimore] 2 Jan. 1920) (100-01)
• from "The Colorado Statesman" (Denver) 5 July 1919 / [reports of lynchings] (101-02)
• from "The Whip" (Chicago) / "Colored Woman Beaten by California Mob" (102-03)
• from "The Planet" (Richmond) 6 Sept. 1919 / "Charred Body of a Colored Man Found in Church Debris" (103-04)
• from "The Guardian" (Boston) 13 Sept. 1919 / "Fifth Lynching in Arkansas" (104-05)
• from "The Guardian" (Boston) 13 Sept. 1919 / "Whips Colored Woman for Asking about $1.50: Mississippi Mob Called Out Husband, Whipped Wife" (105)
• from "The Times Plain Dealer" (Birmingham, Ala.) 4 Oct. 1919 / "Yazoo City Man Whipped by Mob" (105-06)
• from "The Commonwealth" (Baltimore) 29 Oct. 1919 / "A Brutal Assault on an Aged Minister" (106-07)
• from "The Dallas Express" 11 Oct. 1919 / "Negro Killed in Hospital" (107)
• from "The Louisville News" 18 Oct. 1919 / "Former Colored Soldier Lynched for Having a White Sweetheart" (107-08)
• from "The Birmingham Times Plain Dealer" 11 Oct. 1919 / [six items on lynchings from front page] (108-09)
• from "The Houston Informer" 8 Nov. 1919 / [five stories about lynchings] (109-11)
• Rev. H. D. Greene / "He Sleeps in France's Bosom" (poem) (from "The Houston Informer" 8 Nov. 1919) (111-12)
• from Associated Negro Press / "Hated in Day Time Loved at Night: Tennessee Cracker Has Dual Character. Is Both Negro Hater and Keeper of Colored Mistresses" (113)
• from "The Wisconsin Weekly Blade" (Madison) 28 Aug. 1919 / [untitled: lynching] (113-14)
• from "The Wisconsin Weekly Blade" (Madison) 9 Oct. 1919 / [untitled: lynching] (114)
• from "The Kansas City [Mo.] Call" 9 July 1919 / "Sham, Just Sham!" (114)
• from "The Washington Eagle" 13 Sept. 1919 / "Theory vs. Practice" (114)
• from "The East Tennessee News" (Knoxville) 9 Oct. 1919 / "?" (115)
• from "The Galveston New Idea" 25 Oct. 1919 / "Georgia's Blood-Curdling Deed" (115-16)
• from "The Searchlight" (Seattle, Wash.) 4 Oct. 1919 / "Mob Law Rampant" (116)

6.2 The Negro and the Crime of Rape
• from "The St. Louis Argus" 10 Oct. 1919 / "Negroes Do Not Condone Crime" (117)
• from "The Planet" (Richmond) 16 Aug. 1919 / [untitled: rape as the supposed cause of the Washington riots] (118)
• from "The People's Pilot" (Richmond) Aug. 1919 / "The White Man Who Knows the Negro" (118-19)
• from "The New Age" (Los Angeles) 12 Sept. 1919 / "Race Willingness to Coöperate Worthy of the Nation's Attention" (119-20)

6.3 The White Man and the Crime of Rape
• from "The Chicago Defender" 20 Sept. 1919 / "'Attacks on White Women'" (120-21)
• from "The Charleston Messenger" (South Carolina) 9 Aug. 1919 / [untitled] (121)
• from "The Chicago Defender" 13 Sept. 1919 / "Disguised as 'Dark Man' to Lash Another Woman" (122)
• from "The Charleston Messenger" (South Carolina) 20 Sept. 1919 / [untitled] (122)
• from "The Southwestern Christian Advocate" (New Orleans) 11 Sept. 1919 / "Pass It Along" (122-23)
• from "The Galveston New Idea" 25 Oct. 1919 / [untitled: editorial on "the hell-holes in Galveston's redlight district"] (123)
• from "The Afro-American" (Baltimore) 24 Oct. 1919 / "Another Ku-Klux Klan Formed: New Organization Will Keep White Men Away from Colored Women" (123-24)
• from "The Chicago Whip" 13 Sept. 1919 / "The Crimson Stain" (124-25)

Chapter 7: The South and the Negro
(With special reference to economic and living conditions)
• from "The New York Age" 1 Nov. 1919 / "The Southern Credo" (126-28)
• from "The Savannah Tribune" 1 Nov. 1919 / "The Temper of Rural Life" (128-31)
• from "The Louisville News" 18 Oct. 1919 / "The Man Higher Up" (131)
• from [source unspecified] / "South After Negroes: Propaganda Through Associated Press to Induce Return--No Change in Conditions" (132-35)
• from "The Afro-American" (Baltimore) 29 Aug. 1919 / "Cracker Reasoning and Cracker Law" (135-36)
• (Rev.) Wm. A. Byrd / "Want to Drive Back South: Southern Afro-Americans in the North" (from "The Cleveland Gazette" 11 Oct. 1919) (136-38)
• from "The Negro Star" (Wichita) 24 Oct. 1919 / "The Real Cause of Unrest Among Negroes in the South" (138-39)
• from "The Kansas City [Mo.] Sun" 25 Oct. 1919 / [untitled] (139-40)
• from "The Wisconsin Weekly Blade" (Madison) 18 Sept. 1919 / [editorial] (140)
• from "The Journal and Guide" (Norfolk, Va) 11 Oct. 1919 / "The Afro-American Side of the Case" (141)
• from "The Christian Index" (Jackson, Tenn.) 11 Sept. 1919 / [untitled] (142-43)
• from "The Whip" (Chicago) 21 Aug. 1919 / "Colored Man Arrested for Inducing People to Leave 'South'" (143)
• from "The Charleston Messenger" (South Carolina) 6 Sept. 1919 / "The Call of the South" (143-45)
• from "The Challenge Magazine" (Chicago) Aug. 1919 / "American Huns" (145-47)
• from "The Favorite Magazine" (Chicago) Nov. 1919 / "The Auction Block" (147-48)

Chapter 8: The Negro and Labor Unionism and Bolshevism
• from "The Pittsburg Courier" 25 Oct. 1919 / "When a Negro Is a Bolshevist" (150-51)
• from "The Crusader" (New York) Oct. 1919 / "Bolshevist!!!" (151)
• from "The Searchlight"" (Seattle, Washington) 23 Aug. 1919 / "Uncle Sam Angers Colored Folks" (152)
• from "The Atlanta Independent" 11 Oct. 1919 / "False Alarm" (153-54)
• from "The Cleveland Advocate" 18 Oct. 1919 / "Not Bolshevism--Just American Injustice" (155)
• from [source unspecified] 9 Sept. 1919 / [on Bolshevism] (156)
• from "The Denver Star" 27 Sept. 1919 / "Negroes Steady and Pause" (156)

Chapter 9: Negro Progress
9.1 Miscellaneous Examples: Agencies for Uplift
• from "The Call" (Kansas City, Co.) 20 Sept. 1919 / "Southern Negroes Benefited by Clubs" (157-58)
• from "The Charleston Messenger" 9 Aug. 1919 / "A Model Negro Town" (158-59)
• from Associated Negro Press 1 Jan. 1920 / "Agencies for Uplift" (159-60)
• from "The Charleston Messenger" Oct. 1919 / "Racial Cooperation" (160-61)
• from "The Foundation" (South Atlanta, Ga) / "Working for a Square Deal" (161)

9.2 Business
• from "The Louisville News" 18 Oct. 1919 / "Arkansas Raises $100,000.00 for Race Business" (162-63)
• from "The Louisville News" 18 Oct. 1919 / "Please Open a Ladies' Store" (163)
• from "The Savannah Tribune" 27 Sept. 1919 / [untitled] (163-64)

9.3 Art and Literature
• from "The Journal and Guide" (Norfolk, Va) 4 Oct. 1919 / "Rapid Development of Theatrical Art among Afro-Americans" (165)
• George C. Anderson / "The Negro and the Stage" from "The Praiseworthy Muse" (Norfolk, Va) Sept. 1919 (166-67)
• from "The Southwestern Christian Advocate" (New Orleans) / "Mural Tripartite Unveiled in Poro Building, St. Louis" (167-68)

9.4 Colored Womanhood
• from Associated Negro Press 11 Sept. 1919 / [untitled] (168)
• from "The National Advocate" (Minneapolis) 25 Oct. 1919 / "Home for Colored Children" (168)
• from "The Journal and Guide" (Norfolk, Va) / "Permanent Community Center for Girls" (169)
• from "The Denver Star" 11 Oct. 1919 / [untitled] (169)
• from "The Advocate" (Portland, Oregon) / "The President of the National Association of Colored Women Issues Call to Colored Women of America to Join in the Great Fight for Human Rights" (169-70)

9.5 Schools
• from "The Southern Workman" (Hampton, Va) / "The South and Negro Education" (170-71)
• from "The Birmingham Times Plain Dealer" 4 Oct. 1919 / "A Shortage of Schools" (171)

9.6 Lodges
• from Associated Negro Press / "National Congress of Negro Fraternities" (172)
• from "The Dallas Express" / [untitled] (172)
• from "The Charleston Messenger" 30 Aug. 1919 / "The People's Federation" (173)
• from "The Hutchinson Blade" 12 July 1919 / "A New Thing" (173-74)
• from "The People's Pilot" (Richmond) Oct. 1919 / "Negro Fraternalism and the New Era" (174-75)

9.7 Churches
• from "The Charleston Messenger" 11 Oct. 1919 / "The Negro Church" (175-76)
• from "The Journal and Guide" (Norfolk, Va) / "Dr. Hunter for Bishopric" (176)
• from "The Chicago Defender" 18 Oct. 1919 / "The Minister as a Moral and Social Reformer" (176)
• from "The Southwestern Christian Advocate" (New Orleans) 23 Oct. 1919 / "There Are Others" (177-78)
• from "The Christian Index" (Jackson, Tenn.) 11 Sept. 1919 / "An Open Letter to the President and Congress of the United States and Governors of Several States" (178-80)
• from "The Guardian" (Boston) / "The King Is Coming" (180-81)
• from "The Journal and Guide" (Norfolk, Va) 4 Oct. 1919 / "The Wicked Governor of Texas and the Hurricane" (181-82)
• from "The Freeman" (Indianapolis) 18 Oct. 1919 / "Train Refuses Colored Passengers" (182)

Chapter 10: The Lyric Cry [a selection of poems from the Negro press]
• Lucian B. Watkins / Prayer of the Race That God Made Black (from "The Guardian" [Boston] 30 Aug. 1919) (183)
• Georgia D. Johnson / The Question (from "The Crisis" [New York] Aug. 1919) (183-84)
• Anon. [Claude McKay] / The Negro (from "The People's Pilot" [Richmond] Oct. 1919) (184)
• William Rufus Lackaye / A Slave (184)
• Carita Owens Collins / Be a Man! (185)
• John J. Fenner, Jr. / Rise! Young Negro--Rise! (from "The Praiseworthy Muse" [Norfolk]) (185-86)
• Claude McKay / If We Must Die! (186)
• Georgia Douglas Johnson / The Octaroon (186-87)
• Julia Davis Golden / Be Determined (from "The Bluff City News" [Memphis]) (187)
• Lucian B. Watkins / A Message to the Modern Pharaohs (from the "Richmond Planet") (188)

• The title of the anthology echoes the title of a Black newspaper, "The Voice of the Negro," published in Atlanta (1904-07), which presented itself as "the first magazine ever edited in the South by Colored Men."
• The anthology consists of some 200 excerpts from 53 African American newspapers, magazines, and press agencies from the latter part of 1919, focusing on their discussion of public issues.

• The preface, dated Lexington, Va., January 1, 1920: "The following work is a compilation from the colored press of America for the four months immediately succeeding the Washington riot. It is designed to show the Negro's reaction to that and like events following, and to the World War and the discussion of the Treaty. It may, in the editor's estimation, be regarded as a primary document in promoting knowledge of the Negro, his point of view, his way of thinking upon race relations, his grievances, his aspirations, his demands. Virtually the entire Afro-American press, consisting of two dailies, a dozen magazines, and nearly three hundred weeklies, has been drawn upon. Here is the voice of the Negro, and his heart and mind. Here the Negro race speaks as it thinks on the question of questions for America--the race question. The like of this utterance, in angry protest and prayerful pleading, the entire rest of the world does not offer.
"When I told a publisher that I was making this compilation he remarked that my book would make disagreeable reading. There are worse things than disagreeable reading."

• Acknowledgments: "To the Associated Negro Press and to the various magazines that I have quoted I wish to make grateful acknowledgment of their kindness in freely permitting me to use their copyright matter. To scores of weeklies beyond those for which I subscribed I am indebted for numerous free copies kindly supplied me on my application" (vi).

• from Introduction (ix-xii): "The colored people of America are going to their own papers in these days for the news and for their guidance in thinking. These papers are coming to them from a score of Northern cities--Boston, New York, Philadelphia, Chicago, Cleveland; they are coming to them from the great border cities--Baltimore, Washington, Cincinnati, St. Louis; they are coming to them from every Southern city. Wherever in all the land there is a considerable Negro population there is a Negro newspaper. Little Rock has four, Louisville five, Indianapolis six, New York City ten; the State of Georgia has nine, Mississippi nineteen, Illinois eleven, California seven. To these numbers must be added the publications of churches, societies, and schools. For example, Mississippi has eleven religious weeklies, eight school periodicals, and two lodge papers, making a total, with the nineteen newspapers, of forty periodicals. And all classes of these contain articles on racial strife, outcries against wrongs and persecutions. You cannot take up even a missionary review or a Sunday school quarterly without being confronted by such an outcry" (ix).
• Kerlin points out the influence of these papers: "The Negro seems to have newly discovered his fourth estate, to have realized the extraordinary power of his press. Mighty as the pulpit has been with him, the press now seems to be foremost. It is freer than the pulpit, and there is a peculiar authority in printer's ink. His newspaper is the voice of the Negro. Into ever town and village of the land, and into many a log cabin in the mountains, come the colored papers, from all parts of the country, and these papers are read, and passed from hand to hand, and re-read until they are worn out" (ix).
• "After some months of close perusal of dozens and scores of colored weeklies, published North, South, East, and West, it seemed to the present writer that it would be a service to the country to make a compilation from them that should fairly represent their contents, their presentation of the news, and their discussions and comments. That the Negro himself has this right to be heard in the court of the world will not be denied except by the hopelessly prejudiced and constitutionally unjust" (x).
• Kerlin points out that lots of white people claim to "know the Negro" and will opine about what they (African Americans) think, but if white Americans wish to understand the perspectives of black Americans on various aspects of and issues in US society, they aren't going to learn it by questioning their black servants or the black working men and women they might happen to encounter--who will hardly speak frankly with a white person interrogating them but will instead say what they think the white person wants to hear (x). But the black press--written by black people for black people--does offer a window onto the actual views of black Americans. But, Kerlin notes pointedly, very few white Americans care to look and listen. So, for example, when discussing the "race riot" in Washington, DC, on 19-20 July 1919, "But how the Negro viewed that riot, what to him the causes of it were, who the instigators and real rioters were, doubtless it never occurred to one white person in a hundred thousand to consult a Negro paper to discover" (76). Kerlin's anthology seeks to remedy this failure to consult and to understand "the Negro voice": his aim was to present this voice "to the white public, if that public would accept it" (xi).
• Speaking of the diversity of opinions expressed in the Negro press, Kerlin acknowledges the intensity of some of the opinions: "That there is a considerable portion of the colored press that advocates extreme measures--retaliation, blood for blood, life for life--cannot be questioned. . . . That a considerable number are violent in denunciation of our Government, and particularly of the present Administration, is what any reader of the papers of any group or party in any country might expect in coming to the Afro-American papers in view of our lynching record, our proscription and segregation principles, and our sweeping discriminations on account of color" (14).
• Kerlin says that he has been reading the black press "assiduously, and, I trust, with an open mind and friendly disposition, since mid-summer, 1919. After the riot in our nation's capital it seemed to me that the Negro's version of the story, whatever it was, should be heard" (x).
• Kerlin's method: "Obtaining a full list of colored papers and magazines, I applied to them for copies dating onward from July the first. My study table was soon heaped with copies of hundreds of publications. I made a selection of fifty-three, which, after much study, I judged to be the most representative, and subscribed for them. The extracts which constitute the body of this book are made, I may therefore say, from the entire range of current Negro publications, but in the main from the half hundred that seemed to be the ablest, most prosperous, most independent, and most representative. My list of quoted papers, however, numbers eighty, and I studied twice as many. . . . A period of four months, from July 1 to November 1, is covered. For information on one or two topics I have gone beyond the latter date. Only colored papers and magazines have been quoted, never any white paper or writer. With three exceptions only has anything been taken at second-hand, and these are properly accredited. A much larger use has been made of Southern papers than of Northern, for obvious reasons. . . . All comments, except purely explanatory ones, and all critical remarks have been refrained from. The reader is left to make his own judgments. No editing except to correct obvious typographical errors has been done. . . . The selections are meant to sweep the whole gamut of expression as regards temper and tone from the mildest to the most vigorous. Whatever of 'radicalism' and 'dangerous tendency' the colored press of America exhibits may be learned from the following pages by all who care to know. Only the unimportant exception is to be made that from the three or four Northern periodicals that have fallen under the condemnation of certain Southern congressmen and the Post Master General, I have not taken any extracts that would prima facie convict them of bolshevism, for the obvious reason that the white press has sufficiently displayed and exploited this news" (xi-xii).

• Kerlin notes that "The Crisis," the official organ of the NAACP has a circulation of "more than 100,000 copies" (46).
• Kerlin occasionally makes note of rhetorical usages specific to the Black press in this era: e.g., when he refers to "the spread of lynching in 'the Benighted States' (Afro-American for United States)" (116).

• n/a

• "Negro Poets and Their Poems". Ed. Robert T. Kerlin. Washington, DC: Associated Publishers, 1923. xv+285 pp.

• WorldCat
• [not in Kinnamon 1997]

A0010