African-American History

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

‘Black Mammy” (Confederate Veteran Magazine, 1918)

Those sensitive beta-males in the editorial offices of Confederate Veteran were teary-eyed and waxing winsome that day in 1918 when they saw fit to recall one particular long-standing Southern institution that was gone with the wind:

The most unique character connected with the days of slavery was the old black mammy, who held a position of and confidence in nearly every white family of importance in the South… She was an important member of the household, and for her faithfulness and devotion she has been immortalized in the literature of the South.

‘Black Mammy” (Confederate Veteran Magazine, 1918) Read More »

A White Woman Looks at the Negro and the Scourge of Racism (Pageant Magazine, 1947)

Writer Margaret Halsey (1910 – 1997) was a patriotic lass who did her bit for Uncle Sam by managing a soldier’s canteen in New York City during the Second World War – you should know that throughout the course of that war there were thousands of canteens throughout America where Allied soldiers, sailors airmen and Marines could enjoy a free meal and have a dance or two with the local girls. Similar to most other canteens in the country, her doors were open to all servicemen regardless of color and as a result, the same policy had to be followed by the local girls who came to dance: they, too, could not discriminate.


Her observations in this integrated environment led to believe that a national policy of racial assimilation will not be as difficult as many people at the time tended to believe.

A White Woman Looks at the Negro and the Scourge of Racism (Pageant Magazine, 1947) Read More »

Willie Mays (Quick Magazine, 1954)

Illustrated with nine pictures, this article briefly tells the story of baseball legend Willie Mays (b. 1931) and the Summer of 1954 when sportswriters credited him alone for having raised the athletic standards of his team, The New York Giants (the team won the World Series that year):

A 23-year-old Alabaman with a laugh as explosive as his bat, Willie has electrified N.Y. Giants fans as no man has done since Mel Ott (1909 – 1958)… Statistics don’t begin to give a real picture of Willie’s value. He adds drama to baseball in a way that defies fiction.

Willie Mays (Quick Magazine, 1954) Read More »

Comedian Bert Williams: R.I.P. (Literary Digest, 1922)

The African-American comedian Bert Williams (1874 – 1922) was a funny fellow who ascended to great heights in his life; he performed in the great theaters of Europe and was adored by many of the foreign potentates of his time. Yet despite all his international glory, he never received acceptance in his own country. Like many African-Americans at the time, Williams simply came to accept the myopic views of race as it was understood by the majority of his countrymen, and learned to do without the appreciation he so craved. Bert Williams died in 1922. One of his more memorable lines:

Being a Negro is not a bad thing, it’s just terribly inconvenient.

Comedian Bert Williams: R.I.P. (Literary Digest, 1922) Read More »

Just Another Classified Ad from Dixie… (The Nation, 1927)

The attached file is a digital facsimile of a classified ad that was once posted in a Georgia newspaper long after the Emancipation Proclamation was passed into law. The editors at THE NATION saw fit to title the notice as an interesting little advertisement when they reproduced it six months later on their pages. Yet, for the Southerners who set the type-face, applied the ink, delivered the paper and subscribed, the ad was typical of so many other classifieds that had appeared during the past one hundred and fifty years, and it was not, as the Yankees put it:

…the request of someone who never heard of the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments to the Constitution of the United States.

Just Another Classified Ad from Dixie… (The Nation, 1927) Read More »

Bogus Science and the Intelligence of African-Americans (Current Opinion, 1921)

As many of the readers in the OldMagazineArticles.com audience have figured out, the purpose of this site is to allow the past to represent itself — warts and all, and few articles make manifest this policy better than this 1921 article which reported on the efforts of an appropriately forgotten scientist from the University of Virginia, Dr. George Oscar Ferguson. Ferguson was the author of a project that somehow measured the intelligence of African Americans and White Americans and concluded that his:

psychological study of the Negro indicates that he will never be the mental equal of the white race.

Bogus Science and the Intelligence of African-Americans (Current Opinion, 1921) Read More »

The Forgotten Midshipman (Literary Digest, 1897)

This column emerged from the mists of time, telling us a story that had long been forgotten. Reading this column, we are able to piece together that there once lived an African-American fellow named R.C. Bundy, who let it be know that he wished to attend the U.S. Naval Academy at Annapolis. It gets fuzzy from here as to whether he had sponsors backing him or if he never even took the entrance exam – the shouts from the press were so loud and cruel on this topic from the start. We found no other information of the young man. The first African-American to graduate Annapolis did so decades later, in 1949.

The Forgotten Midshipman (Literary Digest, 1897) Read More »

A Clinic On The Move (Pic Magazine, 1941)

Call it what you will – socialized medicine, the public largess or the community chest, it makes no difference, but let it be known that in the late Thirties the elders who presided over Shelby County, Tennessee, recognized that some measure of TLC was required in their dominion, and so they bought a big bus and stuffed it full of 12 nurses and a physician. The leading African-American doctors in the area were also instrumental in the creation of this behemoth – which was created to contain syphilis in Shelby County.

A Clinic On The Move (Pic Magazine, 1941) Read More »