African-American History

Learn about African American history with these old magazine articles. Find information on Black Civil Rights violations in the 1920s.

The Power of the African-American Press
(Pageant Magazine, 1952)

President Truman was re-elected in 1948 by a slender margin of 52,000 votes in the circulation area of The Chicago Defender, which almost alone of all the newspapers of all kinds in that area, supported Truman. After the election it published a boastful full-page advertisement –

What is the Negro press? Primarily it is a protest press demanding the correction of injustice to colored people. ‘We are organs of protest,’ explains Thomas W. Young, publisher of the Norfolk Journal and Guide, ‘born more than a hundred years ago in righteous indignation over the institution of slavery.’

The Ice was Thawing…
(Pathfinder Magazine, 1949)

Starting in the 1940s, small articles like the one here began appearing in magazines and newspapers across the nation – snippets indicating that the American people (ie. whites) were slowly catching on to the system of racial injustice they had inherited – and wondering aloud as to the tyranny of it all:

To 13 co-eds at Uppsala College, East Orange, N.J., democracy is something more than a worn text-book theory. It is a living, though thorny, reality. Shortly before school’s end, they formed one of the nation’s first interracial, interfaith college social sororities.


Another article about segregation’s end can be read here.

King’s March in Washington
(United States News, 1963)

Although the attached article is indeed about the famous civil rights march on Washington that took place in August of 1963, the journalist made his primary concern the political gains and losses that remained after all was said and done.

The Beginning of the End for Jim Crow
(Washington World, 1963)

By citing numerous examples of American jurisprudence spanning the early to mid-Fifties, this uncredited journalist illustrates that the era of Jim Crow was being disassembled brick-by-bigoted-brick:

All across the South, the segregation wall is cracking. The hammer is being wielded by the courts… The executive branch is also moving into the civil rights field.

Categorizing The Lynchings
(The Crises, 1919)

Here is a Crisis Magazine summary of the all the various lynchings that had been recorded in the United States between the years 1885 through 1918. Additional lists are provided that give an account of the participating states for the year 1918, the genders of the victims and the racial group to which they belonged.


Click here for the Ku Klux Klan Archive.

Addressing the ”Negro Problem”
(Coronet Magazine, 1949)

Like the article posted above, this essay serves as further evidence that the immediate post-war years in America were ones in which the foundations for the civil rights movement were established; foundations on which the civil rights leaders of the Sixties and Seventies would rely upon to guarantee the forward momentum of the movement.


The attached article pertains to the necessary work that was being done by the National Urban League.


Upon reading this piece, we’re sure you’ll recognize that the author knew full well that the article should have been titled, The Answer to the White Problem.

The Creation of the Ghettos
(The Saturday Review, 1948)

The subject addressed in this article pertains to the greatest act of cruelty that was ever thrust upon African-Americans by the white hegemony – for it was the one scheme designed to guarantee their continuing poverty.

‘America’s No. 1 Negro”
(The American Magazine, 1941)

Paul Robeson (1898 – 1976) was a multi-talented man and this article lays it all out.

Paul Robeson thinks of himself as conclusive proof that there is no such thing as a backward race. Given a few generations of equal opportunities, he believes, any people – Eskimos, Malayans, Fijians or the Untouchables of India – can produce as talented statesmen, scientists, educators, inventors and artists as the whites.

Julian Bond
(Coronet Magazine, 1970)

From time to time, certain young politicians suddenly capture the attention of their fellow Americans. One such individual is 30-year-old Julian Bond (1940 – 2015), a Negro legislator in the state of Georgia House of Representatives.

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