John Edward Bruce: Politician, Journalist, and Self-Trained Historian of the African Diaspora

JOHN EDWARD BRUCE

R A L P H L . C RO W D E R

JOHN EDWARD BRUCE Politician, Journalist, and

Self-trained Historian of the African Diaspora

a New York University Press

•

New York and London

NEW YORK UNIVERSITY PRESS New York and London

www.nyupress.org

© 2004 by New York University

All rights reserved

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Crowder, Ralph L.

John Edward Bruce : politician, journalist, and

self-trained historian of the African diaspora / Ralph L. Crowder.

p. cm.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN 0–8147–1518–4 (alk. paper)

1. Bruce, John Edward. 2. African American political activists—

Biography. 3. African American journalists—Biography.

4. African American historians—Biography. 5. African

Americans—Historiography. 6. African diaspora.

7. Pan-Africanism. 8. African Americans—Intellectual life.

9. African Americans—Politics and government. I. Title.

E185.97.B895C76 2004

973'.0496073'0092—dc22 2003020499

New York University Press books are printed on acid-free paper, and their binding materials are chosen for strength and durability. Manufactured in the United States of America 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

To the memory of Allie Louise Crowder Gaines (1919–1993). Mother, Friend, Mentor, and Constant Supporter. With my deepest appreciation for your unqualified love and guidance.

Contents

ix

Acknowledgments Introduction: Appreciating Neglected Voices—

John Edward Bruce and the Struggle to Liberate the Race

1

1 From Slavery to Freedom:

John Edward Bruce’s Childhood and Adolescence

5

2 Blyden, Crummell, and Bruce: Mentors, Patrons, and

the Evolution of a Pan-African Intellectual Network

25

3 Race, Politics, and Patronage:

John Edward Bruce and the Republican Party

49

4 Frederick Douglass, Booker T. Washington, and

John Edward Bruce’s Career as a Journalistic Hired Gun

75

5 The Popularization of African American History:

John Edward Bruce as Historian, Bibliophile,

and Black History Advocate

91

6 “Grand Old Man of the Movement”:

John Edward Bruce, Marcus Garvey, and the UNIA

135

Conclusion: The Making of a Race Man:

The Meaning and Significance of John Edward Bruce’s Life

159

Notes

165

Selected Bibliography

219

Index

229

About the Author

243

Illustrations appear together as an insert following page 54.

vii

Acknowledgments

The life of John Edward Bruce is representative of several neglected but important Black activists who have been overlooked by historians of the African American experience. A thriving community of Black intellectual activity has existed outside of formal academic circles throughout the late nineteenth and twentieth centuries. I would like to thank a group of winos that lived behind my stepfather’s drug store during the 1950s. They shared their personal stories and a history of my community that excited my imagination and interest before I realized I wanted to pursue a career as a professional historian. It is difficult to find the space to thank so many people who encouraged the writing and research of this project. My mother, the late Mrs. Allie L. Gaines, has always been the backbone of my support throughout my academic and professional career. I also appreciate the assistance, encouragement, and insightful reading of Jennifer Hammer, my editor at New York University Press. From the beginning of this process, Bill Tuttle has been a great intellectual critic, a professional mentor, motivator, and loyal friend. I will always appreciate his confidence in my ability and the strategic support that he has given me. During several trips to the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, the New York Public Library, the manuscript staff was very helpful in my search for Bruce materials. The late John Henrik Clarke also offered his insights on the life of self-trained historians and his relationship with Arthur Schomburg, Bruce’s dear friend and colleague. I am also indebted to Mrs. Agnes Conway, Bruce’s granddaughter, who allowed me to copy the bulk of the Bruce Collection for my research and personal use. I greatly appreciate the timely assistance and typing duties of Jamica Keith, Krystal Gordon, and Gloria Gutierrez. They all worked very hard on retyping different sections of the final manuscript. During the ix

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ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

research stage, Rahel Kassahun, Jason Young, and Jermaine Archer retrieved and copied primary documents that were useful during the rewriting of selected sections of the final text. I also wish to thank several friends, associates, and colleagues who have been interested and supportive of my research and the completion of the Bruce project. These include: Jake Carruthers, Tony Martin, the late John G. Jackson, Mahmoud El-Kati, Malik Simba, Renee Melchioree, Karen Wilson, Shavon Coleman, Princess Charles, Norma J. Norman, Dennis Domer, the late John Thompson, Ray Hiner, Rita Napier, Norm Yetman, Surendra Bhana, Thomas Lewin, the late Don McCoy, Vernon Williams, Allen Isaacman, Nell Painter, Arthur Drayton, Robert Connor, Eugene Burks D’Africa, Floyd Hayes, Quintard Taylor, John McClendon, Paul Green, Rahel Kassahun, Norma J. Norman, Alani Jusa Tease, and Gene Budig. I am sure I have forgotten someone, please forgive me if your name is not included. I greatly appreciate the funding assistance provided by Janet Moores and the Interlibrary Loan Department, Rivera Library, University of California, Riverside, and by Emory Elliott, the Center for Ideas, University of California, Riverside, and the Ford Foundation, to support the purchase of Bruce photographs from the Schomburg Library. I also wish to acknowledge permission to use portions of the following publications provided by Monroe Fordham, editor of AfroAmericans in New York Life and History: “’Grand Old Man of the Movement’: John Edward Bruce, Marcus Garvey, and the U.N.I.A.,” Vol. 27, No. 1 (January 2003), 75–113; “From Slavery to Freedom: John Edward Bruce and the Republican Party,” Vol. 26, No. 1 (January 2002), 75–111; “Frederick Douglas, Booker T. Washington, and John Edward Bruce: The Relationship of A Militant Black Journalist with the ‘Father of the Civil Rights Movement’ and the ‘Wizard of Tuskegee’,” Vol. 20, No. 2 (July 1998), 91–110; and “John Edward Bruce, Edward Wilmot Blyden, Alexander Crummell, and J. Robert Love: Mentors, Patron, and the Evolution of A Pan-African Intellectual Network,” Vol. 20, No. 2 (July 1996), 56–91, all from Afro-Americans in New York Life and History. I am also grateful for the support and interest of my two sons, Ralph L. Crowder, III and Rahsaan T. Crowder. Their encouragement was invaluable throughout the completion of the manuscript and the rewriting stage.

Introduction Appreciating Neglected Voices: John Edward Bruce and the Struggle to Liberate the Race

Nearly a half-century ago, George Shepperson, a pioneer in the study of Africa’s relationship with the Black Diaspora, argued that a “commerce of ideas and politics” existed between African Americans and Africans. Shepperson concluded that “one thing is clear: Negro Americans . . . have played a considerable part ideologically in the emergence of African nationalism.” This commerce of debate, organizations, institutions, and nationalist agitation shared by Africans and African Americans was particularly influential from the late nineteenth century through the 1920s.1 Shepperson identified John Edward Bruce (1856–1924), a selftrained historian, journalist, Republican stalwart, and the personal secretary to Marcus Garvey, as having a vital connection to the commerce of ideas between Africans and the Black Diaspora. Yet Bruce was, in Shepperson’s view, the most “grossly neglected Black thinker by almost all writers” on African American history.2 Bruce’s life has largely been marginalized as a minor manifestation of Black nationalism and militant Black journalism and as a secondary element in understanding the Garvey movement and selected themes in African American culture and intellectual life.3 Yet he was an important figure in his own right; he became the most popular journalist in the Black community, with a national Black audience; he was a leader and mentor within the Black history movement among self-trained Black historians and bibliophiles who utilized Black history to justify collective resistance and self-determination; he fought for Republican accountability to a loyal but often neglected Black constituency while demanding the accountability of Black leaders to the masses of the Black community; he was instrumental in spreading Garveyism 1

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APPRECIATING NEGLECTED VOICES

throughout Africa through the exploitation of his long-cultivated international contacts with African intellectuals and activists; and he fearlessly challenged white supremacy and anti-Black violence by articulating an ideological position that combined a rejection of integration, the cultural uniqueness of African people, intellectual self-reliance, race pride, and economic independence with a militant stand on political and civil rights. His view fused the best ideas associated with W. E. B. Du Bois and Booker T. Washington into a Black stream of thought often overlooked by most historians of the late-nineteenthcentury African American community. Finally, Bruce was also a model for thousands of former slaves who were dark-skinned, lacked a formal education and class resources, and felt that color divisions within the Black community were impediments to their upward mobility. Few scholars have appreciated Bruce’s role in the reciprocal interaction among African Americans, West Indians, and Africans during the late nineteenth century and the first decades of the twentieth century, nor have many seen the ways in which the events of his life may be used as a window through which to understand and interpret African American thought and culture. Bruce was born a slave just prior to the Civil War and his activities extended through the declining years of Frederick Douglass, the domination of Booker T. Washington’s Tuskegee Machine, the early and possibly the most noteworthy years of Marcus Garvey and W. E. B. Du Bois, the rise of the Black history movement and the Harlem Renaissance, and the flourishing communication between African Americans and Africans in the international community.4 This biography seeks to broaden the historical appreciation of this complex but neglected African American intellectual activist, whose life touched most of the major African American and African figures of his time. Those who have acknowledged Bruce’s individual accomplishments or his participation in the critical fifty years after the Civil War have primarily compartmentalized him as an accomplished journalist, an outspoken Black nationalist, and a “minor player” in African American politics. Chapters 1, 2, and 3 address, clarify, and probe these simplistic generalizations while adding depth to this dimension of Bruce’s fascinating career. Little attention has been paid to Bruce’s key participation in the international commerce of Pan-African ideas, the emerging Black history movement and his circle of self-trained Black historians who pop-

APPRECIATING NEGLECTED VOICES

3

ularized and promoted the study of African and African American history, and the instrumental role that Bruce played in the expansion of the Garvey movement. Chapters 2, 5, and 6 explore and document this neglected aspect of Bruce’s life. Bruce was a major participant and a mentor within an intellectual community of self-trained Black historians who defended Black humanity and utilized Black history to justify collective resistance and self-determination. He and his lay colleagues also led the fight to include African American and African history in the curricula of primary and secondary Black schools, and what was then called a “chair of Negro history” in private and state-supported Black colleges. He also played an instrumental role in the intellectual exchange and debate circulating within the international community of Black thinkers and activists. These contacts and close friendships provided an important network within which to promote and facilitate Garvey’s philosophy and institutions when Bruce became a member of the Universal Negro Improvement Association shortly after the First World War. Bruce’s literary contributions were first recognized within contemporary scholarship by Tony Martin in Literary Garveyism: Garvey, Black Arts and the Harlem Renaissance (1983) and his edited volume, African Fundamentalism: A Literary and Cultural Anthology of Garvey’s Harlem Renaissance (1991). Both of these books document the neglect of Harlem’s literary history that resulted at least in part from the complex aesthetic theory fueled by the Garvey movement. John Cullen Gruesser has recently edited The Black Sleuth, a Bruce novel that was originally serialized in McGirt’s Magazine between 1907 and 1909. Gruesser contends that this fictional work was one of the earliest African American literary works to depict a Black detective and “thus a forerunner of novels by writers such as Rudolph Fisher, Chester Himes, Walter Mosley, Barbara Neely, and Valerie Wilson Wesley.” Bruce employed a West African protagonist relocated to the United States not only to weave a fascinating tale but also to criticize white supremacy and Western imperialism, and to educate his Black readers. Though I will not analyze Bruce’s literary publications or his novels in this work, some of his selected poems will be discussed for their historical context and relationship to his ideological positions.5 Bruce’s life represented that of the first generation of former slaves who matured in the world of “freedom.” He had few class resources, a marginal education, and no white kinship ties to assist in

4

APPRECIATING NEGLECTED VOICES

this transition. Nonetheless, through determination and with the support of his mother and cousin, Bruce established an impressive journalistic career writing under the pen name “Bruce Grit.” He supported the Republican Party but fought for Black accountability and a patronage position. During the declining years of Frederick Douglass, Bruce, along with younger colleagues, challenged Douglass’s commitment to integration and his choice of a white woman for his second wife. His association with Booker T. Washington was a complex mixture of respect for the establishment of an independent Black institution and disparagement of Washington’s capitulation to white supremacy and his philosophy of accommodation. The final years of Bruce’s life were spent building a center of “Negro Nationality” through the institutions and ideology of the Garvey movement. These endeavors and the significance of Bruce’s career will complete the focus of this biography.6

1 From Slavery to Freedom John Edward Bruce’s Childhood and Adolescence

In March 1897, Charles W. Anderson requested that Levi P. Morton, New York’s Republican governor, appoint John Edward Bruce to a minor political post. Anderson, a respected Black Republican stalwart, had been a member of the New York Republican State Committee for sixteen years and was a primary dispenser of Black political patronage in New York City. If Anderson gave his seal of approval to a Black nominee, white politicians usually fell in line. This appointment, however, was somewhat different, and Morton’s aides encouraged him to be cautious.1 Bruce was an ambitious forty-one-year-old man, of dark brown complexion, just under six feet tall, with a prominent mustache, penetrating eyes, a confident persona that intimidated his peers, and a preference for Havana cigars. An established journalist, Bruce was considered by one author to be “the prince of Afro-American correspondents.” His articles, well known in the Black community, caught the attention of white readers as well. He was also active in the Price Hall Masons, the Afro-American League, and the African Methodist Episcopal Zion Church, and he was a charter member of the American Negro Academy, a newly formed organization led by the Reverend Alexander Crummell of Washington, D.C. These were notable accomplishments for a former slave with a third-grade education. Bruce had developed his intellectual, political, and social talents through reading, travel, personal contacts, and on-the-job experience.2 While Morton’s advisors considered Bruce a valuable addition to New York’s Black practitioners of Republican politics, they questioned his party loyalty. Would his ambition, independence, and staunch commitment to racial advancement interfere with the governor’s 5

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FROM SLAVERY TO FREEDOM

agenda? Bruce had campaigned against accommodation for several years, and he was a member of a small but vocal contingent of articulate Blacks who challenged the leadership of Booker T. Washington. His pen name, “Grit,” was a nineteenth-century term that denoted unyielding courage in the face of hardship or danger. Bruce’s ideas, according to the historian Alfred A. Moss, were “considered trenchant and even blunt in their analyses of people and issues, delighting some and outraging others.”3 Bruce’s journalistic career and community activities punctuated an avid interest in African American history. This passion, inspired by Pan-African advocates whom had he met during his youth, dominated Bruce’s intellectual life from 1887 to his death.4 Through these contacts he developed an international network of political and intellectual resources. This association stimulated a thriving discourse among Black thinkers in Africa, the Caribbean, the United States, and, on occasion, Black residents in Europe.5 As the new century approached, Bruce’s life had come a long way from his days in slavery in Maryland. This chapter explores the forces that influenced Bruce’s personality and the way slavery altered his childhood. Lorenzo L. Crouse, an editor with the New York Times, and John Freeman, a prominent Black journalist, encouraged Bruce to pursue a career in journalism. Martin Delany and Henry Highland Garnet fueled his deep interest in African American and African history. Bruce developed an ideological position that combined elements of Black nationalism and separation with political and civil protest. His approach represented a unique contribution to the various Black intellectual streams that flourished during the late nineteenth century. By the close of that century, Bruce had positioned himself to become the leader of a group of self-trained Black historians who contributed to the popularization and professionalization of the study of Black history. This chapter will also provide a biographical landscape of the formative years in the life of John Edward Bruce. It is difficult to reconstruct Bruce’s early life because his writings, while bulky, did not often deal with personal matters. Historical researchers have had to base their conclusions upon a short autobiographical sketch written in 1875, when Bruce was only nineteen. Bruce also wrote some undated autobiographical material, which, together

FROM SLAVERY TO FREEDOM

7

with the earlier assessment, provides insights into his formative years.6 John Edward Bruce was born a slave on the plantation of Major Harvey Griffin near Piscataway, Maryland, on February 22, 1856. Griffin, a veteran of the War of 1812, also owned Bruce’s parents, Martha Allen Clark Bruce and Robert Bruce. In 1859, Griffin sold Robert to a planter in Georgia. Like other slaves who had experienced this tragedy, John Bruce lost all contact with his father. “I never knew a father’s care,” Bruce wrote, “nor do I remember seeing my father.”7 As Bruce became older, the loss of his playmates to the “Negro trader” created constant anxiety and fear: It became sickening to me to see the dear associates of my childhood hours, the little boys and girls with whom I used to play on the plantation, all huddled up together . . . in an immense large covered wagon with two horses, a colored driver and two white men all ready to leave the scene of their childhood to go far away from home and friends and parent to die without a mother’s consolation or a parting kiss. I anticipated hourly that I would be one of a like number, that . . . our master would sell my mother too.8

With his father removed from his life, Bruce developed a close and affectionate relationship with his mother. He remembered his mother, Martha Bruce, as intelligent, thrifty, and exceptionally industrious. These qualities made a deep impression on him. As the Civil War approached, Martha’s master allowed her privileges that made Bruce’s life somewhat unusual as a slave. Major Griffin permitted her to live and work in Piscataway, provided that she allotted him half her earnings. She initially worked as a cook in a tavern, then began selling pies and hot coffee to soldiers at Fort Washington, an encampment a mile from Piscataway. As her venture thrived, she purchased a horse and wagon and added a second-hand clothing business. For at least three years, Bruce recalled, he, his mother, and his grandmother “made quite a respectable living.”9 It appears that Bruce spent these childhood years in a relatively comfortable and unrestricted environment compared to that of most plantation or even other urban slaves. Bruce’s situation provided the necessary space for him to absorb his mother’s teachings and values. He took pride in his family’s accomplishments, and his mother and

8

FROM SLAVERY TO FREEDOM

grandmother did their best to create a secure setting for him. Bruce’s grandmother, although slowed by poor health, was an assertive matriarch who had been a lifelong slave. Her plantation experience produced an excellent understanding of the delicate balance between slave and master. She encouraged her daughter’s success while counseling against displays of public ambition. For young Bruce, his grandmother was a living link with the past. She shared stories about her childhood, kept the memory of his father alive, and fired a quest for freedom at an early age.10 Eventually his mother’s business success stirred the envy of whites in the community, who shared their feelings with Major Griffin, telling him to “sell her as far as wind and water would carry her.” Bruce’s master did not capitulate to this pressure, nor did he restrict Martha Bruce’s business activities. Rather than being motivated by altruism, he probably needed the extra cash her earnings provided, but he also respected her abilities and ingenuity. Possibly too, Major Griffin and Martha Bruce had a romantic relationship. Whatever the reasons, their master protected Bruce and his mother from hostile whites. This situation reinforced both Bruce’s sense of independence and his respect for courage in the face of adversity. These qualities became cornerstones of Bruce’s adult personality.11 Bruce remembered that as the Civil War approached, “white people could no longer keep it concealed from the slaves. Many made their escape after hearing the . . . news,” while “some masters would liberate . . . slaves and give them money to get away.” In 1860, Bruce and his mother gained their freedom by joining “the first regiment of Union soldiers” passing “through Maryland on their way to Washington.” When they reached the District of Columbia, Bruce and Martha secured lodging with Martha’s cousin, Busie Patterson. Next, Martha secured a position as a domestic in a ladies’ seminary. Bruce and his mother would stay in the Patterson household for the next three years.12 The District of Columbia years were pivotal in Bruce’s intellectual and social development. He had left the security of a small village in Maryland and the protection of a lenient and influential master to reside in a large, sometimes hostile city. This difficult transition, however, was cushioned by his cousin’s connections to influential whites

FROM SLAVERY TO FREEDOM

9

as well as to the Black elite. Bruce also benefited from his mother’s conscientious and industrious work habits.13 While this next period in Bruce’s life also presents scholarly problems based on the paucity of materials, the Reverend Irvin Garland Penn, a contemporary and probable acquaintance of Bruce’s, has provided valuable details on Bruce’s early career. Several speeches and articles that Bruce drafted between 1910 and his death in 1924 present insights into his Washington years. During this critical period in his life, Bruce selected a profession, developed close friendships with prominent Pan-African advocates, confronted problems of class and color within the Black community, and became enthralled with the history and heritage of African Americans.14 Numerous African Americans considered late-nineteenth-century Washington to be the “Capital of Colored Aristocracy.” Prominent Blacks referred to as “old families” stocked the city. They not only were from the District, Maryland, and Virginia but also were from every major Black population center in the country. In his history of Washington’s African Americans, Haynes Johnson has observed, “Among the masses of Negroes,” Washington was the “center of Negro ‘bluebloods’ and aristocrats.”15 Many of this group traced their roots to free Negroes, privileged mulatto house servants, or Black families several generations removed from slavery. Interchangeably referred to as the “Black 400,” “upper tens,” “high-toned,” “society people,” or simply the “mulatto group,” this Black elite placed an emphasis “on family background, good breeding, occupation, respectability, and color.” According to the historian Willard B. Gatewood, they flocked to Washington because of the “educational and cultural opportunities, the availability of white-collar jobs commensurate with their education and aspirations, and the presence of a black social group that shared their . . . values and self-perceptions.”16 Gatewood has argued that the “upper tens” comprised a network of Black families and social arrangements joined by blood and marriage. This situation fueled an “us” and “them” attitude toward the Black masses. “Their ‘we’ feeling,” according to this historian, “was defined by both class and race.” They occupied a tenuous place between two distant worlds, one Black and the other white. Their elite position was rooted in a subgroup of African America while they defined themselves by prestige, tradition, and culture, as well as

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FROM SLAVERY TO FREEDOM

by values drawn from white society. The behavior of the “upper tens” combined these “variables in ways that . . . perplexed whites and . . . enraged other blacks.” They became cultural brokers “speaking to blacks and for blacks to whites while exhibiting an elitism toward other blacks that was compounded of both condescension and sympathy for those who did not share their privileged background.”17 Busie Patterson, Bruce’s cousin, was the body servant to Senator Thomas Hart Benton of Missouri. This position proved to be a valuable asset for Bruce and his mother. In a city that thrived on politics and patronage, Patterson’s relationship with a powerful white politician provided access and influence, both of which were respected by Washington’s Black elite. Patterson used his association with Senator Benton to secure domestic positions for Bruce’s mother in upper-class white homes. In addition, he operated a boarding house frequented by local and visiting Blacks who were interested in politics.18 After working three years in Washington, Martha Bruce became the housekeeper for a family in New York State. Bruce and his mother stayed with this family until late 1864, after which time they moved to Stratford, Connecticut, where Martha worked in a similar capacity for a year and a half. It was in Connecticut that Bruce first attended school regularly; this also was his only exposure to integrated education. In 1866 Bruce and Martha returned to make a permanent home in Washington. “Having seen enough of the cold, cold North,” declared Bruce, “we returned to the sunny South and thanked God almighty for our escape.”19 Doubtless again with their cousin Busie Patterson’s assistance, Martha and young Bruce obtained jobs in Joseph Haire’s cafe, an establishment adjoining Ford Theatre. Bruce’s mother was a cook; he waited tables, ran errands, and served as assistant doorkeeper. Bruce recalled that the restaurant was frequented by John Wilkes Booth, the actor and Lincoln’s assassin. He described Booth’s manner as “gruff” and wrote that Booth was “one of the few theatrical celebrities” he disliked. He “served Booth many times” and noticed that the actor “didn’t particularly care for Yankees or Negroes.” On the evening of Lincoln’s assassination, April 11, 1865, Bruce reported, he and his mother “were compelled to remain” in their place of employment all night. After Lincoln was shot, “It was impossible to get through the excited crowds of soldiers and civilians who enringed the streets.” As a young boy, Bruce was able to slip in and out of the crowd with his friends,

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11

and he saw the wounded president transported across the street to a private home. Bruce often referred to these events in public speeches in later years. When the Ford Theatre was converted to a medical museum, Bruce also recalled seeing “a section of Booth’s neck preserved in alcohol” and on display for the public.20 From 1867 through 1868, Bruce became a “general utility man” for General F. T. Dent, father-in-law of President Ulysses S. Grant. This position was probably another reflection of his cousin’s credibility with Senator Benton and the positive employment record of a boy whose mother had always taught him responsibility. Martha Bruce never remarried, and Busie Patterson became a father figure to young John. They spent time together, and when Bruce was twelve or thirteen, Patterson introduced him to Henry Highland Garnet and Martin Robinson Delany. These men would be the first of at least five prominent Pan-African spokesmen with whom Bruce would establish contact prior to 1897.21 Bruce apparently attended the District’s colored public school system on an infrequent basis while he worked at odd jobs to help support his family. I. Garland Penn contended that Bruce later enrolled in some classes at Howard University but whatever formal education he had, it is certain that he acquired the bulk of his learning through practical experience. His mother, Martha, was a literate, astute businesswoman and his cousin Busie was a trusted valet to a powerful politician as well as the proprietor of a boarding house. By example, both contributed to Bruce’s desire to become a competent writer and articulate public speaker.22 Five years before his death in 1924, Bruce characterized his limited formal education and the essence of mission that dominated his life: I was prevented by the poverty of my mother from attending school and acquiring a good education . . . and was obligated to work instead. I have managed to acquire some education in the University of Adversity and have used it to the best of my ability in serving the race.23

In 1874, at age eighteen, John Bruce began his journalistic career by landing a position in the Washington office of Lorenzo L. Crouse, an associate editor of the New York Times. Crouse was the brother of the governor of Nebraska and well connected to the District’s political community. Bruce secured this job either through Busie Patterson’s

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FROM SLAVERY TO FREEDOM

influence with Senator Benton or by soliciting the assistance of General Dent, his former employer. While working as Crouse’s messenger and general helper, Bruce gained valuable journalistic experience. During the same year, he became a special correspondent for the Pro­ gressive American; located in New York City, this paper was published by John Freeman, a prominent Black journalist. From 1871 to 1887, Freeman led the fight to appoint African American teachers in New York; and through his efforts, twenty-three Black teachers were hired by 1891. Freeman’s sixteen consecutive years of publishing a newspaper also comprised a significant achievement during the late nineteenth century.24 Bruce’s association with Freeman provided opportunities to establish working relationships with several newspapers. From 1877 to 1880, he served as a correspondent for the Freeman’s Journal of St. Louis, the Plain Dealer (Detroit), The World (Indianapolis), the Chicago Conservator, and the Enterprise of Fayetteville, North Carolina. In addition to these responsibilities, Bruce published a column under the pen name of “The Rising Sun” for the Richmond (Virginia) Star.25 In the late nineteenth century, according to historian Peter Gilbert, the title of correspondent “did not carry the same connotations of prestige and accomplishment as it does today.” The majority of Black newspapers were unable to maintain a full-time staff larger than the owner/editor and one or two employees. The average Black publication was under five pages, poorly financed, and printed on inferior paper. Local correspondents and aspiring writers submitted news items, since it was impossible for most Black newspapers to pay reporters for coverage in all the areas of interest to their readers. And the pay itself was meager. Still, a talented and energetic journalist could consistently publish and develop a regular readership. Large white-owned dailies usually dominated coverage of news events, while struggling Black papers tended to publish editorial comments on issues facing the race. Bruce quickly learned how to exploit this situation and gained valuable journalistic experience through a network of Black and white publications.26 In the 1880s, Bruce became the Washington correspondent for the North Carolina Republican, the New York Freeman, the Reed City Clarion, the Christian Index, and the Cherokee Advocate. Through ties in New York, he also contributed articles to four New York City papers: the Herald, Times, Work Mail, and Express. In addition, he had articles pub-

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13

lished in the Boston Transcript, the Buffalo Express, the St. Louis GlobeDemocrat, the Sunday Gazette, and the Sunday Republican of Washington, D.C. Bruce also began to develop important international contacts by publishing articles in the West African Record, the South African Spectator, and the Jamaica Advocate of Kingston, Jamaica.27 As Reconstruction collapsed and anti-Black violence increased throughout the South, Bruce sought free rein to comment upon the acute problems that faced African Americans. To escape restrictions imposed by newspaper and magazine editorial policies, Bruce began to establish newspapers and journals of his own. On September 8, 1879, he published, in partnership with Charles N. Otely, the first issue of the Weekly Argus. He managed this paper for two years before turning it over to a stock company. In 1880 Bruce founded the Sunday Item, the first Sunday paper published by an African American. This effort was successful for a time but eventually failed due to insufficient capital. Four years later, Bruce established the Washington Grit, “a campaign sheet dedicated to both the Republican party” and the advancement of African Americans. He also served as editor of the Republican of Norfolk, Virginia, in 1882; assistant editor and business manager of the Commonwealth of Baltimore, Maryland, in 1884; and associate editor of Howard’s American Magazine from 1896 to 1901.28 In 1884, at the age of twenty-eight, Bruce began using the name “Bruce Grit” as his byline for columns appearing regularly in the Gazette of Cleveland and the New York Age. This was a common slang term in the 1880s that denoted determination and courage. From this date until his death, Bruce was known to his readership in America, the Caribbean, part of Europe, and Africa as “Grit.”29 Bruce’s early articles discussed significant themes that presaged the ideas that would dominate his mature years. In March 1877, he drafted an essay entitled “Four Errors against Christian Religion,” which constituted the first indication of Bruce’s religious faith and commitment to Christian principles. In Bruce’s view, “Faith must not become superstition, credulity, substitute for reason, or a source of indifference.” Unreasoning mystics and the faithless should be condemned, while he desired for himself and his people to become “practical Christians.” In December 1877, Bruce drafted an address, “Old Time Religion,” that further developed his religious views. Bruce criticized the shouting and superstition of some religions and argued for a

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“new” religion that would be grounded in reason rather than the “old” beliefs dominated by mystery. But above all, wrote Bruce, “Christianity was a religion of love.”30 On the surface, Bruce would appear to have been an adherent of a conservative and somewhat sanitized version of church worship characteristic of some upper-class Black congregations. His religion was more complex, however, including his indebtedness to his slave roots and the religious practices he recalled as a child on the plantation. In an article entitled “Sketch of Childhood under Slavery,” Bruce described a “praise meeting” at Marbury plantation, Maryland, which he attended with his mother. Thirty to forty men and women conducted a fervent prayer service asking for “strength, patience, and courage,” while a white “patroller” was stationed at the door to make sure the Blacks were not conspiring. Bruce reported that when this authority figure departed, the tone and context of the meeting changed. Participants expressed their sorrow at an impending slave sale to Georgia traders and discounted the opportunity for escape due to the “riders watch.” A woman of about thirty-five, a mother with her two children present, told the congregation that her husband had been sold and taken away without being permitted to see her or his children again. The service closed with a final hymn that expressed solidarity: “Brethren, we must part, if we never see your face again, We’ll love you in our heart.” According to Bruce, the following day fifteen of those present at the “praise service” were “manacled like criminals” and sold at public auction.31 This story reflects Bruce’s emphasis upon the “practical” aspects of Christianity. He believed that religion had the capacity to serve both the spiritual and secular needs of Black people. The historian of Black religion, Gayraud S. Wilmore, has called this experience the “intersection between the spirit world and the world of objective perception.” Bruce’s experience at the “praise meeting” provided the foundation for this position during his early years as a journalist and community critic. He believed that the slave community used this setting, when freed of white supervision, to voice its grievances, evaluate the possibilities for escape, and reinforce the mental and physical struggle to survive the hardships of the plantation.32 To be an agent of change, the “new” religion, as defined by Bruce, would have to free itself of mysticism and superstition. This sentiment reflected Bruce’s personal definition of Christianity and his own com-

FROM SLAVERY TO FREEDOM

15

mitment to spirituality. In his investigation of Black religion and radicalism, Gayraud Wilmore captured the historical meaning of this feeling when he stated that “despite the deliberate distortion of Christian doctrine and stringent restriction upon religious activity . . . Black folk religion contained . . . a definitive moral judgment against slavery and a clear legitimating of the slave’s humanity, and later the freedman’s struggle against the forces of injustice and inequality.” Bruce’s call for the death of the “old” and the implementation of a “new” religion fell within this tradition.33 Sometime in 1877, at the age of twenty-one, Bruce drafted a long essay entitled “Washington’s Colored Society.” Bruce’s experiences had produced some important contacts, but they also encouraged a distaste for Washington’s Black aristocracy. Bruce witnessed hundreds of Blacks relocating to Washington in search of governmental appointments. He argued that far too many of those who achieved economic and professional success were excessively concerned with gaining the trappings of social respectability and imitating whites. Too little concern, according to Bruce, was shown by the “upper tens” for the masses of Black Washington.34 Bruce believed that the so-called “fust families” were largely descended from antebellum free Negroes with a disproportionate mulatto background. Their exclusiveness was based upon an exaggerated color phobia that stressed “Injun hair” (straight hair), “blue veins” (light skin), and white spouses. The “upper tens” were hostile to the growing influx of peasant freemen who sought their fortunes in Washington and other urban communities. These members of the “miscalled colored society . . . wouldn’t be caught dead with an ordinary Negro.” Their goal, according to Bruce, was “to become absorbed by the white or Caucasian race.” Pride and position in the world of the “upper tens” was based upon a “decayed respectability” that demanded “servants, two dogs, a tom cat and rifle that saw service in 1776.” Bruce felt that it was “absurd that those who were actually ‘the illegitimate progeny of the vicious white men of the South’ should attempt to pose ‘as representatives of the better class of Negroes.’”35 Bruce’s tough satire and hostility toward the “tinsel, shadow and show” of Washington’s Black aristocracy was a theme that he pursued from 1877 to his death. He and other contemporary social critics argued that divisions based upon class and color were encouraged and legitimized by a light-skinned Black elite. Willard Gatewood has

16

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demonstrated that the pros and cons of this debate were frequently the subject of Black editorial columns and a few white newspapers’ columns during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. To appreciate Bruce’s response to this issue, it is important to understand the influence of his background upon his developing ideas on race and color.36 Bruce viewed the issues of race and color through the prism of his social surroundings and his own family situation. He was a former slave with a dark complexion and little formal education. His mother was a hard-working and clever woman who spent the bulk of her free life as a domestic. She had few economic resources to offer her son but passed on the values of a dedicated work ethic and a personal determination to carve out a successful life. Although Bruce never knew his father, he benefited from the guidance and support of a strong male role model, Busie Patterson. While Patterson spent his life as a domestic servant, he served as the valet of a powerful white politician. This enhanced his stature in the Black community and created the perception that his personal contacts could help influence Black patronage hiring. Patterson assisted Bruce in securing his first jobs, introduced him to members of the Black elite, and reinforced the expectation that upward mobility was a possible goal regardless of education, skin color, or family background. These values and a respect for the masses of the race were ingrained in young Bruce’s mind.37 Bruce grew up in a Black urban community disproportionately dominated by men and women who exploited the advantages of a mulatto heritage, formal education, and a family legacy of a free Black status during the antebellum years. These resources created a powerful barrier to a young but ambitious former slave. Through his own determination and with the assistance of an array of personal contacts, Bruce mastered the writing skills necessary to become a journalist.38 Regardless of these accomplishments, the lack of university credentials, marginal family resources, and the lack of a patron solidly positioned in the Black elite dimmed the possibilities of upward mobility or governmental appointment to a white-collar position. Many ambitious dark-skinned African Americans perceived that the so-called “better class” dominated by a mulatto elite stood guard to block the progress of their darker brethren. As Bruce matured, he found reinforcement for this position in his relationships with Martin Delany, Edward Blyden, J. Robert Love, and especially Alexander Crummell.

FROM SLAVERY TO FREEDOM

17

All these men had faced “mulatto power” in the course of their lives. What has been termed as “mulatto baiting” by some scholars may have been a natural course for Bruce’s intellectual development.39 When John Edward Bruce returned to Washington with his mother in 1866, Busie Patterson served as a surrogate father and the primary source for both employment and political education. As a boy of ten or eleven, Bruce often traveled to gatherings and events in the Black community with Patterson. This experience was the source of fond memories that became a frequent subject in speeches and public presentations during Bruce’s life. Moreover, Patterson exposed young Bruce to at least two Black personalities who shaped his view of the world and his vision of history.40 Around 1865 or 1866 Bruce was introduced by his cousin to Henry Highland Garnet (1815–82) and Martin Robinson Delany (1812–85). Both men were in the prime of their career, politically active in Republican politics, intensely interested in Africa, and in favor of Black nationalism.41 Garnet had recently moved to New York City to accept the leadership of Shiloh Presbyterian Church. During the Civil War, he had served, according to historian Lerone Bennett, as pastor of “the fashionable Fifteenth Street Presbyterian Church in the nation’s capital,” where he “agitated for the abolition of slavery” and called for the “employment of slaves as soldiers in the Union Army.” Indeed, Garnet recruited African American soldiers and served as chaplain for a Black regiment. Republican leaders rewarded his contributions by selecting him as speaker for the anniversary celebration of the Emancipation Proclamation. On February 12, 1865, Garnet delivered the “Memorial Discourse” in the House of Representatives, becoming the first Black man to speak in Congress. Garnet’s recognition as a major Black leader was bolstered when Lincoln’s widow presented him with one of the president’s canes shortly after the assassination.42 Martin Delany had been an ally and close friend of Garnet’s for several years. In 1864, Delany moved his family from Ontario, Canada, to Wilberforce, an all-Black community located in southern Ohio. He was attracted to Wilberforce because it was a self-governing Black community, the educational opportunities there for his children were excellent, and he craved an intellectual atmosphere that encouraged independent Black thought. Wilberforce University, founded by

18

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the African American Episcopal Church, had reopened in 1863, and the local preparatory school had been considered a fine institution for Black children since the 1850s, when Wilberforce was called Tarawa Springs.43 By 1865, Delany had enjoyed considerable success as a physician, editor, explorer, antislavery activist, author, and lecturer. He focused wartime attention upon organizing the Corps d’Afrique, a Black military regiment commanded by Black officers. As the Civil War neared its conclusion, Delany traveled to Washington, D.C., to argue for his military option before President Lincoln. Before this meeting, he had floated his ideas about the Corps d’Afrique in the Black press and public lectures sponsored by antislavery societies. He arrived in the capital on February 6, 1865, and was the houseguest of his old friend, Henry Highland Garnet. Lincoln rejected the Corps d’Afrique, but appointed Delany a major in the Union Army, thus making him the first and only Black man to be commissioned as a field officer during the Civil War.44 Delany’s accomplishment was an honor that most Black leaders believed atoned for his failure to extend Frederick Douglass a commission in August 1863. “In none of his other careers,” according to the historian Victor Ullman, “did Delany so completely satisfy the cravings of his race.” The northern press “treated the appointment as an event of national importance” while the Black press “filled its columns” with praise for the Black major. Delany returned to civilian life in August 1868, becoming a sub–assistant commissioner in the Freedmen’s Bureau on Hilton Head Island, South Carolina.45 Young Bruce had heard of Delany and Garnet long before he made their acquaintance, since they were both well known in Washington’s Black community, where they were active in Republican politics. Both too were considered excellent role models of self-made success. Busie Patterson knew Garnet personally and had probably met Delany through Garnet. It is clear that Patterson’s relationship with Senator Thomas Hart Benton had opened doors for those of the Black elite who desired political favors and patronage appointments. Thus, Delany and Garnet may have sought his assistance during their long association with Washington politics. Patterson’s political connections and his boarding house created an exceptional environment for young Bruce to learn of the issues and concerns voiced by articulate Blacks like Delany and Garnet.46

FROM SLAVERY TO FREEDOM

19

Bruce recalled that Patterson “took him to Dr. Garnet’s house.” Although there is no indication in the Bruce papers of the first meeting between Delany and Bruce, it is likely that it occurred at Garnet’s home. Delany frequently stayed there during extended visits to Washington. In 1869, for example, Delany spent two months there lobbying President Ulysses S. Grant and Secretary of State Hamilton Fish for a diplomatic appointment to Liberia. He was also a popular speaker in Washington. After he was commissioned as a major in 1865, according to Delaney’s biographer Victor Ullman, he created “quite a stir in Washington with a series of lectures, especially the one entitled, ‘The capacity of the African race to the highest civilization.’”47 Garnet was best remembered by an older generation for a speech delivered in 1843 to the National Convention of Colored Citizens in Buffalo, New York. His “fiery appeal for a general slave strike and revolt” was published in 1848 and forever associated his name with sowing the seeds for emancipation. Twenty years later, Garnet’s rhetorical skills were well known in Washington and New York, and he sprinkled his pulpit sermons with references to Africa and the “obligations of colored men to the race.”48 Young Bruce was fascinated with these two Black titans. They kindled an interest in Africa, reinforced the importance of history, and stressed the role of service to the Black community. Bruce was particularly enthralled with Delany’s personality and self-confidence. He was the “blackest and most brilliant Negro I have ever seen,” according to Bruce. Bruce later wrote that he “first met Delany . . . just after his famous interview with President Lincoln.” Delany “shook hands, . . . patted him on the head,” and challenged Bruce to “grow up to become a useful and great man.” As Bruce matured, he stated that he “tried through [his] life to imitate” Delany. “I admired Major Delany,” Bruce declared, “for his manliness and pride of race.”49 Not only did these characteristics become embedded in Bruce’s adult personality, but Delany and Garnet also proved to be good friends during the formative years of his career. Both were instrumental role models who encouraged independent thought, racial selfreliance, closer ties to Africa, and an energetic respect for Black history. Moreover, Delany and Garnet advocated a vision of history that emphasized the importance of African Americans to the international Black community. This argument usually contended that a center of “Negro Nationality”—an idea first given expression through the

20

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writings of Edward Wilmot Blyden—must be established to unify and protect Africans on the African continent and in the Diaspora. Bruce eventually embraced this position and developed an assortment of personal contacts in the West Indies, Africa, and Europe.50 On February 12, 1887, ten days before his thirty-first birthday, Bruce published the first of what was to become a large body of articles on African and African American history. This was a six-part series for the Cleveland Gazette exploring the role and contributions of AfricanAmerican soldiers. While Bruce was capturing the attention of the lay public through his newspaper columns, George Washington Williams and Joseph T. Wilson were publishing scholarly treatments of Black troops in the Civil War. “Although the struggle between the states had ended more than two decades earlier,” according to the historian John Hope Franklin, “the role of the black soldier had received scant attention from the many white historians who had been writing about the conflict. It was as though 180,000 black soldiers had not participated at all.” During the last twenty-four years of his life, Bruce highlighted the contributions and bravery of Black soldiers in several of his speeches, articles, and pamphlets.51 Bruce had read Williams’s History of the Negro Race in America from 1619 to 1880: Negroes as Slaves, as Soldiers, and as Citizens, published in 1882. As a journalist, he had access to a broad range of reviews of the two-volume work that appeared in an assortment of Black and white publications. The debate on the merits of this text strengthened Bruce’s belief that history was a powerful tool for intellectual liberation and Black empowerment. Unlike Williams and Wilson, Bruce approached history through his skills as a journalist. He was content to leave detailed research packaged in costly multiple-volume publications to other writers. He believed that the Black press was an affordable and popular medium that effectively reached community readers. But, by 1896, Bruce began to share plans with his colleagues for a book-length text designed “to teach colored children about colored heroes.” He accomplished this objective with the publication of Short Bi­ ographical Sketches of Eminent Negro Men and Women in 1910.52 As race relations deteriorated and anti-Black violence escalated throughout the South during the 1890s, Bruce, according to historian August Meier, was representative of a generation of Black thinkers who believed that African and African American history could be

FROM SLAVERY TO FREEDOM

21

used “to foster race pride and group solidarity as the basis of advancement by collective action and as an antidote to prejudice and discrimination.” These sentiments fueled a thriving Black history movement, including a renewed interest in Africa, in the late nineteenth century.53 An understanding of Black history was the key to combining racial respect, self-help, and solidarity, which could be used to agitate for political and civil rights, cooperative economic schemes, all-Black towns, missionary uplift, and emigration movements. Those who urged the study of Black history represented all segments of Black ideological thought, ranging from amalgamationists, such as John S. Durham, to accommodationists, such as Booker T. Washington, to nationalists, such as Bruce and Sutton Griggs.54 Robert M. Adger, cofounder of the American Negro Historical Society of Philadelphia and a contemporary of Bruce’s, may have best expressed the relationship between Black history and the struggle for racial advancement when he declared, We want the Newspapers, the Churches and the Parents to tell their Children what our past Condition was, and about those dear people who are dead and gone, of the sacrifices they made in our behalf, and grand opportunities [we] are not offered.55

By 1897, Bruce was a central player in the Black history movement, a vocal advocate of African history, and one of the few Black intellectuals who believed that contemporary African culture could play an important role in rebuilding Africa. Bruce had become a respected bibliophile, active within a network of Black book collectors in Washington, D.C., Philadelphia, and New York; and his contributions to Black journalism were adjudged by I. Garland Penn, a contemporary historian, to be “brilliant.”56 Bruce also had displayed, according to August Meier, “an indefatigable zeal in gathering historical materials.” In addition, around the turn of the century he began to mentor a group of younger selftrained scholars, who would establish the Negro Society for Historical Research in 1911. This society, which was established four years before Carter G. Woodson founded the Association for the Study of Negro Life and History, represented a significant step toward professionalizing and popularizing the discipline of African American history.57 Later, during the final six years of his life, Bruce used his formidable

22

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talents to promote Garvey’s Universal Negro Improvement Association and the movement among his peers to interpret Black history independently. This was a task that Bruce and his colleagues believed could never be satisfactorily handled by historians of another race. The reconstruction and preservation of Black history was a challenge that could not be relegated to white scholars who routinely questioned the basic humanity of African Americans and denounced their contributions to world civilization. Black historians, according to Bruce, must lead the charge to eradicate this propaganda.58 While John Edward Bruce’s papers are limited in their treatment of Bruce’s personal life, we know that Bruce married Lucy Pinkwood, a contralto, of Washington, D.C., sometime prior to 1895. Available records do not say what happened to her but presumably she died childless prior to his second marriage.59 On September 22, 1890, Bruce solicited the assistance of George D. Ruffin, a Black former member of the Virginia House of Representatives during Reconstruction, to enroll two children in the District’s Lovejoy School. A formal reply by the school’s principal, Grace Dyson, does not exist in the Bruce papers and Bruce’s “two children” are never discussed in any other correspondence. Possibly Bruce was only posing as a parent to help a friend or colleague place his children in one of Washington’s private Black schools. If indeed these were his children, it is likely that they were raised by his first wife’s family. This situation remains a mystery.60 Bruce married his second wife, Florence A. Bishop of Cleveland, Ohio, on September 10, 1895. It is not known how they met, but it is probable that Florence knew of Bruce through his byline published in the Cleveland Gazette. This union produced one daughter named Olive and twenty-nine years of devoted companionship. Bruce was a mature thirty-nine-year-old activist engaged in community and political organizations when he fell in love with Florence. At least one of his mentors, Alexander Crummell, encouraged him to consider marriage and believed that a wife could make Bruce “a more efficient public man.”61 Florence fulfilled Crummell’s prediction and served as Bruce’s loving and caring partner. They shared an ideological and personal bond that was an asset to Bruce’s business and community endeavors. A corresponding member of the Negro Society for Historical Research,

FROM SLAVERY TO FREEDOM

23

Florence attended to her husband’s correspondence and managed his newspaper office during Bruce’s periods of poor health, and she occasionally made public presentations to community groups on her husband’s behalf. In their private correspondence, Bruce lovingly referred to his wife as “Fatty,” “Kiddo,” and “Flor,” while confiding to her that he “didn’t enjoy . . . trips alone. I feel happier if you were by my side.” During the early years of their marriage, Bruce struggled to supplement his meager journalistic income with various odd jobs, but he and Florence were a team committed to uplifting the race.62 By the turn of the twentieth century, John Edward Bruce had transformed himself into a renowned journalist, a vital force in the popularization of African American history, and a respected advocate for the Black community. He had attained these accomplishments through an ambitious determination to become a successful practitioner of his craft and a drive to improve upon his humble beginnings as a slave. Martin Delany and Henry Highland Garnet had helped by serving as instrumental early role models. Later, he benefited from close and rewarding relationships with Edward Wilmot Blyden and Alexander Crummell, two towering nineteenth-century Pan-Africanists who became patrons of and mentors to Bruce during his transition to middle age. With their assistance, Bruce became a leading African American spokesman in an international network of Pan-African intellectuals who emerged to prominence in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.63

2 Blyden, Crummell, and Bruce Mentors, Patrons, and the Evolution of a Pan-African Intellectual Network

Martin Delany, Henry Highland Garnet, Edward Wilmot Blyden, and J. Robert Love are generally recognized by scholars as among the most important Pan-African nationalists during the late nineteenth century. All were well educated, and all were articulate advocates for Black self-determination. They were also intellectually self-reliant, and they were at the center of an international commerce of issues and ideas among Africans, African Americans, and West Indians. In addi­ tion, all these men voiced a profound respect for understanding the forces of history and its implications for Africa and the African dias­ pora. Bruce’s political values and career were shaped by his relationship with these men. His mentors, who on average were thirty-three years older than he was, viewed him as an intelligent, dedicated, and ambi­ tious young man who could make a positive contribution to the race. When appropriate they offered their assistance, and they freely gave their advice, substantially contributing to Bruce’s perception of the world and to the development of the goals and values he cherished. Bruce lived almost twenty-five years into the twentieth century, but his life was molded by the nineteenth century and by the personalities who inspired him. In July 1880, William Coppinger, secretary of the American Colo­ nization Society (ACS), assembled his staff to meet Edward Wilmot Blyden, the president-elect of Liberia College, the vice-president of the ACS, and the leading advocate of Negro emigration to Africa. Bly­ den’s name had been a frequent topic of discussion throughout Wash­ ington’s colored elite; indeed, in the prior two weeks, he and his close friend, John H. Smyth, the United States minister to Liberia, had had 25

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BLYDEN, CRUMMEL, AND BRUCE

several interviews with American politicians and officials, including President Rutherford B. Hayes and his private secretary, Colonel W. K. Rogers. Blyden had unsuccessfully lobbied Hayes and members of his cabinet to finance the relocation of Blacks to Africa.1 While visiting the District, Blyden met several Black leaders at James Wormley’s hotel, “the home for leading Black members of Con­ gress” and Blyden’s temporary residence. Most of these leaders were antiemigrationists, but he considered them “intelligent members of Washington’s mulatto aristocracy.” The group included Frederick Douglass; Reverend Francis Grimké, pastor of the Fifteenth Street Presbyterian Church; Richard T. Greener, dean of Howard Univer­ sity’s law school; and John Wesley Cromwell, lawyer, historian, and editor of the People’s Advocate. He spent his private hours with two “pure Negroes” who supported emigration: Robert Brown Elliott, a treasury agent and former South Carolina congressman, and Alexan­ der Crummell, pastor of St. Luke’s Episcopal Church and one of Bly­ den’s close friends.2 John Edward Bruce, an aspiring twenty-four-year-old journalist and newly employed clerk for the ACS, closely followed these discus­ sions. Bruce had recently published the Sunday Item while serving as a correspondent for a string of Black newspapers. The assignment with the ACS supplemented his earnings as he struggled to solidify a career in journalism.3 When Coppinger introduced Blyden to Bruce, he described his as­ sistant as “a young man we all think a great deal of in this office . . . and he is very . . . interested in Africa.” Bruce was thrilled to meet the distinguished African leader, who shared both his passion for race pride and his distrust of mulatto leadership, and who also considered Black history to be central to any analysis of racial problems. This brief encounter grew into a close friendship that lasted until Blyden’s death in 1912.4 Bruce’s association with Blyden sharpened his appreciation for African history and his view of the utility of Black culture. They were drawn toward one another because of their passionate commitment to Black liberation and their advocacy of a Pan-African view of the world. As they matured, Bruce promoted Blyden’s published views in the states and Blyden provided personal credibility for Bruce’s many friends in Africa. Through Blyden, Bruce became associated with Alexander Crummell, and this relationship created an opportunity for

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27

Bruce to cultivate a patron in the Black elite. Bruce refined his intellec­ tual and philosophical skills as a result of his friendship with Blyden, Crummell, and their African lieutenants. In addition, his close friendships with J. Robert Love provided an avenue to understand the Caribbean view of Pan-Africanism and a contact to further cement his relationship within a network of nineteenth-century Pan-African intel­ lectuals. Edward Wilmot Blyden (1832–1912) visited the United States eight times between 1850 and 1896, for a total residence of three years in America. During this period, he was the best-known African leader in America, but he was always a controversial and outspoken advocate of Black emigration. His frequent stays in the West allowed him to de­ velop close ties with Black leaders and influential whites. He dedi­ cated his life to the belief that “the American Negro had an important part to play in the colonization and ‘redemption’ of Africa.” This com­ mitment encouraged his long-term involvement with the ACS as well as his participation in public debate over the appropriate course for Black education, and it provided the basis for a close relationship with Martin Delany, Henry Highland Garnet, and Alexander Crummell. Since these men belonged to a circle of emigrationist and Black-history advocates and had contributed to Bruce’s intellectual growth, it is not surprising that Blyden would establish contact with Bruce.5 In 1880 Blyden was serving as Liberia’s minister of the interior and president-elect of Liberia College. These positions were only two of the many important offices he would hold during his life in Liberia and Sierra Leone. On May 10, Blyden arrived in New York City for his fifth visit to the United States. Through a London Times reporter, he learned of the plight of one hundred Black Kansas refugees, led by Richard Newton, who were stranded in New York seeking passage to Liberia. Pleased to find out that Henry Highland Garnet was actively engaged in emigration work, Blyden served as a mentor to the refugees while they were in New York. He declared the Kansas Blacks as “suitable” emigrants and arranged for Edwin R. A. Seligman, a New York banker, literary figure, and future National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) activist, “to donate a hundred dollars towards buying agricultural equipment for the . . . refugees.” Six days later, Garnet arranged for Blyden to speak to his congregation at Shiloh Presbyterian Church. The Liberian diplomat

28

BLYDEN, CRUMMEL, AND BRUCE

and educator reportedly “set New York Negroes thinking” and im­ pressed upon the Kansas migrants “the high responsibility that awaited them in Liberia.” After the New York visit, Blyden traveled to Madison, Wisconsin, Chicago, and Washington, D.C., to meet with “leading coloured men” and white supporters of African American colonization, and to lecture on “Africa’s Service to the World.”6 Blyden and Martin Delany had been associates since Delany’s trip to Monrovia, Liberia, in July 1859. Blyden had known of Delany since the early 1850s and had criticized Delany’s opposition to the ACS and his call for a “Negro empire” in the Western Hemisphere. This sticky issue may have contributed to his opposition to Delany’s efforts on behalf of the Liberian Exodus Company of Charleston, South Carolina, in 1878. Nonetheless, in 1859, Delany delivered at least two speeches in Liberia on the “Political Destiny of the African Race.” Blyden, along with his colleague, the Reverend Alexander Crummell, attended both events. Delany, according to historian Hollis Lynch, also lived with Crummell “in his home at Mound Vaughan in Maryland, Liberia, for a month and used it both as a base of operations and a site of convales­ cence from the fever.” Although Blyden and Delany disagreed on the role of the ACS, their friendship as well as their admiration for Crum­ mell prevented a breach in their relationship.7 Although Bruce met Blyden through his association with the ACS, it is possible that Blyden had heard of Bruce during his stay with Henry Highland Garnet in New York City. By 1880, Garnet had known of Bruce for at least fourteen years. They had corresponded as early as 1872, and Garnet viewed Bruce as a young man with the po­ tential to make a contribution to the race. Blyden was also constantly recruiting young Black talent who could be encouraged to emigrate to Liberia and join the struggle to build an independent nation. For example, after a speech at Hampton Institute in 1882, twelve Hampton students transferred to Liberia College and settled in West Africa. Bly­ den believed that candidates for “Negro repatriation” had to be “‘black or very nearly black’ and intensely race proud.” Bruce fit these criteria and Blyden may have considered him a prospective emigrant long before their encounter in Washington, D.C.8 Blyden returned to the United States in 1889, two years after the publication of his book, Christianity, Islam and the Negro Race. “He was a much more widely known,” according to one of his biographers, “and controversial literary figure than ever before.” Bruce had also

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29

matured and gradually was becoming a force in Black journalism. For example, just prior to Blyden’s arrival in United States, Bruce had in­ terviewed the newly inaugurated President Benjamin Harrison. This interview underscored both Bruce’s growing prominence and the frustrations that fueled a rising interest in African emigration at this time, as Black political and economic conditions deteriorated dur­ ing the post-Reconstruction era.9 At first, Bruce declared that he was “convinced . . . the Negro will have no better friend anywhere in this country than the brave little man . . . in the White House.” But this as­ sessment changed as southern anti-Black violence increased, with Harrison doing little to translate his interest in Black welfare into policy and patronage. Bruce criticized the Harrison administration for failing to dispense an “equitable share of . . . Federal” appointments to qualified Blacks, and he voiced his concern about the “dismissal of a White House Negro servant” who had been charged with intoxication. Bruce questioned this report but also argued that domestic appoint­ ments to the White House should be part of the patronage system used to reward Black Republican loyalty. And in December 1898, Bruce was endorsed by a group of Albany, New York, Republicans for the head porter’s position at the New York State capital in “recogni­ tion of his sterling work for the Republican organization of the 13th ward.” By November 1889, Bruce felt that the president had an “incli­ nation to experiment” and predicted his defeat in 1892.10 In December 1889, not only Bruce and Blyden but also President Harrison turned their attention to the South. A flurry of unprece­ dented political events had generated a national debate on the race question, gradually bringing Bruce and Blyden together. President Harrison set the scene with his annual address to Congress on De­ cember 3, 1889, when he called “for a federal law to prevent white terrorists from depriving blacks of their votes in federal elections.” The president also joined the debate on the “African dream” when he declared that Blacks “do not desire to quit their homes, and their employers resent the interference of the emigration agents who seek to stimulate such a desire. Their sudden withdrawals would stop production and bring disorder into the household as well as the shop.”11 These events took place while Blyden was lecturing in Charleston, South Carolina. His southern tour and the issue of Black emigration had been energized by federal politics. Harrison’s call for the national

30

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government to control federal elections was interpreted by southern white politicians as a “force bill.” Republican success in the 1888 elec­ tion and the passage of Harrison’s bill would revive southern Black political power and threaten the South’s “home rule.” This potential consequence created a climate that encouraged southern restrictions on voting rights and white support for emigration.12 Mississippi led the attack by revising its constitution in 1890 “for the express purpose of disfranchising most Negroes,” according to historian Edwin S. Redkey, “while permitting most whites to vote.” On December 12, Senator Matthew Butler fueled the national debate by sponsoring a bill to “provide for the migration of persons of color from the Southern states.” The Butler Bill did not specifically mention Africa, but “it was interpreted by the blacks and by the senators who debated it as an African emigration plan.” Senator R. L. Gibson of Louisiana introduced a resolution that requested the Senate “to inves­ tigate the practicality of acquiring or setting aside territory on which to settle emigrant Afro-Americans.” These efforts were coupled with a resolution advanced by Senator John T. Morgan of Alabama, a conser­ vative Democrat, who “asked the Senate to inquire into new ways to improve American trade and relations with the people of the Free State of the Congo.” Within weeks after the president’s speech, the na­ tion was ready to debate the “idea of colonization as a solution for America’s race problem.”13 Bruce joined a legion of Black correspondents and newspaper men who turned their attention to South Carolina and Blyden’s articulate defense of selective emigration. In December 1889, he drafted an arti­ cle favorably describing Blyden’s visit with “Rev. J. S. Lee and a recep­ tion by 300 working men of the Young Men’s United Labor Associa­ tion.” This organization, according to the historian Hollis R. Lynch, as­ sured Blyden that “300,000 Negroes were ready to emigrate but could not leave because of difficulty in disposing their property.” Blyden’s call for closer ties with Africa also found a responsive audience at the twenty-sixth gathering of the South Carolina conference of the A.M.E. Church held in Aiken. He received a “flattering welcome” and the conference supported “his plea for greater Negro missionary effort in Africa.” From Blyden’s viewpoint, this was a predictable reaction since the A.M.E. session was composed “chiefly of Negroes” rather than mulattoes. Blyden, like Bruce, questioned the race loyalty of

BLYDEN, CRUMMEL, AND BRUCE

31

mixed-bloods and publicly accused them of a “venomous dislike of . . . Africa.”14 As Blyden’s public meetings attracted large audiences, Bruce ob­ served that the emigration debate generated considerable support among southern working-class Blacks and conservative whites. Most prominent African Americans and the Black press reacted negatively to all suggestions of colonization, emigration, repatriation, or volun­ tary deportation schemes. The Savannah Tribune, Christian Recorder, Topeka Capitol, New York Age, and the (Indianapolis) Freeman vigor­ ously voiced their opposition and attacked Blyden as an “enemy of the race.” Partisan politics and personality differences were really a minor agenda in articulate Black opposition to emigration. A signifi­ cant number of Black leaders felt that the race had “labored long and hard to . . . make the United States a success.” The fruits of their labor would not be denied by “terrorism, segregation, or de­ portation.”15 While southern planters who had a vested interest in Black labor might have been personally sympathetic to Black expulsion “from a patriotic point of view,” “pocketbook pragmatism” encouraged them to support Black codes, emigrant agent laws, enticement bills, va­ grancy measures, and conflict lease schemes to control and tie Blacks to the soil. Hinton Rowan Helper and some segments of the Populist movement may have spoken for yeoman whites who supported the “peaceful departure” of all southern Blacks.16 Bruce, unlike several of his colleagues in the Black press, did not join the chorus of personal attacks on Blyden. He was always quick to condemn the rise in southern anti-Black violence, but in early 1890 his attention was focused upon lobbying Congress and founding the Afro-American League, a national coalition of Black organizations. In January, Bruce participated in a meeting of Black citizens at Asbury Church in Washington, D.C., to debate a potential federal elections bill that was popularly known as the “force bill.” He denounced “arrogant Democratic obstructionists, Republican delinquents, and . . . Negro hirelings with Democratic money in their pockets” who opposed leg­ islation to protect Black voters. Bruce believed that “since the South had never of its own accord protected the Negro, a measure of force was needed to assure his rights in the South.” He published these views in an article drafted in early 1891 and voiced this sentiment in a

32

BLYDEN, CRUMMEL, AND BRUCE

lecture to the Sunday School Lyceum, Second Baptist Church, Wash­ ington, D.C.17 The Asbury Church meeting was probably a gathering sponsored by the Washington, D.C. Afro-American League. Bruce was instru­ mental in this organization’s local efforts and a key participant in the first national convention held in Chicago in January 1890. From 1889 to late 1890, local Afro-American League branches were established in at least forty cities in the Northeast and Midwest. Bruce’s colleague, T. Thomas Fortune, was the driving force behind the local growth of the Afro-American league and the 1890 national convention.18 Bruce had long admired Blyden, who was a well-known advocate for closer ties between Africans and African Americans and an elo­ quent spokesman for Africa’s contribution to world history, issues that attracted Bruce’s attention and admiration. Blyden was also associated with Bruce’s boyhood idols, Henry Highland Garnet and Martin Robeson Delany, both of whom doubtless encouraged him to contact Bruce during his American travels. Blyden and Bruce also shared an intense dislike for the disproportionate influence that a mulatto elite exercised upon the social, political, and economic affairs of Africans and African Americans. In addition, by the late 1880s, Bruce had become a leading Black journalist and an attractive media contact for Blyden to cultivate. During the flurry of debate on the Butler Bill and the significance of emigration as a solution to race problems, Bruce was careful not to criticize Blyden publicly for his proemigration position. Although Bly­ den was unsuccessful in promoting Black emigration to Africa, ac­ cording to Hollis R. Lynch he did “succeed in stimulating, and sometimes creating . . . an interest in Africa, in dispelling myths about the continent, and in engendering pride in the past achievements of the race; in this effort he was a forerunner of men like W. E. B. Du Bois and Carter G. Woodson.” This important work, augmented by Bruce’s respect for Blyden as an outstanding Black intellectual, cemented a close and enduring friendship.19 In the early 1890s, Bruce began to serve as Blyden’s literary agent. Blyden’s London publisher, W. B. Whittingham and Company, sent several copies of Christianity, Islam and the Negro Race to Bruce for sale and distribution in the United States. Bruce was instructed to place “notices in the newspapers” and to contact William Coppinger of the ACS for further copies. The publication of this collection of miscella-

BLYDEN, CRUMMEL, AND BRUCE

33

neous essays was the major achievement of Blyden’s literary career. The text was well received in Europe and acclaimed in the Muslim world. Blyden’s book found similar reviews in the American press and the African American media were “particularly enthusiastic.” Bruce exploited this opportunity, sold several books, published favorable reviews, and in the process became closer to Blyden.20 As their friendship matured, Bruce began to represent Blyden in his efforts to publish articles in the American press. Blyden recipro­ cated by providing letters of introduction for Bruce to publish in the Lagos Record and the Sierra Leone Weekly News. Blyden also provided Bruce with recently published copies of books on African history and culture. During Blyden’s final visit to the United States in 1895, Bruce handled some of his scheduling and negotiated with Emmett J. Scott, Booker T. Washington’s secretary, for an interview with the Tuskegee leader and organized Blyden’s southern speaking tour.21 Bruce and Blyden continued to correspond from 1896 to Blyden’s death in 1912. They discussed current events, African American social history, and personal difficulties in their lives, and they exchanged reviews of each other’s published works. Blyden loved to read African American newspapers but only occasionally was able to see current copies while he was in Africa or Europe. Bruce supplied his friend with recent issues of those papers that carried his byline. Blyden also shared African history and literature books with his friend, while Bruce, at Blyden’s request, often published sections of Blyden’s letters in the Black press.22 The closeness of their friendship and Blyden’s ap­ preciation for Bruce’s accomplishments was well expressed in a letter to Arthur Alfonso Schomburg. In 1905 Blyden was extended an invita­ tion by Schomburg to attend a testimonial dinner for Bruce. Unable to attend, Blyden voiced his evaluation of Bruce’s life in the following manner: Two things in your personal career excite my astonishment and my admiration. 1. That you, for the last thirty years, should have been persistently striving to uphold and further a cause which everything in your surroundings discredits. 2. That your services in behalf of this unpopular, subordinated, subjugated cause should be recog­ nized to the extent of suggesting to some who have watched your apparently hopeless and unprofitable labors the idea of a substantial testimonial. I am sure that in getting up this testimonial three classes

34

BLYDEN, CRUMMEL, AND BRUCE

must participate. 1st, The class who understand you and are grateful for your work. 2nd, The class who do not understand you but admire your intelligence, courage and perseverance. 3rd, The class who mis­ understand you and believe that it is their duty and their right to mis­ understand you. Your career furnishes an illustration of what Saint Paul means by being more than a conqueror. I again congratulate.23

In 1909 Blyden developed an aneurysm on his knee and underwent an operation at Royal Southern Hospital, Liverpool, England. He was hospitalized for fifteen weeks and his health continued to deterio­ rate after his release. Bruce’s dear friend eventually died on February 7, 1912, in Freetown, Sierra Leone. Bruce organized and participated in a number of American memorial services honoring him. Through the efforts of Blyden’s African friends and contacts, Bruce also spon­ sored an essay contest on the life of Blyden coordinated by J. E. Casely Hayford, a Blyden disciple and Gold Coast (now Ghana) nationalist. In 1917, Bruce sought to publish a manuscript entitled “Life of Dr. Edward Wilmot Blyden” through the Fleming H. Revell Company in New York City. This effort was rejected because the publisher consid­ ered the project “too short for profitable publication.”24 Blyden profoundly influenced Bruce’s life and career. They knew each other for thirty-two years and spent at least two-thirds of this time as close friends and political allies. Their friendship grew because they were mirror images of each other. Both were self-educated, both as children were guided by strong mothers, both were aggressive and outspoken, and both were keenly committed to racial independence. They agreed that Africans and African Americans should have close ties, and the study of history fascinated both of them. They also strug­ gled to maintain a regular income, and both believed that Black peo­ ple had to redefine traditional religious beliefs. Finally, they were dark-complexioned men who had experienced rejection from power­ ful mulatto elites. Bruce respected Blyden’s intellectual powers and his articulate de­ fense of Africa’s contribution to world civilization. Blyden was also a strong advocate for redefining and tailoring the education of African students to meet the challenge of what he described as “racial devel­ opment.” His best expression of this position was a speech entitled “The Aims and Methods of a Liberal Education for Africans.” Blyden declared,

BLYDEN, CRUMMEL, AND BRUCE

35

The College is only a machine, an instrument to assist in carrying forward our regular work—devised not only for intellectual ends, but for social purposes, for religious duty, for patriotic aims, for racial devel­ opment; and when as an instrument, as a means, it fails, for any rea­ son whatever, to fulfill its legitimate functions, it is the duty for the country . . . to see that it is stimulated into healthful activity. . . . It is our hope and expectation that there will rise up men, aided by in­ struction and culture . . . , imbued with public spirit, who will know how to live and work and prosper . . . , how to use all favoring outward conditions, how to triumph by intelligence, by tact, by industry, by perseverance, over the indifference of their own people, and how to overcome the scorn and opposition of enemies of the race.25

Various versions of this address were delivered to African Ameri­ can audiences during Blyden’s last two trips to the United States. Bly­ den thus reinforced Bruce’s interest in African and African American history and his desire to influence the secondary school curriculum of Black students, which had inspired Bruce to create his Short Biographi­ cal Sketches of Eminent Negro Men and Women, a classroom text targeted for “Negro youth.”26 Bruce’s close association with Blyden coincided with his rise as an established journalist. In 1891, I. Garland Penn’s survey of Black edi­ tors described “‘Bruce Grit’ as one who ‘never flinches from . . . a just and frank opinion’” but who was also “vigilant, shrewd, active, pro­ gressive, and always on . . . alert for . . . the news.” Through dedica­ tion and sheer persistence, Bruce hammered his way to the top of Black journalism. Yet regardless of his accomplishments, he was viewed by the Black elite as a former slave with little education. This was a source of personal insecurity that was tempered by Bruce’s rela­ tionship with Blyden. Blyden’s success demonstrated that a self-edu­ cated man could become an influential intellectual and respected leader. He was a strong role model and an important force in sustain­ ing Bruce’s personal and professional ambition. Blyden’s background nurtured Bruce’s personality through the force of his determination to succeed without class resources and a formal education.27 Despite their close friendship, Bruce and Blyden disagreed on the role of emigration as a solution to America’s race problems. Blyden predicated “all his thinking and actions upon the conviction that emi­ gration to Africa was the only solution to the Negro in America, and

36

BLYDEN, CRUMMEL, AND BRUCE

that a Negro exodus must ultimately come.” This position encouraged his consistent opposition “to the formation of any organization whose aim was the betterment of the Negro in the United States.” In Bruce’s view, Black Americans must struggle for civil and political rights while maintaining a commitment to race unity. This effort would be translated into a powerful force for the defense of African people in the international community. Even with this ideological difference, Blyden’s friendship became the vehicle for Bruce to refine his understanding of and relationship with the African continent.28 Blyden introduced Bruce to a collection of important African lead­ ers, vouched for his credibility, and encouraged their communication. This opportunity positioned Bruce as a key resource for Africans seek­ ing an American contact. From 1890 to his death, Bruce maintained a thriving international correspondence and functioned as a critical par­ ticipant in the commerce of Pan-African ideas among Blacks in Africa, the Caribbean, and North America.29 Majola Agbebi and J. E. Casely Hayford, two of Blyden’s staunchest disciples, became Bruce’s friends and political allies. Hayford, a lawyer and newspaper editor, facilitated Bruce’s efforts to pub­ lish in African periodicals while Bruce served as the American agent for Hayford’s publications. Agbebi, founder of the first independent Native African church in West Africa, was introduced to Bruce by Bly­ den in 1903. Bruce was so enthusiastic about Agbebi’s ideas on African culture and social institutions that he sought permission to publish his inaugural sermon in a series of African American newspapers. In 1907, Bruce led a contingent of Black New Yorkers who tried to estab­ lish October 11 as “Majola Agbebi Day.”30 To J. E. K. Aggrey, Gold Coast educator and lone African member of the Phelps-Stokes Educational Commission to West and South Africa, Bruce was referred to as “Daddy” in his correspondence while Aggrey received letters addressed to “My Son” from Bruce. Bruce es­ tablished contact with John L. Dube, Solomon Plaatje, and D. D. T. Jabavu, all important contributors to the growth of the South African (Native) National Congress (later known as the African National Con­ gress or ANC). Through his contacts with Hayford and Agbebi, Bruce communicated with W. E. G. Sekyi, one of the leading West African nationalists and intellectuals. Blyden also introduced Bruce to James J. Dossen, vice-president of Liberia. This contact initiated a close associa-

BLYDEN, CRUMMEL, AND BRUCE

37

tion with a variety of Liberian officials, including C. D. B. King, the president of Liberia from 1920 to 1930.31 During the late nineteenth century, Bruce proved to be a helpful connection for members of the African elite who wanted their sons to attend Black American colleges or simply spend time traveling in the United States. This development is best illustrated by Bruce’s relationship with Akinbami Agbebi Sr., a resident of Lagos, Nigeria, and rela­ tive of Majola Agbebi. Akinbami entrusted his son to Bruce’s care and provided the following instructions: I send Akinbami [Agbebi, Jr.] herewith. I trust you will make him come home as soon as it is practicable as there is much to be done amongst us in Africa here. I trust you will take Akinbami as your son and he will be a true and worthy son to you.32

The Reverend Alexander Crummell, like his Liberian colleague Bly­ den, developed a close friendship with Bruce based upon their com­ mon interests, which would affect his views on a number of issues. It is difficult to determine when Bruce first met Crummell (1819–98), but one can identify the network through which they had the opportunity to become friends. Crummell was a political ally of Edward Blyden and a boyhood friend of Henry Highland Garnet, and provided lodg­ ing for Martin Robeson Delany during his mission to Africa. Throughout the late nineteenth century, he maintained correspondence and contact with this circle of friends and associates. It is probable that one or more of these men provided an introduction for Bruce or encour­ aged Crummell to contact their young friend. Regardless of how their friendship was initiated, Crummell became an important influence upon Bruce and a significant resource for the advancement of his ca­ reer. Alexander Crummell returned to Washington, D.C., in 1873 after spending twenty years dedicated to missionary activities in Liberia. For the majority of his African years, Crummell held a joint position as rector of an Episcopalian parish and professor of moral philosophy at Liberia College. In 1873, he took charge of St. Mary’s Protestant Epis­ copal Church and in 1879 established St. Luke’s (P.E.) Church. His ex­ perience in Liberia was quickly translated into a leadership position in the struggle for racial solidarity and civil rights in the District. Crum­ mell remained pastor of St. Luke’s until his retirement in 1894. From

38

BLYDEN, CRUMMEL, AND BRUCE

1895 to 1897, Crummell taught at Howard University. The final years of his life were dedicated to organizing the American Negro Academy (ANA), founded in 1897. This was a body of Black scholars whose purpose was to encourage the development of cultured men; to “guide the black masses to a higher level of civilization”; “to aid, by publications, the vindication of the race from vicious assaults”; and to gather archival data on the works of Black authors.33 When Crummell relocated to the District, Bruce was only seventeen and struggling to gain a foothold in the newspaper world. One year later, Bruce had landed a minor position with the Washington correspondent of the New York Times. Through his association with journalism and his early friendship with Henry Highland Garnet, Bruce had heard of the former African official, but it is doubtful that they met during his younger days. Crummell was also a friend and associate of William Coppinger, secretary of the ACS from 1864 to 1892. Crummell and Coppinger corresponded during his years in Liberia and maintained a friendship after he settled in Washington. Although there is a good possibility that Coppinger introduced Bruce and Crummell in 1880 while Bruce was working for the ACS, there is no direct evidence to prove this. Nevertheless, Bruce’s interest in Crummell’s life and activities certainly was encouraged by his associa­ tion with the ACS.34 Another factor that may have encouraged Crummell to cultivate a relationship with Bruce was the publication of Bruce’s “Washington’s Colored Society” in 1877. Crummell had joined Blyden in fighting the ruling mulatto elite in Liberia and, according to historian Kathleen Wahle, “protested against their neglect of the indigenous African pop­ ulation.” His Liberian work “became . . . progressively more frustrat­ ing and difficult due to the constant hostility and opposition to the mulatto ruling class.” This situation finally forced Crummell to leave Africa and resettle in Washington, D.C. He never relinquished his sus­ picions of upper-class mulattoes and appeared to select his close American colleagues based upon their mutual agreement on this issue. Bruce’s critical assessment of the District’s mulatto aristocrats would have certainly attracted Crummell’s attention and quite possi­ bly provided the rationale for their meeting in the late 1870s.35 From 1873 to 1894, Crummell built a thriving and prestigious con­ gregation with several representatives of the District’s Black elite be-

BLYDEN, CRUMMEL, AND BRUCE

39

coming active members. Crummell also played an important role in extending the Black Episcopal Church services to the masses of the Black community. These efforts included day schools for the children of poor Black families. Within the clergy, Crummell became the “mov­ ing force in the formation of the interdenominational Union of Col­ ored Ministers,” according to historian Willard Gatewood, and in 1883 he organized a “national caucus of black Episcopal clergy and laity . . . organized to fight racism in the Protestant Episcopal Church.” Al­ though Bruce was a member of the A.M.E. Zion church, these activi­ ties impressed him by reflecting his desire to see the “practical” as­ pects of Christianity applied to the spiritual and material needs of the Black community.36 By 1890 Bruce had developed a close friendship and regular corre­ spondence with Crummell. He was thirty-four and highly ambitious, while Crummell was thirty-seven years his senior and solidly posi­ tioned within the District’s Black elite. In some respects, Bruce viewed Crummell as a replacement for the father he had lost in slavery. These feelings may have been tempered by admiration for and apprehension of Crummell’s aristocratic background and formal education. Crum­ mell often reassured Bruce of his appreciation of their close relationship by stating, “You know I will do anything for you.”37 As in his relationship with Blyden, Bruce and Crummell shared specific interests that created a strong bond for friendship. They both believed that Africans and African Americans must be joined in a close relationship, and they were keenly interested in internal politics and the respective influence that these events had upon Africa and the destiny of Black Americans. History was a central force in their analy­ ses of all issues, and both articulated a view of Christianity that stressed a need to revive the “practical aspects” of Black religion. Crummell and Bruce also were dedicated to a philosophy of self-help and separate economic development. “For Negroes to forget that they were ‘colored people,’” according to Crummell, “or give up separate efforts in Negro organizations was equal to heresy.”38 Bruce’s commitment to using the word “Negro” and his hostility to the use of “Afro-American” can be traced to Crummell, who con­ sidered “Afro-American” a “bastard, milk and water term.” All efforts to use this designation instead of “Negro” had to be repudiated. In Bruce’s view, “Afro-American” and “colored” were labels used by

40

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those who were “neither fish, nor fowl, nor good red herring,” and who, using skin color and straight hair, called themselves “superior to the Blacks.” The only term adequate for African Americans, “regardless of color,” was “Negro”; any other term was an effort by “hybrids” to distinguish themselves from their darker brothers.39 Crummell’s vocal distaste for mulattoes was fueled by the bitter battles he and Blyden faced during their Liberian years. This was a consistent topic in letters exchanged with Bruce and certainly influ­ enced Bruce’s interpretation of the color debate in the Black commu­ nity. Bruce and Crummell both believed that a “Negro identity” was not solely based upon skin color. Those loyal to the race should be able to “think black.”40 Crummell believed that intellectual skills would play a significant role in liberating Black people. Just before his death, he encouraged Bruce to draft a column that would be “a strong, historical, well . . . seasoned” discussion of this topic. “The battle of the race is an intellec­ tual one,” wrote Crummell, “providing that it is mind which will be the stuff of achievement. . . . [We must] push aside the materialistic notions which are now the fashion.” This idea, after Crummell’s death, became a regular theme in Bruce’s speeches to Black youth, ed­ ucational groups, and ministers, as well as in his public advocacy for a chair of Negro history.41 For example, in 1915 Bruce was elected presi­ dent of the Phalanx Club, a literary and intellectual society. He en­ couraged his colleagues in the following manner: I wish to remind you gentlemen that the battle of this race is an intel­ lectual one and that the united intelligence of any body of earnest and clear-thinking, clear-headed men is a potent and powerful force, a dy­ namic force, in the solution of economic problems and of social prob­ lems. Men who think wisely and well are the principal men in the na­ tion today.42

Likewise, in 1917, while welcoming a group of newly ordained minis­ ters to Messiah Church in Yonkers, New York, Bruce also reflected Crummell’s influence upon his thinking when he declared, There is one other thing I wish to say, gentlemen, before I bid you wel­ come. It is that you will endeavor individually and collectively to pop­ ularize the movement now taking form, and favoring the establish-

BLYDEN, CRUMMEL, AND BRUCE

41

ment, in all our Negro institutions of learning, of a chair of Negro history, so that the generations to come after us will know, because the textbooks written by white men have been and are woefully silent on the Negro’s contributions to the general knowledge of the world. . . . Our environment makes us think white, and some of us think white so persistently that we haven’t time to think black. But to this complexion we must ultimately come, and I urge upon you gentlemen to help, with voice and pen, to hasten the coming of the morning when Negroes all over this broad land will wake up to the importance of thinking black.43

Bruce and Crummell also shared an interest in the struggle of African American women for economic, political, and educational opportuni­ ties. Bruce appreciated the support and limited class resources pro­ vided by his mother and grandmother during his youth. This experi­ ence created a sensitivity to the condition of Black women as well as their potential contributions to the race. Crummell frequently exchanged views on women in his letters to Bruce. This influence and his experiences during his youth encouraged Bruce to become an ar­ ticulate advocate for Black women.44 Crummell often expressed his “joy at being a married priest.” His first wife had died in the 1870s, and in 1880 he married Jennie M. Simpson in New York City. They had a supportive relationship and she was an active partner in her husband’s community activities and international travels. Bruce had also lost his first wife and Crummell urged him to remarry. As we have seen, in 1895 he followed Crum­ mell’s advice and married Florence A. Bishop of Cleveland, Ohio. The families became close friends during Crummell’s declining years in the late 1890s. Their wives appear to have had similar personalities. They were intensely loyal to their husbands, participated in their pro­ fessional and community projects, shared their political views, and maintained comfortable homes.45 The best public expression of Crummell’s views on women was a speech entitled “The Black Women of the South, Her Neglects and Her Needs.” These remarks appeared in Crummell’s book Africa and Amer­ ica (1891). He declared, I am anxious for a permanent and uplifting civilization to be engrafted on the Negro race in this land. And this can only be secured through the womanhood of a race. If you want the civilization of a people to

42

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reach the very best elements of their being . . . you must imbue the womanhood of that people with all its elements and qualities. I plead . . . for the establishment of at least one large “Industrial School” in every southern state for the black girls of the South. I am seeking . . . education of the land and use of the body . . . and [for] intellectual training.46

Bruce published a column in 1891 that sought to reinforce Crum­ mell’s speech on Black women. Bruce believed that Crummell identi­ fied slavery as the central factor that “crippled the Negro family.” The “uplifting of the race” had to come through reconstructing the role and needs of “Negro women.” Crummell’s speech was first delivered before the Freedman’s Aid Society in Ocean Grove, New Jersey, August 15, 1883.47 After Crummell’s death, Bruce continued his interest in and support of Black women through community organizations such as the White Rose Mission of New York City, founded by Victoria Earle Matthews. He established close ties with a score of Black women who were leaders, activists, or simply good friends. These included Grace Campbell, long-time associate with the Harlem People’s Educational Forum and cofounder of the White Rose Mission; Anna Murray Dou­ glass, Frederick Douglass’s first wife; Laura Eliza Wilkes, prominent District teacher and lay historian; Frances Ellen Watkins Harper, poet and writer; Mary Ann Shad Carey, lawyer and member of the Na­ tional Woman’s Suffrage Association; Josephine Wilson Bruce, the sec­ ond wife of Senator Blanche K. Bruce; Amanda and Susanna Aldridge, the daughters of Ira Aldridge; and Ida B. Wells-Barnett, antilynching advocate and cofounder of the National Association for the Advance­ ment of Colored People (NAACP). In his later years, Bruce often shared his observations and views on important Black women in a speech entitled “Noted Race Women I have Known and Met.” In this talk, Bruce would usually list contribu­ tions of his female colleagues and then stress that “a race rises with its women. . . . Negro women must continue to struggle” in concert with Black men. Bruce, like Crummell, believed that slavery had taken a great toll on the family. This was a particularly passionate theme for him since he had lost contact with his father during his own enslave­ ment. “Negro women,” according to Bruce, “were the key to racial ad­ vancement.”48

BLYDEN, CRUMMEL, AND BRUCE

43

Bruce sharpened his interpretation of domestic issues through his friendship with Crummell. This association was especially critical in his assessment of Black women, thoughts about appropriate terminol­ ogy to describe the race, explanations of race and class divisions in the Black community, and belief in the significance of intellectual tools for racial emancipation. Crummell also provided Bruce with a valuable connection to Black leaders in Africa and the Caribbean. His long tenure in Liberia and close association with Blyden gave Crummell the credentials to recommend Bruce to his African and Caribbean con­ tacts. Bruce appreciated this support and reciprocated Crummell’s at­ tention by usually “jabbing the rascals” who challenged his mentor in newspaper articles.49 The most important resource that Crummell provided Bruce was an advocate solidly positioned in the African American elite. Crum­ mell was a member of a select group of Black ministers who were well educated and politically sophisticated, presided over upper-class con­ gregations, and extended their influence far beyond the pulpit. Bruce’s previous mentors, Delaney and Garnet, died too early to serve this role, and Blyden’s influence was concentrated in Africa. Crummell had the desire and the ability to arrange Bruce’s introduction to a cir­ cle of university trained and socially prominent Black leaders. In addi­ tion, he wanted to increase the presence of those with a dark complexion, similar to himself, in the Black elite.50 Bruce and Crummell cemented their relationship at a pivotal point in their careers. Bruce had just been recognized as one of the foremost Black correspondents in America. He was relatively young and tenaciously dedicated to becoming a self-made success. Crummell was slowed by failing health but dedicated to organizing an institu­ tional response to the increased hostility of white America during this nadir in American race relations. In the next seven years, he would retire from the pulpit, briefly teach at Howard University, and dedicate his time to establishing the American Negro Academy (ANA). Crum­ mell understood that his years were limited and Bruce presented an opportunity for his race work to live on through a younger man. Bruce admired his older colleague and appreciated the class connec­ tions that could be cultivated by Crummell’s attention. The best exam­ ple of this observation was Bruce’s affiliation with the ANA.51 Membership in the ANA was restricted to “persons whose educa­ tion, occupation, or public activities were of great ‘respectability.’”

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One function of the academy, then, was to serve as a “showcase” for the race. During the planning stages, Richard R. Wright Sr., president of Georgia State Industrial College at Savannah, captured the spirit of this effort when he suggested that a national society was needed to “formulate strategies for solving problems of [Black] people and to re­ spond to the attacks of white intellectuals.” Crummell was a perfect selection for first president as he served as a public model for aspiring members. The ANA claimed as members some of the most important leaders in the Black community. Its founders included Francis J. Grimké, prominent District clergyman; W. E. B. Du Bois, professor of economics and history at Atlanta University; William H. Crogman, professor of classics at Clark University in Atlanta; John W. Cromwell, lawyer, educator, and former editor of the People’s Advocate, a Black newspaper published in the District; and William S. Scarborough, fac­ ulty member at Wilberforce University.52 Bruce was also a charter member of the ANA. It would have ap­ peared, however, that he would have had little hope of ever qualifying for membership. A former slave, he had little education and modest means. But this assessment does not take into account his journalistic accomplishments or his friendship with Crummell. While well known by ANA colleagues through his newspaper activities, Bruce was not a social acquaintance or member of the college-educated elite. Crummell shared his aspirations for the ANA with Bruce and probably nullified any opposition to his participation. Because of his passionate interest in history, Bruce was an excellent choice for mem­ bership. His articles and public lectures were always punctuated with references to historical situations or the need for African Americans to use history as a tool to offset the inferiority doctrine promoted by whites. In Bruce’s opinion, “If the Negro race would read more solid literature bearing upon its history and its achievements past and present, it would not have such a mean opinion of itself.” Bruce maintained an active relationship with the ANA and made every ef­ fort to honor Crummell’s memory. Bruce also cautioned his fellow members not to “fool ourselves nor let whites fool us into believing that their destiny and ours is coordinate. Only things equal to the same thing are equal to each other. The man who has robbed another of his birth right is not likely to return it voluntarily. He may salve his conscience occasionally by doing penance . . . but he will never

BLYDEN, CRUMMEL, AND BRUCE

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loosen his grip on your property until he drops dead or you will kill him.”53 While Blyden and Crummell provided important African contacts for Bruce, another correspondence he developed, with Dr. J. Robert Love, broadened his contact base in the West Indies. Some time between 1890 and 1893, John Bruce began to correspond with Love (1839–1914) of Kingston, Jamaica, who shared his passion for journalism, his intense pride in his ancestry, and his commitment to uplifting the race. Moreover, their relationship demonstrated how important the links were in the international exchange of Pan-African ideas that flour­ ished during the late nineteenth century. Born in Nassau, Bahamas, Love moved to the United States in 1866. In 1871 he was ordained an Episcopal deacon, and the next year he was placed in charge of St. Augustine’s Mission, Savannah, Geor­ gia. For the next four years, Love was active in mission work with Sa­ vannah’s fourteen thousand free men and women. He also became one of the South’s most popular Black preachers and a close friend of Bishop Henry McNeal Turner. Turner, one of the leading proponents of Black nationalism, influenced Love’s thinking and encouraged his career in the church.54 In 1867 Love was ordained an Episcopal priest in Buffalo, New York, and appointed rector of St. Philip’s Church. During the same pe­ riod, Love also attended medical school at the University of Buffalo, graduating in 1879. Impressed with Love’s accomplishments, church officials appointed him to the Episcopal Diocese of Western New York. In 1881 Love moved to the Episcopal mission in Haiti under the direc­ tion of Bishop James T. Holly, the first African American consecrated by the Episcopal Church. In the beginning, this relationship flour­ ished, but these two strong personalities eventually clashed in Sep­ tember 1882. Holly assigned Love to the Bell Air Mission, a congrega­ tion of English-speaking West Indian immigrants in Port-au-Prince. By July 1881, Holly decided to reward Love’s success with a permanent medical center. Apparently their disagreement centered around the construction and mission of the medical station in Haiti’s capital. Love was deposed by ecclesiastical authorities after a year-long struggle with Holly. He briefly tried to organize his own church in Port-auPrince, then accepted an appointment from Lysius Solomon, Haiti’s

46

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president, as the army physician. In 1884, Florville Hyppolite, the new Haitian president, forced Love to leave the Republic of Haiti for “fo­ menting domestic strife.” Love’s deportation was enforced despite the protest of Frederick Douglass, the newly appointed U.S. consul-gen­ eral to the Republic of Haiti.55 Love relocated to Kingston, Jamaica, where he built a career as a radical journalist and social reformer. He published the Jamaica Advo­ cate from 1895 to 1905, organized various benevolent societies, supported the efforts of Henry Sylvester Williams and the First PanAfrican Conference, championed popular rights and representative government, and served on the Kingston City Council. Love also became a mentor of and close advisor to the young Marcus Garvey from 1901 to 1910. Garvey believed that “one cannot read his [Dr. Love’s] Jamaica Advocate without getting race consciousness.” Poor health forced Love to retire from active political life in 1910.56 Even though Love and Bruce carried on a prolific correspondence, it appears they never met. Love was seventeen years older than Bruce and left America before Bruce became a successful journalist. But since Bruce was associated with a number of newspapers, he followed Love’s career. He probably had read of Love’s rise through the Episco­ pal Church hierarchy and his graduation from medical school, and he may have known of Love’s deportation from Haiti since Frederick Douglass had tried to intervene on Love’s behalf. Throughout Dou­ glass’s tenure as U.S. consul-general to the Republic of Haiti, Bruce followed his career and published articles on his activities.57 Bruce and Love began to exchange letters at least two years before the Jamaica Advocate commenced publication. Love solicited Bruce’s assistance in promoting a book he had published, and he supplied him with material on the Haitian Proclamation of Independence to ap­ pear in the Colored American. Love also requested that Bruce locate the whereabouts of Edmonia Lexis, a noted Black sculptress. In Love’s words, she erected a monument to a Baptist minister who “fought and suffered for our cause in the days that passed.”58 During Love’s tenure with the Jamaica Advocate, Bruce frequently had articles published in the paper, and he provided technical advice to Love. Love also reviewed a draft copy of Bruce’s proposed text for Black secondary schools and encouraged his colleague to complete the project. Love kept Bruce informed of church politics and requested

BLYDEN, CRUMMEL, AND BRUCE

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Bruce’s assistance as an intermediary in his attempt to fuse local fra­ ternal orders with similar groups in the United States.59 Bruce’s relationship with Love provided a significant set of international contacts and friends. Love became Bruce’s primary source of news in the Caribbean, while Bruce served a similar role for Love in the United States. They also shared a concern with the struggle to create an independent Africa. As Love declared in the Jamaica Advo­ cate, “Africa for the Africans” is the new shape of an old cry . . . [and] this cry will waken the so-called civilized world to a consciousness of the fact that others who are not accounted as civilized, think, with regard to natural rights, just as civilized people think.60

Bruce supported this position and maintained his own information supply on the African quest for self-determination through a network of West African nationalists. Bruce often shared Love’s letters, which voice ideas on Africa and his thoughts on the race question, with Alexander Crummell. After reviewing at least one example of Love’s thinking, Crummell informed Bruce that he rejoiced at the “solidarity of leading minds of the race in such wide and distant quarters of the globe.”61 Love was a dark-skinned man very similar in color to Bruce. This was another bond that Bruce shared also with Blyden, Crummell, and Delany. Love took great pride in his color and reinforced these senti­ ments in letters to Bruce, writing that he was a “handsome pure Negro.” Probably after exchanging family photographs, he informed Bruce, “You are not ‘too black for me.’ There are very few of my color who can beat me in Blackness. . . . I am foolish enough to be a little vain of being so Black.” The notion of “pure Negro” was a common theme in the rhetoric of late-nineteenth-century Black nationalist thought. Blyden, Crummell, and Delany all voiced their versions of this concept in their political and personal lives. Love doubtless used this idea, in part, as a reaction to the color and class restrictions that molded West Indian society.62 Bruce’s relationship with Love did not resemble the close and intimate ties he enjoyed with Blyden and Crummell. Nonetheless, as col­ leagues and friends, they maintained contact until Love’s death in

48

BLYDEN, CRUMMEL, AND BRUCE

1914. Bruce was influenced by Love’s commitments to radical journalism and social justice. These values were particularly evident in the later years of Bruce’s life as he voiced his opposition to lynching, Jim Crow, and social Darwinism. Bruce’s ties to Love also provided a bet­ ter understanding of West Indian politics and an important link for West Indian immigrants seeking a new home in the United States. In 1916 Marcus Garvey, who had been one of Love’s disciples, sought Bruce out as one of his first contacts in America. Bruce provided sev­ eral letters of recommendation and a list of friends scattered throughout the country, thus providing the launching pad for the largest na­ tionalist movement among Blacks in the Western Hemispehere.63

3 Race, Politics, and Patronage John Edward Bruce and the Republican Party

On September 8, 1879, the Weekly Argus boasted that it was “Republi­ can at all times and under all circumstance.” Despite the Great Com­ promise with the South nearly two years earlier, John Edward Bruce, co-owner and associate editor of the paper, believed the destiny and welfare of African America was tied to the Republican Party. Bruce’s conclusion was a mixture of political opportunism and Republican loyalty. The Weekly Argus, founded by Bruce to promote Republican candidates and party leaders, received financial support from the GOP during the 1880 campaign. Bruce sold his interest in the Argus to a stock company in 1881, but his allegiance to the Republican Party re­ mained unquestioned. This, however, would change in 1883.1 During the first fifteen months of Chester Arthur’s administration, Black Republicans became disillusioned with the new president’s poli­ cies. William E. Chandler, secretary of the navy and future senator from New Hampshire, directed the administration’s southern strategy, crafting a policy that gave lip service to protecting Black rights while supporting an assortment of lily-white independent movements. The Arthur administration also fostered Black exclusion among southern Republicans. “Negro officials,” the president declared, “do not help the party as much as white officials.” This challenge to Bourbon su­ premacy not only ignored respected African American leaders but also quickly diminished any hopes of Black patronage appointments.2 As the Republican establishment distanced itself from Black party loyalists, the national commitment to racial equality also eroded. After 1880, mob violence and lynching became alarmingly common throughout the South, while northerners and their elected representa­ tives questioned any form of federal intervention in southern affairs. 49

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Radical Republicans were vilified by the country and sectional contro­ versy over the race question avoided African Americans, as white public sentiment wanted to “bury the bloody shirt” and reconcile the differences between the North and South. In addition, during this pe­ riod of a boom in the nation’s railroad system and explosion in indus­ trialization, America’s energy was concentrated on uniting the coun­ try and increasing its material welfare. The status of Black citizens became a negotiable factor in the reunification and economic advancement of the United States.3 By 1883 these developments fueled a thriving debate among Black leaders and intellectuals on the merits of political independence, the relationship of the Republican Party to the African American commu­ nity, and the need for an equitable share of political patronage and leadership positions. For the next thirty-seven years, John Edward Bruce was an articulate and passionate participant in this dialogue. He authored myriad articles and speeches about the Republican Party while recording his observations on race relations and the American political scene. Bruce’s personal ambition and political vacillation, as well as his attempt to prevent the gradual deterioration of Black polit­ ical power and the value of citizenship, defined the range of his activi­ ties in the Republican Party.4 Bruce supported the Republican Party through the First World War but challenged its accountability to Black voters as he struggled to lock down a patronage position. As a child of the Lincoln era, he could never bring himself to support the Democratic opposition and he often viewed Blacks who cast their vote with the former slave hold­ ers as simply individuals seeking personal gain. He communicated with Black independent movements but thought they were doomed to failure. Bruce also participated in several efforts to bolster and prevent the deterioration of Black political influence; however, this struggle in­ volved fighting against the nation’s disillusionment with its commit­ ment to Black equality. His journalistic skills were often used to solicit Black votes and augment his personal ambitions within the party. Bruce’s long sojourn in the Republican Party ended when he joined forces with the Garvey movement. Between 1874 and 1882, John Bruce entered Republican politics while carving out a career in journalism. A young and ambitious man in his twenties, Bruce had grown up listening to Black Republican partisans,

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such as Martin Delany and Henry Highland Garnet, debating public policy in his cousin’s boarding house. He and his mother had been freed by Union troops; he had witnessed the frantic final hours of President Lincoln’s life; and he had worked for President Grant’s fa­ ther-in-law during his youth. He was part of a generation of African Americans who credited their emancipation to the party of Lincoln. All these factors contributed to Bruce’s early allegiance to the Republi­ can Party. “For such individuals, psychological dependency on the Republican party acquired during the war and Reconstruction,” the his­ torian Bess Beatty has observed, “was difficult to cast off even after the party had largely abandoned the cause of black rights.”5 While working as an assistant to Lorenzo Crouse, associate editor in the Washington office of the New York Times, and representing John Freeman’s New York Progressive American, Bruce was exposed to two journalists who furthered his appreciation for politics before he was twenty years old. Crouse had supported his brother’s successful cam­ paign for governor of Nebraska and used these connections to strengthen his insider ties to the District’s political establishment. Freeman had been an unyielding adversary of New York City’s school board and an experienced political fighter for Black civil rights in the Empire State. These men provided two different views of the political arena. Crouse covered the world of federal patronage and white power brokers who had mastered the skills of political survival. Freeman was an articulate voice for Black protest, an expert on community issues, and a veteran of Black organizations that had challenged the status quo. As Bruce matured, the qualities of both men influenced his goals and activities within the Republican Party.6 From 1877 to 1880, Bruce became a correspondent for Black pa­ pers based in St. Louis, Detroit, Indianapolis, Chicago, Fayetteville, North Carolina, and Richmond, Virginia. His byline was attracting readers while editors were eager to add his puissant views to their publications. In September 1979, Bruce teamed with Charles N. Otley to publish the Weekly Argus in Washington, D.C. At twenty-one years of age, Bruce had made his first leap into Republican politics. Fi­ nanced by party authorities, the Argus promoted the presidential can­ didacy of James Garfield and his running mate, Chester Arthur. Bruce had parlayed his political contacts gained through association with John Freeman and Lorenzo Crouse into party recognition and finan­ cial support. Since Garfield was a compromise candidate, there was

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some concern that “older and more independent” Black newspapers would not aggressively work for the Ohio congressman. While Bruce proclaimed that his paper would be “a fearless advocate” and “use its best endeavors to make the party a success in 1880,” the Topeka Tri­ bune cautioned that the Republicans were “being either too weak or too cowardly to insure black safety and a fair ballot.” Yet, on the eve of the election, the Tribune insisted that the Republican Party should be supported not out of gratitude but because “it was at the time the only progressive party in America.” This was Bruce’s first experience as a “hired gun” used to firm up the Black vote for the Republican Party.7 While musical groups such as the Fisk Jubilee Singers worked for the Republican ticket, Bruce formed the District’s only Black Republi­ can glee club. In October, he solicited Garfield for funds to purchase uniforms for his vocal group. To impress the party leader, Bruce de­ clared that he “preached the gospel of Republicanism to the children of darkness.” After Garfield’s inauguration, Bruce requested that his glee club sing for the president and his family. He assured Garfield that his group had “touched the souls of the disciples of money and strengthened the hearts of the stalwarts” on the campaign trail. Garfield refused, but Bruce persisted in his ambition to attract the at­ tention of the party establishment.8 Throughout 1880 Bruce published editorials tracing the political history and “anti-Negro bias of the Democratic party.” He character­ ized the Republicans as the “champions” of African Americans while writing that southern Democrats practiced the “cowardice of disfran­ chisement.” Bruce agreed with Carl Schurz, former secretary of the in­ terior, who predicted that the “Negro would be hindered and ha­ rassed in his struggle to be a man.” Bruce also argued for federal inter­ vention to “protect Southern Negro citizens who would pay with their blood” to vote in national elections. Nine years later, President Harri­ son would elevate Bruce’s call for a “force bill” to a national debate when he endorsed a similar concept during his state of the union address.9 In addition to debating public issues, Bruce also monitored the private lives of Republican politicians. In 1880, Bruce wrote, the “po­ litical waters” of Washington were infested with “sharks” who em­ ployed a variety of devices to con unsuspecting members of Congress. The best example is Bruce’s observation about Senator Philetus Sawyer of Michigan. He became involved with a “lovely lady” who convinced him to donate one thousand dollars for “an orphan girls

RACE, POLITICS, AND PATRONAGE

53

home.” After investigation, Bruce concluded that the “orphan’s home” was no more than her private whorehouse. Bruce also investigated the conduct of former Mississippi Senator Blanche Kelso Bruce, whom he characterized as a “political and racial charlatan” whose performance as recorder of deeds for the District of Columbia was inferior in com­ parison to that of Black Democratic appointees James C. Matthews and James Monroe Trotter. Bruce charged that George C. Smith, Blanche Bruce’s private secretary, actually ran the recorder’s office for a fee of one hundred dollars a month.10 John Edward Bruce’s description of respected Black Republican Blanche Kelso Bruce as a “racial charlatan” also revealed his contempt for the District’s mulatto aristocracy. After leaving the Senate in 1881, Blanche Kelso Bruce maintained both a privileged lifestyle and na­ tional prominence in the Black community for almost twenty years. He lectured throughout the country, usually traveling to cities such as New York, Chicago, Indianapolis, Memphis, or Boston. His contact with the Black masses, according to historian Willard B. Gatewood, was “largely limited to making addresses at public gatherings, or “mass meetings.” At the same time, while he resided in Washington, D.C., he alo maintained several plantations in the Mississippi Delta which were quite profitable. Blanche Kelso Bruce, however, had little affinity for his Black workers who were trapped in the sharecropping system. He had moved well beyond his slave roots into the world of the Black elite and his attitude toward his farm workers resembled that of the paternalistic white planters.11 The crowning achievement of Blanche Kelso Bruce’s senatorial ca­ reer was heading the investigation of the bankrupt Freeman’s Savings and Trust Company in 1879. He handled a complicated assignment in an exceptional manner and saved three-fifths of the depositors’ money. After 1881 Senator Roscoe Conkling of New York served as his primary advocate for presidential patronage appointments. Blanche Kelso Bruce believed that white America would always control the fate of African Americans, and his political philosophy was a mixture of patience, compromise, persuasion, moderation, and a repudiation of violence. These qualities and a steadfast belief in education, Bruce wrote, would ensure a “slow and painful” march toward equality. But Bruce’s agenda and style actually produced “far more for himself and his friends,” contends historian Samuel L. Shapiro, “than he did for the great mass of southern Negroes.”12

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Bruce was a “representative colored man” whom whites desig­ nated as a racial spokesman. The historian Nell Irvin Painter has ob­ served that Black and white newspapers of the late nineteenth century designated certain educated and acculturated Black individuals as “representative colored men.” They spoke a language whites could understand, and they usually viewed the masses of unschooled Blacks as inferior to them. The irony of Blanche Kelso Bruce’s designation as a racial leader was that he and his wife, Josephine Wilson Bruce, had little social contact with Blacks. Their world, particularly after racial lines began to harden in 1883, consisted of a mulatto aristocracy posi­ tioned between the white and Black world. They glorified “Caucasian features” and prided themselves upon the distance they could main­ tain from members of the race. John Bruce had been a vocal critic of this mentality since he was twenty-one. He believed the former sena­ tor practiced a form of racial dishonesty that allowed him to stand upon the backs of the rank and file and reap the rewards of profitable patronage appointments, while simultaneously maintaining a lifestyle that held the African American community in contempt.13 By 1883, Black Republicans were engaged in a thriving debate over the merits of political independence. As President Arthur courted an assortment of racially exclusive movements in the South, Black lead­ ers were disgusted by the administration’s display of racist attitudes. Arthur had less interest in the rights of African Americans than did James A. Garfield or Rutherford B. Hayes. Black disillusionment with what was perceived as the meager “crumbs” of political patronage also fueled the calls for Black political independence.14 Black politicians and intellectuals never reached a consensus on the meaning of “independence.” For some, it meant “continued but critical allegiance to the Republican party.” Others called for “dis­ avowal of the Republican party in non-election years but support of the party at the polls.” A few independents encouraged the Black com­ munity to split their support among all parties. Independence could also mean complete withdrawal from the Republican Party. This posi­ tion was denounced by Black Republicans as de facto support of the Democratic Party. John Edward Bruce was active in this debate. Republican indifference to African Americans challenged Bruce’s loyalty but he was reluctant to abandon the party.15

RACE, POLITICS, AND PATRONAGE

55

In April 1883, Bruce warned readers of the Washington Globe that there was “widespread discontent” among Blacks, and he predicted that “Republican leaders would soon answer for their indifference.” Bruce’s prophecy was realized with a series of Black conventions that met from July through December of 1883. During July, the South Car­ olina State Convention of Colored Men, meeting in Columbia, accused the Republican Party of ignoring southern Blacks to recruit white vot­ ers. At the close of the convention, the Committee on Resolutions in­ dicted the Republican Party “for its omission[s] . . . in connection with our race.”16 Following the South Carolina gathering, a national convention was scheduled for Washington, D.C., in September. The goal was to debate Republican neglect and further the race’s political independ­ ence. Eventually preconvention plans became too entangled and or­ ganizers moved the event to Louisville, Kentucky. Bruce suspected that the unspoken agenda was an effort by Black Democrats to solicit disillusioned Republican support. He believed that convention leaders were “not moved by any honest desire to benefit the great mass of my race but to benefit themselves . . . with the presence and condition of the Negro as the argument to accomplish their purpose. These men want office . . . , power” and “influence.” Few agreements were recorded in Louisville, but the conference did register opposition to the continued violation of Black rights, agree on the necessity for racial pride, and express support for self-sufficiency.17 Shortly after the Louisville convention, the Republican-dominated Supreme Court declared the Civil Rights Act of 1875 unconstitutional. This had been the last major legislation passed by the Republican Party to ensure Black rights. Protest meetings were held throughout the United States to voice public disagreement with the Court’s action. In New York City fifteen hundred African Americans assembled to challenge the legitimacy of the decision. During late October, the Dis­ trict of Columbia witnessed a series of meetings protesting the Court’s action. Two thousand people gathered at Lincoln Hall to hear Freder­ ick Douglass denounce the Court’s ruling as a “moral cyclone” sweep­ ing across the land. Close to one thousand people gathered at the First Congregational Church as John Mercer Langston, United States minis­ ter to Haiti, predicted that the decision would make Blacks more polit­ ically self-reliant.18

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John Edward Bruce joined the chorus of Black leaders speaking out against Supreme Court’s nullification of the Civil Rights Act of 1875. In an address before the Bethesda Literary Society in Georgetown, Bruce observed that there was “a class of half-educated people belonging to the superior race in this country, who are devoting all their energies, and what little intelligence God has given them . . . to demonstrate that the Negro isn’t as good as a white man.”19 He fur­ ther declared, The American people do not seem to be willing to give us a hearing and discuss the question of Civil Rights fairly, and honestly. We have never asked for any more rights than other citizens enjoy. What we want and what we must and will have is the absolute equality of op­ portunity for every man, woman, and child without regard to racial distinctions. And we must go about securing this sovereign right in­ telligently, dispassionately, and determinedly.

Bruce next delivered a speech entitled “Is This Our Country?” on November 7 in the District. He expressed his fury about the Supreme Court by focusing upon the condition of southern Blacks and the weaknesses of the American system of government. According to Bruce, In this so-called land of the free and home of the brave it is a common thing for us to speak of it as “Our Country.” . . . Socially and politically it is not our country but simply our abiding place. . . . We are permit­ ted to exercise such right [that] conforms to the ideas of the dominant race. “Our Country,” boasting laws, its magnanimity, its glory, its great-is not powerful nor influential enough to secure to the humblest Negro citizen the fullest enjoyment of his civil and political rights. . . . The horrors of Hell surround the unprotected Negroes in almost every Southern State in “Our Country.” The Constitution and the Declaration of Independence, so far as they relate to the Negro . . . , are the blackest lies ever evolved has lived a lie. The Founding Fathers . . . never for once in my judgment con­ templated the idea that the Negro was to enjoy in common with the white race the benefits and privileges which are proper and just ob­ servance . . . those papers sought to bestow.20

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57

During the same speech, Bruce also suggested that African Ameri­ cans must search for remedies in the difficult times that face the race. He contended that “education . . . will unlock the door [of opportu­ nity] and the Almighty dollar will push it open wide enough for any Negro to pass through with ease. . . . Let the Negroes of the United States become a unit . . . and present a solid front. . . . The result will be astonishing to the most incredulous theorist among us.”21 In January 1884, Bruce continued his criticism of President Arthur’s “lack of backbone” in defending the rights of African Ameri­ cans. During April, Black leaders sponsored a conference in Pitts­ burgh to organize for the 1884 presidential election. Bruce did not attend, but he was a close observer of the debate and proposed resolu­ tions. Various combinations representing the Republican ticket were debated. In addition, vocal support, led by Indiana delegates, was expressed for backing a Democratic candidate. Due to the division among participants, the convention adjourned without endorsing a specific candidate or developing a campaign strategy. Strong opposi­ tion was raised against the nomination of Senator James G. Blaine. “Blaine’s presidential ambitions,” according to the historian Bess Beatty, “had prompted him to shift from support of black aspirations in the South to lily-white Republicans and reconciliation with southern Democrats.”22 In May, Bruce continued his criticism of the Republicans, asserting that they were “ungrateful to the negro.” This shortcoming further confirmed to Bruce that the party was “mean, corrupt, and narrow.” In June the Republicans nominated Blaine for president with Illinois Sen­ ator John A. Logan as his running mate. Most Black leaders, including Bruce, rationalized their support of Blaine only because Logan was on the ticket. Logan’s greatest asset was his sponsorship of a bill to inves­ tigate the condition of southern Blacks. After having criticized the Republicans since January, Bruce vowed his support for the party’s ticket in June; and in August he announced that the Washington Grit had been made the “official organ of the West End Blaine and Logan Club.” Bruce also unsuccessfully solicited financial contributions for the Grit from Senator Henry Cabot Lodge of Massachusetts and the Republican National Committee. But presumably Bruce did receive fi­ nancial assistance for his paper through other contacts with the Republican ticket.23

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Bruce had known and admired Blaine and Logan before they were teamed in the 1884 campaign. Bruce’s contact with Blaine dated back to Blaine’s days as speaker of the house. He quoted Blaine in his speeches and respected his pronouncements on protecting the “weak­ est . . . citizens in all their rights.” While Blaine was also a powerful political figure who could help to fulfill Bruce’s patronage ambitions, Bruce had a closer relationship with “Black Jack” Logan and his wife. In later years, Bruce declared, “I took several delegations of colored men to see him and to urge his support of measures before the Senate in which colored men were interested. . . . Mrs. Logan encouraged him to stand by us in the Senate.”24 In September Bruce reported the “startling announcement” that “a large number of . . . Negroes in Ohio are breaking away from the Republican party.” He believed that “if this was true it would be a sad commentary upon” their “intelligence.” Despite Bruce’s disclaimer, the Democratic Party had gained support among disillusioned Black northern Republicans. Black Democrats in Ohio were led by Herbert Clark, publisher of the Afro-American, and his father, Peter Clark, a re­ spected educator and reportedly “the first American Negro Socialist.” Grover Cleveland’s victory in the 1884 campaign installed the first De­ mocratic president since emancipation. Frederick Douglass believed the Republicans had lost because they were “loud for the protection of men.” Bruce had worked hard on behalf of Blaine and Logan, but the election of a Democrat eliminated his possibilities of greater access to the White House and a patronage appointment.25 President Cleveland alleviated Black Republican fears by proclaiming in his inaugural address that “there should be no pretext for anxiety touching the protection of the freedom in their fights or their security.” These remarks were widely praised by African America and created a favorable climate of optimism during the initial months of Cleveland’s administration. Bruce sought to exploit this opportunity by establishing contact with the president.26 Bruce then mailed a copy of the Washington Grit to Lamont for the president’s review. Cleve­ land found the name of Bruce’s paper intriguing and invited him to the White House. During a brief meeting, Bruce explained the mean­ ing of his paper’s name and shared his experiences after slavery with the president. Cleveland, declaring that “he had great sympathy” for African Americans, explained that before the Civil War his family had been involved with abolitionist activities. The appointment concluded

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59

with the president wishing Bruce “all success”and donating ten dol­ lars for the Grit.27 It is difficult to understand President Cleveland’s motivations for inviting Bruce to the White House. The president’s advisors knew not only that Bruce was a Republican partisan but also that the Grit was fi­ nanced by the GOP. Cleveland may have been trying to expand his in­ fluence among potential Black northern voters. Black leaders re­ spected Cleveland’s personal convictions, especially after he had supported James Matthews and then James Monroe Trotter for the position of recorder of deeds. Both of these Black Democrats faced stiff Republican opposition during the confirmation process, and most Black Republicans denounced Cleveland’s passive southern policy for condoning “home rule” and failing to protect Black voting rights. The president’s attention enhanced Bruce’s reputation among Black jour­ nalists, but it did not reduce his criticism of the Democrats. By the end of 1885, Bruce charged that Cleveland’s “clean sweep and reform” administration had refused to enforce the constitutional rights of southern Blacks.28 Throughout 1886 and 1887, Black support for the Prohibition cause blossomed but few African Americans became formal members of the Prohibition party. During this period, while John Bruce was the editor of the Baltimore Commonwealth, he endorsed the advocates of temperance in Maryland because, as he declared, he was tired of “cheap white politicians” and because the Prohibitionists acknowl­ edged African Americans as legitimate citizens. Bruce’s flirtation with the Prohibition party was motivated by his frustration with the Republicans’ failure to protect Black southern voters. There is no evi­ dence that he actually joined the party, and his vocal support was short lived. By May 1888, Bruce had returned to the GOP fold and was campaigning for General Russell A. Alger for president. He also was serving as secretary of the Young Men’s Negro Republican Club, a po­ sition that allowed him to develop a strategic relationship with Charles S. Clarkson, chairman of the Republican National Committee.29 In May 1887, T. Thomas Fortune (1856–1927) began organizing the Afro-American League to create a national coalition of Black organiza­ tions. The Afro-American League was the latest incarnation of the con­ vention movement and an ambitious example of late-nineteenth-cen­ tury racial self-help and solidarity. Fortune, a leading journalist, was

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one of the most articulate advocates of Black political independence. He believed that African America had been forsaken by its white allies and that Blacks had to “face the enemy . . . stand up like men . . . fight fire with fire” and struggle “inch by inch for every right he denies us.” Bruce, who agreed with this political stand, had been an advocate of racial solidarity since 1875. He and Fortune were also colleagues and friends. They were the same age, both were the sons of slave parents, and they both shared a passion for journalism and a deep commit­ ment to racial equality. Bruce published in the Globe, the Freeman, and the New York Age, all papers owned and edited by Fortune. Their friendship was probably sealed in the fall of 1875. Fortune, who had just moved to Washington, D.C., had enrolled in the Normal Depart­ ment of Howard University. Bruce had launched his newspaper career and, according to the historian I. Garland Penn, was known to audit classes at Howard University. Later, after experiencing failing health, becoming an alcoholic, and suffering a nervous breakdown in 1907, Fortune struggled with mental illness and spent several years living as a derelict without permanent employment. In 1923, Bruce arranged for his friend to be hired as an editor with MGarvey’s Negro World. This opportunity helped to stabilize Fortune’s life during his final years.30 In 1887 Fortune defined the goals of the Afro-American League: The objects of this league are to protest against taxation without rep­ resentation; to secure a more equitable distribution of school funds; to insist upon fair and impartial treatment by judge and jury of peers, . . . to resist by all legal and reasonable means mob and lynch law, . . . and to insist upon the arrest and punishment of all such offenders against our legal rights; to resist the tyrannical usage of railroads and steamboats and other corporations, and the violent and insulting character of their employees in all instances where we are concerned, by prose­ cution of such corporations and their employees in state and federal courts; to labor for the reformation of our penal institutions, where barbarous, cruel, and unchristian treatment of convicts is practiced; and to insist on healthy emigration from terror-ridden sections to other . . . law-abiding sections.31

From 1887 to 1890, Bruce assisted Fortune in organizing local chapters of the Afro-American League. Success was slow during the

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fall of 1887, but by 1889 the league’s appeal had resulted in the estab­ lishment of more than forty chapters stretching from Boston to San Francisco.32 Bruce was a leader in Washington’s local chapter. On April 4, 1890, at the Second Baptist Church, he delivered a powerful speech entitled “The Blot on the Escutcheon,” which not only cap­ tured the philosophical position of the league but also issued a chal­ lenge to its membership: The solution of the problem is in our hands; talk won’t solve it; prom­ ises and threats won’t solve it; the assimilation of the races will not solve it. The Negro must preserve his race identity, must unite his en­ ergies, talent and money, and make common cause. He must, in order to get justice from white men, show them that he is entitled to it not as a privilege, but as a common right vouchsafed to all by Almighty God. Unity and harmony of sentiment and feeling . . . are the levers that must of necessity overturn American caste-prejudice. In organization, co-operation and agitation the Negro will come nearer to the solution of the white man’s problem than by meekly submitting to injustice and wrong at the hands of those who are responsible for our condition; who murder our defenseless brethren, for daring to be men.33

The Afro-American League became defunct in 1893. Insufficient funds, internal bickering, declining mass support, and the opposition of such leaders as Frederick Douglass, John Mercer Langston, Blanche Kelso Bruce, and P. B. S. Pinchback contributed to its death. In 1898, remnants of the league resurfaced as the Afro-American Council, led by Fortune and Bishop Alexander Walters; but Fortune resigned from the organization in March 1904. Bruce’s relationship with the Council never matched his enthusiasm for the league, which was under the domination of Booker T. Washington and his Tuskegee Machine. Southern Black conservatives effectively controlled the council’s agenda until its last meeting in October 1906 in New York City. Nonetheless, for the duration of his life, Bruce remained dedicated to the principles he had summarized before the league’s Washington branch in 1890.34 Shortly after Benjamin Harrison’s inauguration in March 1889, Bruce restored his Republican ties and even secured a personal interview with the new president. His initial impression was positive, but three

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months later Bruce joined a contingent criticizing Harrison’s poor record for dispensing federal patronage to Black Republicans. Bruce also deplored the violence and organized discrimination that was being unleashed upon southern Blacks. The historian Morgan Kousser has determined that the initial wave of voting limitations was institu­ tionalized between 1888 and 1893. Mississippi served as the model for the restriction of Black voting rights. This state’s approach included a combination of residence restrictions, poll tax, specific criminal con­ victions, a literacy test, and an understanding clause to allow illiterate whites to meet the literacy requirements. This package allowed Mis­ sissippi to nullify the Fifteenth Amendment. Throughout the South, economic penalties, fraud, and constitutional restrictions drastically reduced the political force of African Americans. Bruce believed that these developments were encouraged by the neglect that northern Republicans had shown to the problems faced by southern Blacks.35 As disfranchisement accelerated, lynching became a common ex­ perience and a form of ritual violence that underpinned the systematic oppression of Black southerners. From 1885 to 1889, the number of lynchings increased by 63.5 percent. From 1890 to 1894, there was another 60.4 percent increase, with an all-time high of 161 Blacks killed by lynch mobs in 1892. Lynchings were witnessed by hundreds of men, women, and children who participated in a ceremony of torture, mutilation, picture taking, and burning before the Black victim was killed. White lynch mobs cut across all class lines and often rational­ ized their actions by declaring that they were protecting white women from rape or an assortment of sexual improprieties committed by Black men. In reality, Blacks could become lynch victims as a result of the slightest challenge to the status quo.36 Bruce was a relentless critic of southern lynch mobs and one of the few African American leaders who advocated Black retaliatory violence. On October 5, 1889, he challenged a District audience with a carefully constructed speech that addressed the application of force as a “solution of the . . . Negro problem. I am not unmindful of the fact that there are those,” Bruce announced, “who are still pregnated with . . . fear . . . which had its origin in oppression.” But Blacks must realize that “the man who will not fight for the protec­ tion of his wife and children is a coward and deserves to be ill treated. The man who takes his life in his hands and stands up for what he knows to be right will always command the respect of his

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enemy.”37 Bruce believed that “under the present condition,” self-de­ fense was “the only hope, the only salvation for the Negro.” This tactic had to be directed “with proper organization and intelligent leadership.” Bruce declared that he hated “nambypambyism or anything that looks like temporizing.” African Americans could not af­ ford to be “rash or indiscreet . . . but must be . . . determined, . . . earnest, and of one mind.”38 He concluded his speech by making a call for “organized resistance”: Under the Mosaic dispensation, it was the custom to require “an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth.” Under no less Barbarous civiliza­ tion than that which existed at that period of the world’s history, let the Negro require at the hands of every white murderer in the South or elsewhere a life for a life. If they burn your houses, burn theirs. If they kill your wives and children, kill theirs. Pursue them relentlessly. Meet force with force, everywhere it is offered. If they demand blood, exchange with them until they are satiated. By a vigorous adherence to this course, the shedding of human blood by white men will soon become a thing of the past. Wherever and whenever the Negro shows himself to be a man he can always command the respect even of a cutthroat. Organized resistance to organized resistance is the best remedy for the solution of the vexed problem of the century which to me seems practicable and feasible.39

In March 1891, Bruce drafted an article that indicted white Chris­ tians for their refusal to publicly denounce Black oppression and for compromising Christian teachings. Bruce felt that the “religion of the white man is steeped in prejudice and hate.” It flourished “in indiffer­ ence and hyprocrisy” while maintaining a “clam-like silence” on “injustice.”40 Bruce contended, Since the close of the late war of rebellion there has been going on in the South a systematic slaughter of innocent Negro men, women and children by white men, who control and direct the social and political affairs of that section of this country. It has been estimated that more than fifty thousand of such murders have been committed in the South within the past twenty-six years, and the cases are rare indeed where the guilty and bloody assassins have been apprehended when known, or punished for their crimes if apprehended.41

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Bruce continued to hammer away at the “refinement” of the white Christian “humbuggery” for not “denouncing the shameless, . . . cow­ ardly, . . . and brutal murder” of African American lynch victims. “In a Christian country . . . abounding in bibles, prayer books,” and “mis­ sionary societies,” the white clergy are “deeply interested in the wel­ fare” of certain foreign nations. But American Christian sentiment “shuts its holy eyes to the festering scab upon its own body and seeks to heal the sores of other nations.”42 During the short life of the Afro-American League, Bruce used the resources and exposure of the organization to continue his crusade against lynchings and southern violence. While speaking to Branch Number One in Washington, D.C., Bruce asserted that the “‘modern barbarian’ has been dignified by the title of ‘White Citizen.’”43 Bruce further declared, They now roast objectionable Negroes alive in certain portions of . . . our country. I have read of the deeds of cruelty committed by one reli­ gious faction against another, of how thirty thousand were burned at the stake in one day. How men, women and children were thrown from high eminences upon wagons filled with sharp pointed spikes which lacerated their bodies and destroyed their lives; how men were hung with their heads downward until life was extinct; of Nero the tyrant and bigot who fiddled while the seven-hilled city burned. But this modern barbarism practiced upon the Negro in Christian Amer­ ica by white men who boast of high civilization makes me tremble for this country when I remember that God is just.44

In 1901 Bruce published a pamphlet entitled The Blood Red Record in which he reviewed the modern history of American lynching and documented the fourteen recorded burnings at the stake from Febru­ ary 1, 1893, to January 15, 1901. Bruce also listed the names of 117 indi­ vidual Blacks lynched during 1900. Just eighteen were charged with rape, clearly disputing the contention by white southerners that this was the only crime for which Blacks were lynched.45 Throughout this document Bruce identified northern indifference as the reason for the continued toleration of lynching: The difference in the estimate of the white men of the South and the white men of the North, is that the former is frank, outspoken in the

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conviction that the Negro is fundamentally inferior to the white men, and, therefore, can never be his equal, the white men of the North, who almost believe the same thing, patronize him, and in a half-hearted manner call him brother. Yet when this black brother is burned at the stake by his white southern brother, his white Northern brother does not take on nearly so much, nor express himself with half the vigor, earnestness and bitterness that he does when Christian missionaries are massacred in China or when the serfs of Russia are brutally whipped . . . or when the Armenian brethren are murdered by the hun­ dred for Christ’s sake by the unspeakable Turk. And yet its black citi­ zens at home are subjected to . . . outrages, and no voice is raised in their defense.46

Bruce concluded that this situation must be blamed on the Republi­ can Party, which, for reasons that were “largely commercial,” had “suspended the work which first called it into being. It is no longer the party of human rights.” He concluded that “the development of the commerce of the nation, the building of a great navy, the organi­ zation of a standing army, and ship subsidies . . . are all . . . of far greater importance than the protection of the lives and property of Negroes, who wear the empty and meaningless title of American citi­ zen.”47 Bruce remained an antilynching advocate for the rest of his life. His published columns that often reported neglected but persistent vi­ olence in the South. As late as 1919, he protested that the “propensity to rape was an entirely false charge against the Negro.” Toward the end of his life, in the 1920s, he supported the Dyer Anti-Lynching Bill and still denounced the Republican Party for turning its back on southern violence.48 In November 1896, William McKinley was elected president. During the same month, the Supreme Court gave judicial sanction to segrega­ tion when, in the Plessy v. Ferguson decision, it declared that “separate but equal” treatment was constitutional. Black Republicans were disil­ lusioned by this decision, but many viewed McKinley’s election with “renewed hope that political rights would be restored” and Blacks would be granted a role in the new administration. In December 1896, Alexander Crummell warned Bruce that McKinley was “(negatively) a friend of the Negro” and nothing would be forthcoming from him to

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improve the quality of Black life and/or to increase Black participa­ tion in public life.49 Despite Crummell’s warning, and what historian Rayford Logan termed the “calloused disregard” of the McKinley administration for African Americans, Bruce had great difficulty resolving his ambivalent feelings about and relationship with the Republican Party. In 1899 he drafted an article entitled “The Negro and His Future,” which argued that African Americans had reached the limits of their political, social, and industrial progress in America. Whites had placed a wholesale embargo on Black aspirations, and the few leaders who were sympa­ thetic to those aspirations were passing from the scene. Further Black progress, Bruce predicted, would prove “only ephemeral, . . . artificialtemporary-instable.” Bruce also accused the Republican Party of fos­ tering a move to “eliminate all meaningful Negro representation.” But then, less than a year later, he reversed his conclusions and encour­ aged “every thoughtful and intelligent Negro” to cast his vote for the Republicans.50 Bruce’s ambivalence over, and conflict with, the Republican Party was evident throughout the two decades after the compromise of 1876. But Bruce did not relinquish his ties to Republican politics until just after the First World War. Meanwhile, in 1912, Bruce predicted a war between Japan and the United States, in a short story entitled “The Call of a Nation.” This tale envisioned Japan’s defeat of America while “all citizens without regard to race or creed were called upon to come to the nation’s defense and to the defense of their homes, their lives and liberties now threatened by an alien foe.” At the brink of chaos, “race and color lines were . . . broken down,” and Bruce wrote that as “white and black men fraternized . . . race prejudice was for the moment forgotten and black men for the first time in fifty years were actually enjoying the freedom and liberty [of which] they had dreamed.” Later, Bruce saw the First World War as the vehicle to trig­ ger this fictional story into reality.51 The eruption of violence and racism during and after the First World War reached its peak during the “Red Summer” of 1919. Lynch­ ings persisted in the South, and at least twenty-six race riots erupted in an assortment of cities, including some that hosted thousands of southern Black migrants who had arrived in search of factory employ­ ment. Bruce interpreted these events, the rise of the Black military, and

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calls for retaliatory violence by declaring that “what is inflaming . . . Negroes . . . , especially those who have fought its battles, is the unjust and unfair and devilish treatment shown to those who bared their breasts to German bullets . . . to help save the white man’s civiliza­ tion.” Bruce further asserted, “We are not through with war” and ar­ gued that “no man deceive himself about this” challenge. “There is yet to be a settlement between the white and darker races.”52 The last Republican candidate Bruce supported for president was Charles Evans Hughes. He believed that Woodrow Wilson had “done nothing for Negroes” and blamed him for an influx of the “cracker el­ ement which blighted Washington physically and politically.” In the 1920s Bruce corresponded with the White House on issues he deemed important. In 1923, President Calvin Coolidge responded to Bruce’s concerns about a reverse migration of Blacks to the South. “You pres­ ent a subject which interests me profoundly,” declared the president. Although Coolidge believed that the government was unprepared to deal with this possibility, he hoped measures could be devised for bet­ tering the position of “our colored citizens.”53 Bruce’s political vacillation reflected the larger struggle of African Americans to “maintain and restore citizenship rights.” As the nation failed to address what Frederick Douglass called the administration of “equal justice to all varieties of the human race,” Blacks themselves were forced to assume responsibility for all aspects of their fight to contain political retrogression, physical violence, and economic ex­ ploitation. This national dilemma forced African Americans to fight for the restoration of their citizenship. But there was disagreement over how best to do this. The appropriate course for race survival gen­ erated a lively debate, one that was influenced by color, class, region, political allegiance, and generation.54 Although political activism and the struggle for federal patronage were dominated by the Black elite, rural African Americans, as well as some of the urban masses, had a different agenda. They opted instead for emigration to Africa, the Kansas Exodus, involvement with the ACS, relocation to Indian territory, and the Black town movement in Oklahoma. They also were more concerned with such issues as infe­ rior educational facilities, disfranchisement, and violence rather than with the symbolic gesture of Black federal appointments.55

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Bruce stood between these streams of Black thought and activity. He rejected emigration but stayed faithful to self-help, economic coop­ eration, race pride and unification, and close ties to Africa. Although Bruce never cracked the elite that dominated Black Republicanism, he used his position as journalist to influence party politics. In addition, according to the historian Lewis Suggs, “Black newspapers were passed from family to family and read aloud in barber shops, pool halls, and informal civil and religious gatherings.” Thus did Bruce’s comments and ideas reach a significant portion of the Black masses, which may account for the popularity of the “Bruce Grit” byline throughout Black America.56 Bruce held a number of minor political appointments and patronage jobs throughout his life. These included positions as director of the Black Republican Glee Club; secretary of the Young Men’s National Republican Club; New York representative for colored citizens to the Nashville Exposition; probation officer, Court of Special Sessions, Yonkers, New York; chairman, Subcommittee on Public Comfort and Entertainment, Woodrow Wilson Inauguration; and messenger, Fed­ eral Customs House of Westchester, New York. These positions sup­ plemented his earnings from journalism and newspaper publishing. Some carried regular salaries, such as the probation officer and mes­ senger positions; the other appointments entitled him to minor stipends. According to the Bruce papers, it appears that Bruce received an appointment to the New York Federal Customs office in 1902 and 1903 through the efforts of James Sullivan Clarkson (1842–1918), a white colleague and surveyor of customs of the port of New York.57 During the post-Reconstruction years, the national Black Republi­ can elite included P. B. S. Pinchback, Frederick Douglass, Robert Smalls, Blanche Kelso Bruce, John Langston, John R. Lynch, Norris Wright Cuney, Dr. James Townsend, John Francis Patty, and Charles B. Wilson. While Bruce probably knew all of these men, he developed the closest contact with Douglass. He was especially critical of former Senator Bruce because of his association with Washington’s mulatto elite and the distance he maintained from masses of the Black commu­ nity. Five years before his death, Robert Smalls promised to assist Bruce in getting his textbook for Black youth, published in 1910, adopted for used in South Carolina schools. Bruce admired Pinchback’s political career in the District and recognized him as “among

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the last of the Old Guard.” Bruce also solicited a job recommendation from Townsend to Senator William E. Chandler of New Hampshire.58 Bruce’s strongest support for Republican patronage employment came from Charles S. Clarkson, Senator William E. Chandler, and Charles W. Anderson. Clarkson and Chandler were white politicians with considerable influence upon the appointment of Blacks. Ander­ son was probably the most powerful Black politician in the North dur­ ing the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Charles S. Clarkson has been described by the historian Louis Harlan as “a champion of the spoils system and opponent of the Civil Service Commission.” Bruce considered him his “lifelong and truest white friend.” Clarkson served as postmaster of Des Moines, Iowa, from 1871 to 1877 and as a member and then chairman of the Republi­ can National Committee from 1880 to 1896. For supporting Benjamin Harrison’s successful presidential campaign and organizing important Black Republicans, Clarkson was rewarded with appointment as first assistant postmaster general in 1889. During his brief tenure in the post office, Clarkson was instrumental in the hiring of Blacks for postal positions. And although he only served in this position for a year, he proudly used the title of “General” for the rest of his life.59 Clarkson moved to New York City in 1891 and established a bridge construction company. In 1902 his former adversary, civil serv­ ice reformer Theodore Roosevelt, appointed him to head the New York Customs Office. Clarkson was also Roosevelt’s liaison man for Black federal appointments and Black political strategy. Later, Booker T. Washington was able to force Clarkson into a lesser role in Black Republican affairs after Washington found out that he had conferred with Washington’s enemies in 1904. Clarkson retired from public life after leaving the customs office in 1910.60 Clarkson became friends with Bruce while serving on the Republi­ can National Committee. During this period, Bruce was the Washington correspondent for the Cleveland Gazette. Clarkson was impressed with Bruce’s articles and the paper’s consistent Republican support. Since Ohio had a strong Black Democratic movement in the middle to late 1880s, Clarkson was looking for ways to firm up Black Republican support. In a letter dated March 21, 1891, Clarkson praised the “Negro race for patience, love of the South, and nearness to God.” Agreeing that Black progress had been “a little delayed,” he pledged to work

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hard to “redeem to the black race the covenant made by the Union Army and Abraham Lincoln.”61 Clarkson and Bruce maintained a lengthy correspondence from the early 1890s to the First World War, and Clarkson assisted Bruce in securing financial aid for publishing his newspapers during campaign periods. For example, the Weekly Argus received party support in the 1880 election, the Washington Grit had GOP backing during the 1884 campaign, and the Pilot received aid in 1892. For his part, Bruce en­ couraged Clarkson to speak out against lynch violence in 1893. After a Black man had been burned to death by a white mob in Texas, Bruce requested an interview with Clarkson. “If you will speak out on this subject,” Bruce advised, “it will do good and move the chicken hearted representatives of my race to at least enter a protest against a continuance of these barbarities.” Clarkson declined the interview, informing Bruce that “he had already spoken on behalf of Southern Ne­ groes.”62 Three months before the fall election of 1892, Clarkson successfully lobbied for a clerk’s position for Bruce in the patent office of the Department of the Interior. Bruce’s continued criticism of the Republi­ can Party bureaucracy probably hindered his patronage prospects for higher-status jobs. For example, one year prior to this appointment, Bruce wrote a strong rebuttal to the Government Official for a negative editorial on “Negro cooks.” “You belong to that breed of Republi­ cans,” asserted Bruce, “who love the Negro in the abstract.” He con­ tinued, “if the rank and file of the Republican party were as narrow and bigoted and prejudiced against the Negro holding responsible po­ sitions—then the Negro would . . . join forces with the Democratic party and drive you all into merited obscurity.”63 Bruce entered his new position with enthusiasm and a desire to serve his party’s interests. He quickly helped organize a debating soci­ ety among the Black employees of the Interior’s patent and land of­ fices, and in September 1892, he established the National Capital House-Cleaning Bureau. This effort was one of Bruce’s numerous short-lived business ventures that he pursued sporadically throughout his life. To secure clients, he depended upon his many contacts in the Black domestic world acquired during his youth, as well as the as­ sistance of prospective white employers such as Mrs. John A. Logan, editor of Home Magazine.64

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Cleveland’s election to his second term as president and the tran­ sition to a Democratic administration ended Bruce’s employment in the Interior Department. He received his official notice of discharge from Hoke Smith, the new secretary. Bruce considered Smith a “Geor­ gia viper” and accepted his “walkin papers” as an eventual outcome of a political turnover.65 Bruce requested Clarkson’s assistance again in July 1898. Clarkson, acknowledging Bruce’s continued employment troubles, “prom­ ised help toward securing [a] suitable position.” In June 1899 Clarkson approached Senator Thomas Collier Platt, New York’s Republican boss, for a job for Bruce with the federal census. After this option failed, Clarkson reported to Bruce that a job under Republican state government would be the best possibility since “he doubted that the secretary of the [United State] Senate has any appointments.” In 1902 Clarkson finally secured a patronage position for Bruce in the port of New York after he was appointed surveyor of New York Customs. When Bruce complained about the appointment of a coworker in April 1903, Clarkson advised him to curtail his comments because people “kicked” him more over Bruce’s appointment than any other. Clarkson probably touched upon the frustration and precarious na­ ture of Bruce’s career in journalism when he observed in a letter to Bruce, “You ought to be using your fine ability for the gain of a large income. I cannot understand why some newspaper or other people or associations needing such work as you can do, do not employ you.”66 Throughout Bruce’s odyssey in search of a patronage appointment with the Republican Party, he also turned to Senator William E. Chan­ dler and Charles W. Anderson. Chandler was a senator from New Hampshire, a former secretary of the navy under President Arthur, “an expert on southern affairs,” and “a friend to the Negro.” From 1882 to 1885, he directed the Arthur administration’s southern policy of supporting independent and fusion politics to overthrow Bourbon hegemony in the South.67 It is not clear how Chandler and Bruce became friends, but they doubtless knew each other through Republican circles. Chandler’s role in southern politics was critical to Blacks, and Bruce’s articulate criticism of the party was often read by white leaders. On April 1, 1890, Chandler informed Dr. James M. Townsend that “your letter in reference to Mr. Bruce coincides with my notions. I shall not get

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another colored man a place until I can get a suitable one for . . . J. E. Bruce.” Townsend, a prominent Black Republican, was a former mem­ ber of the Indiana legislature and the District’s current recorder of the General Land Office. Bruce had solicited Townsend’s assistance in per­ suading Chandler to secure an appointment for him. Seven days later, Bruce tried to sweeten his approach by informing Chandler he had dedicated a book to him. Both efforts failed to produce a government position.68 While Clarkson tried to secure Bruce an appointment in 1899, Bruce again requested Chandler’s intervention in his search for em­ ployment. On December 20, 1899, Chandler told Bruce, Suffice it to say that when the Senate reorganization takes place, I shall be very glad to help you get an appointment that will enable you to earn your living. As you do not live in New Hampshire, I shall want you to get all the support you can.69

Bruce was unsuccessful in this bid for an appointment, and records do not exist to indicate how much support Senator Chandler actually delivered. They did continue to correspond up to the First World War. Clearly, Chandler admired Bruce’s commitment to the Republican Party, while Bruce viewed Chandler as an important resource who could influence legislation related to the Black community.70 In 1905, Theodore Roosevelt appointed Charles W. Anderson “to what was,” according to the historian Gilbert Osofshy, “undoubtedly the most responsible and important federal office held by any Negro politician in the early twentieth century; Collector of Internal Revenue for the Second New York District—the Wall Street District.” Anderson had arrived in New York in 1886 at the age of twenty and had imme­ diately become active in Republican politics. In 1890 he was elected president of the Young Men’s Colored Republican Club of New York County, a position that became a stepping stone to a series of political appointments: gauger in the Second District of New York (1890–93); private secretary to New York State’s treasurer (1893–95); chief clerk in the state treasury (1895–98), supervisor of accounts for the New York Racing Commission (1895–1905); supervisory agent of the State Agri­ culture Department in New York City (1916–23); and collector of inter­ nal revenue for the Twenty-third District—the Harlem district (1923–27). Largely self-educated, Anderson was intensely loyal to

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Booker T. Washington, and he was considered a consummate politi­ cian and a tenacious adversary by all of his contemporaries.71 Bruce first came in contact with Anderson in 1886. Anderson was working with the Mail and Express, a New York newspaper, and writ­ ing to all “Associated Correspondents of Race Newspapers.” He was recruiting support for the Republican Party and outlining strategy for the congressional elections of 1886. Bruce maintained periodic contact with Anderson for the next thirty years. They worked together in New York, and Anderson appreciated Bruce’s assertive voice in behalf of Republican politics in the Black press. Still, while Anderson did not oppose the minor party appointments held by Bruce, he did not ag­ gressively push his white colleagues to allocate Bruce a full-time posi­ tion. Anderson did, however, provide financial assistance during diffi­ cult times and supplied Bruce with personal information for his newspaper columns.72 It is ironic that during the years of Bruce’s greatest prestige as a journalist he had to struggle to find full-time employment. This was a humbling experience that could have broken his spirit. He stayed pro­ ductive, however, and continued to contribute to a wide range of race publications. His desire for a patronage appointment fueled his partic­ ipation in Republican politics. Through Charles S. Clarkson, Bruce fi­ nally secured a minor federal appointment with the port of New York, and he worked in this capacity for over twenty years until poor health forced his retirement in 1921. At the same time, Bruce’s long associa­ tion with the Republican Party was severed during the First World War. After supporting the war effort, Bruce became disillusioned with the government’s inability to translate the international rhetoric of democracy into a domestic reality for all Americans. He then commit­ ted his passion for politics and organizational struggle to the Garvey movement.73

4 Frederick Douglass,

Booker T.Washington, and

John Edward Bruce’s Career

as a Journalistic Hired Gun

John Edward Bruce had a tentative and sometimes volatile relationship with both Frederick Douglass (1817–95) and Booker T. Washington (1856–1915). An aging giant in the struggle to liberate African Americans, Douglass was the generally acknowledged leader of the race until his death in 1895. On a hot September afternoon in the same year, Washington’s speech at the Atlanta Exposition, which advocated a Black retreat from social and political equality while calling for eco­ nomic self-determination and industrial education, catapulted him to fame, power, and ultimately a position of enormous influence in African America. Bruce corresponded with both men, curried their favor, and challenged their ideas and actions, and his association with these Black leaders provides a better understanding of two difficult areas in Bruce’s life. His relationship with Douglass was an extension of the prolonged struggle we have seen that he experienced with the Republican Party, while Washington’s influence upon the Black press encouraged Bruce to accommodate his editorial views. Bruce first met Douglass during his early years as an aspiring journalist. He admired Douglass’s long legacy of race leadership but he and other nationalists were quite uncomfortable with Douglass’s marriage to Helen Pitts, a white woman. While struggling to support himself and his family Bruce wrote canned editorials on Washington’s behalf but eventually terminated this relationship and continued to voice his criticisms of the Tuskegee Machine and its leader. This chap­ ter charts the relationship between Bruce and two of the most power­ ful politicians in African America’s political legacy. . . . 75

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Bruce contended that he “knew Douglass from the earliest days in Washington, D.C.” Douglass was publishing the New National Era, which in 1869, along with the Colored Citizen, edited by John P. Samp­ son, were the only two Black newspapers in the District. According to Bruce, Douglass read one of his earlier articles, published under the pen name of the “Rising Sun,” and hired him as a correspondent for the New National Era. While working for Douglass’s publication, Bruce wrote under the pen name of “Caleb Quotem.”1 The historian Benjamin Quarles has argued that Bruce was a con­ sistent critic of Douglass, but Bruce’s personal papers indicate that until 1884 he held the elder statesman in high regard. Two years ear­ lier, Douglass’s first wife, Anna Murray, had died of a stroke. He rebounded from this tragedy by throwing himself into his work as the District’s recorder of deeds. On January 25, 1884, Douglass married his second wife, Helen Pitts, a forty-five-year-old white clerk who worked in his office. “The marriage caused great strain within Dou­ glass’s family,” according to his biographer William S. McFeely, and shocked many of his Black colleagues. McFeely wrote, [For] the young Douglasses . . . the idea of marriage . . . to someone who was not black [was] anathema to them. They had always known the importance to their father of his many close white friends, but it was only with his marriage that he seemed formally to have repudi­ ated his family—his children, their mother, and their mother’s peo­ ple—all black people. In this feeling the Douglass children were joined by many black Americans, who felt betrayed by a leader they had so long admired.2

Surprised by Douglass’s new marriage, Bruce publicly articulated some of the frustration shared by his colleagues and friends. In an ed­ itorial entitled “The Mistake of His Life,” published in the Grit, Bruce declared, “We are opposed to colored men marrying second rate white women. . . . We do not believe that it adds anything to the character or good sense of either of the two races to intermarry.”3 Bruce’s reaction to Douglass’s marriage was predictable given his deep sense of racial pride and his desire to maintain an image that he had admired for many years. Bruce, like many other African Ameri­ cans, felt betrayed by a revered leader. In addition, there was a percep­ tion that a national treasure had been permanently lost to those who

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had oppressed the race. His marriage to a white woman symbolically extended beyond a personal and simply domestic relationship. A Black correspondent for the Pittsburgh Weekly News captured this feel­ ing when he wrote, “Fred Douglass has married a red-headed white girl. . . . Goodbye, black blood in that family. We have no further use for him. His picture hangs in our parlor, we will hang it in the sta­ bles.” As early as 1877, Bruce argued that Blacks who denied their her­ itage sought to imitate whites. He opposed skin lighteners, hair straighteners, and what he considered to be the ultimate disavowal of race pride, interracial marriages. Less than a month after Douglass’s marriage, Bruce suggested that “the urge for interracial marriage was probably due to the ‘moral depravity’ of the couple involved.” This article did not mention Douglass’s name but the sentiments doubtless registered Bruce’s frustration with a long-admired leader. In July 1884 he berated “those shiftless, street-corner Negroes who bragged about their sexual successes and were always on the lookout for susceptible white women in need of companionship.” Bruce’s opposition to interracial marriages and affairs was part of a code of morality that also in­ cluded honesty, thrift, and racial pride. And he believed that an enlightened Black press should assist in teaching these qualities.4 August Meier has argued that after his second marriage in 1884, Douglass de-emphasized self-help, racial solidarity, and economic ad­ vancement in favor of racial assimilation as a solution to the race problem.5 In a major speech to the Bethel Library and Historical Soci­ ety in Washington, D.C. on April 16, 1889, Douglass expressed these sentiments: One of the few errors to which we are clinging most persistently . . . is the cultivation and stimulation amongst us of a sentiment which we are pleased to call race pride. . . . For my part I see no superiority or in­ feriority in race or color. Neither the one nor the other is a proper source of pride or complacency. Our race and color are not of our own choosing. We have no volition in the cases one way or another. The only excuse for pride in individuals or races is in the fact of their own achievements.6

Shortly after this speech, Bruce published his response in the Cleveland Gazette. He quickly dismissed the suggestion that coopera­ tion and eventual amalgamation with white America would solve the

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race problem. “Mr. Douglass evidently wants to get away from the Negro race,” Bruce concluded; “and from the criticisms I have heard quite recently upon his last herculean attempt to prophecy and wis­ dom, he will not meet with any armed resistance in his flight.” Ironi­ cally, twenty-one years later, in March 1910, Bruce fought against the passage of Assembly Bill 1171 designed to amend New York’s domestic relations law to prohibit marriages between Black and whites. But the issue here was civil rights. Bruce believed that if enacted, “the bill would open the door for all sorts of discriminatory laws and ‘Jim Crow’ statutes.” Incidentally, this legislation was introduced by As­ semblyman James J. Walker, later mayor of New York City.7 Bruce’s adversarial relationship with Douglass on solutions to the race problem or the necessity to foster race pride did not terminate their personal contact. From 1888 to 1895, Bruce and Douglass main­ tained communication, and after Douglass’s death Bruce continued his relationship with members of the family. He corresponded with at least two of Douglass’s children, Rosetta Douglass Sprague and Lewis H. Douglass, and with Douglass’s second wife, Helen Pitts Douglass. These letters usually dealt with Bruce’s efforts to promote the contri­ butions of Frederick Douglass, with family matters involving racism faced by Rosetta and her husband, and with compliments on Bruce’s publications.8 Although Bruce had differences with Douglass, he genuinely admired him and saw similarities in their lives. Both were former slaves, self-educated, articulate advocates on behalf of the race, and keenly ambitious. Douglass was thirty-nine years older than Bruce and well established within Republican political circles. Since his youth in Washington, D.C., and long political discussions with his cousin, Busie Patterson, Bruce had yearned to achieve recognition in politics and secure a political appointment. One aspect of Bruce’s relationship with Douglass was an attempt to fulfill this ambition and a means to terminate the frustration he faced with a Republican Party closed to his advancement. Their relationship near the end of Douglass’s life sheds light on this aspiration. When Frederick Douglass resigned as minister to Haiti under pressure from the State Department on July 30, 1891, John Bruce ag­ gressively supported his former idol. Douglass was forced from his of­ fice when the United States failed to secure a naval base at Mole St. Nicolas harbor. In a long article attacking a New York Sun editorial,

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Bruce castigated American newspapers for bias against Douglass and charged Secretary of State James Blaine and Rear Admiral Bancroft Gherardi with attempting to undermine the sovereignty of a Black republic. Bruce saw Douglass as a Black diplomat who refused to support white imperialism.9 In October 1891, Bruce answered a recent letter from Douglass ac­ knowledging Bruce’s support during the Haitian crisis. He thanked Douglass for his words of praise and expressed doubt whether he was worthy of his remarks. Bruce wrote that “having studied niggerology” over twenty years, he believed that it was best “the Negro does not see himself as others see him.” He also denounced the “little Big Men” who had pointed to mistakes in Douglass’s public career. Bruce closed by calling for “unanimity, patriotism, and wisdom” for the Black race.10 It had been seven years since the controversy over Douglass’s marriage to Helen Pitts. Bruce’s attitude had mellowed over the years while he greatly respected the courage Douglass demonstrated in his struggle against James Blaine, the State Department, and Republican expansionists. Douglass’s political star was rapidly fading and he would die in less than four years. During Bruce’s initial years in Black Republican politics he had envisioned Douglass as the perfect political patron. Douglass had recognized Bruce’s journalistic skills very early in his career. Their relationship was cordial but never close. Bruce’s early mentors, Martin Delany and Henry Highland Garnet, were ideo­ logical adversaries with Douglass, while later mentors, J. Robert Love, Edward Blyden, and Alexander Crummell, had little to do with Republican politics. This left Bruce without an inside link to Douglass’s assistance.11 As Bruce matured he understood that Black Republicans who benefited most from federal appointments had powerful white pa­ trons. The best example of this arrangement was the relationship between Blanche Kelso Bruce and Senator Roscoe Conkling. Bruce culti­ vated a close relationship with Senator William E. Chandler and Charles S. Clarkson, chairman of the Republican National Committee, with only modest success. Douglass’s resignation from his Haitian post and the resulting condemnation from GOP leaders demonstrated that party racism was a permanent adversary for even the most revered Black Republican. It took Bruce another decade to land a suf­ ficiently paying appointment but he persisted and Douglass’s spirit

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encouraged his struggle.12 In 1910, Bruce reflected upon his memories of Douglass fifteen years after his death: No man has begun where Frederick Douglass did and attained the same degree of fame. Born in a mere hovel . . . with no mother to cher­ ish and mature him, no kindly hand to point out the goal worthy of emulation, and the evils to be shunned—no teacher to make smooth the rough and thorny paths leading to knowledge, his only compass was an abiding faith in God and an innate consciousness of his own ability and power of perseverance.13

As with Douglass, Bruce’s relationship with Booker T. Washington was a sometimes contentious one. Nine years before his death, W. E. B. Du Bois reflected upon Booker T. Washington. He described his old adversary as a tough politician. “He was a man who believed,” Du Bois wrote, “that we should get what we could get. It wasn’t a matter of ideas or anything of that sort. . . . With everybody that Washington met, he evidently had the idea: ‘Now, what’s your racket? What are you out for?’”14 Washington cloaked his assertive and pragmatic approach in a public persona that emphasized that he was “a non-challenging black leader” and definitely not a person who would threaten the es­ tablished social and political relationships between white and Black America. In the years after his 1895 Atlanta Exposition speech, Washington directed a powerful and influential private network. To adversaries and allies alike, this was known as the Tuskegee Machine, “an intricate, nation-wide web of institutions in the black community that were conducted, dominated, or strongly influenced” from a little town in Alabama. Washington became a master of pa­ tronage politics and used it, according to his biographer Louis Har­ lan, “to reward friends, punish enemies, and strengthen the Tuskegee Machine.”15 An important tentacle in Washington’s web was the influence he exercised over several hundred Black weekly newspapers and dozens of magazines that provided a vehicle for communication in the Black community. Through the use of “hush money,” Washington domi­ nated editorial pages, subsidized publications, paid for promotional articles, orchestrated hirings and firings, and occasionally seized own-

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ership. Throughout his career, John Bruce was usually in the protest camp, denouncing accommodation and opposing Washington. During the 1890s, however, Bruce compromised his position by accepting pay­ ment from Washington for favorable editorials. This was a troubled time for Bruce because of his precarious finances, his inability to se­ cure full-time employment, and the increased demands of a new marriage.16 From 1881 to 1888 Booker T. Washington built Tuskegee Institute into a formidable Black institution with 540 acres of land and more than four hundred students. Unlike Hampton Institute, Washington’s alma mater, Tuskegee’s staff was always all Black. Bruce respected Washington’s accomplishments. Their paths crossed during the fledg­ ling years of the Afro-American League. They were both enthusiastic about the league’s goals, while Washington wrote that thousands of southern African Americans would support such as effort.17 Bruce joined other Black leaders in sending congratulations to Washington after his heralded Atlanta address. While Black critics debated the merits of trading civil and political rights for economic op­ portunity and interracial peace in the South, Bruce developed a differ­ ent rationale for endorsing Washington’s remarks. “I give you hearty thanks for your letter of October 9th containing a copy of your great speech. The negro of mixed blood and the white men of the north with more zeal than judgment or sagacity,” wrote Bruce, “have conspired by their interminable twaddle about Negro equality in the South to in­ tensify the feeling against the black race and to retard its progress.” Bruce’s mulatto spin on the Atlanta address was characteristic of his worldview. As we have seen, for the past twenty years he had criti­ cized the mulatto elite and exploited opportunities to expose their faulty leadership. Edward Wilmot Blyden, Bruce’s colleague and fel­ low nationalist, applauded Washington’s argument that Blacks and whites could be “separate as the fingers” but “one as the hand.” He felt that this position would “free two races from prejudice and false views of life.” Both men interpreted the Atlanta Compromise as an op­ portunity to terminate white influence over Black life. Bruce supported Blyden’s notion of racial pride but he was never prepared to endorse Washington’s retreat from civil rights or his acceptance of dis­ franchisement for impoverished southern Blacks. This mix of selfhelp, economic independence, and racial solidarity, combined with

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Bruce’s consistent agitation for political and civil rights, placed him in an intellectually unique position. Bruce blended elements of accom­ modation and protest while arguing for the uniqueness of Black peo­ ple, who could become part of America without integrating themselves into white society.18 Washington, who was an accomplished speaker and a capable writer, enhanced these talents by employing ghost writers and public promoters who published books and articles in his name, directed research projects, planted newspapers stories, and coordinated political strategy. Among the many confidants who assisted Washington were S. Laing Williams, Max Bennett Thrasher, Robert E. Park, Nathan Monroe Work, Charles W. Anderson, Emmett J. Scott, and T. Thomas Fortune. From 1890 to 1906, Fortune coordinated Washington’s con­ tacts in the Black press and helped him control the Afro-American Council.19 In April 1896, Washington congratulated Bruce on a recent publi­ cation in the Conservator. “You put matters strongly and clear in your . . . article. Few understand conditions as well as you do,” declared Washington. “Use your pen as much as possible.” The evidence is not clear but Washington’s comments indicate that Bruce may have re­ ceived payment for some articles before 1899. Through Fortune’s as­ sistance, Washington periodically monitored Bruce’s columns for the next two years. He certainly did not agree with all of Bruce’s ideas but he realized that this popular journalist could be a valuable addition to those who supported the Tuskegee Machine.20 In July 1898, Emmett J. Scott, Washington’s private secretary, indirectly thanked Bruce for his assessment of a recent Washington speech: I note “Bruce Grit’s” reference in the Age today to your Albany speech. It’s a magnificent tribute. I think he does it extremely well and in every way brought out in thorough style the incidents of importance. I hope you have seen it ere this time. We have all read it with a great deal of interest. The “Colored American” has not come. I hope it . . . will have a note from Bruce. He is a brainy fellow. I am glad that I know him. We have been very good friends.21

During June 1898, Washington was scheduled to address the regents of the University of New York. Before his departure he wrote Bruce for an appointment. “I am anxious to have the privilege of

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meeting you while in Albany,” he wrote. Washington was the house guest of former President Chester Arthur’s sister. On June 30, Wash­ ington expressed his pleasure at meeting Bruce and acknowledged re­ ceiving a manuscript for his review. This meeting laid the groundwork for a working relationship between Bruce and Washington and his in­ termediaries. Bruce would be paid for writing complimentary articles and planting supportive columns for the Tuskegee Machine. He passed Washington’s personal review and two of his lieutenants, Fortune and Scott, had given their approval. This arrangement, however, did not anticipate Bruce’s independence. Bruce was always in search of funds to support his family, and Washington’s financial resources looked attractive. But, Bruce and the Tuskegee camp were destined for a collision.22 On September 15, 1898, Fortune and Bishop Alexander Walters (1858–1917) convened the first meeting of the Afro-American Council in Rochester, New York. This revival of the defunct Afro-American League had been endorsed by more than 150 race leaders, including Booker T. Washington. Although Washington did not attend public meetings of the council until 1902, and while he was never elected an officer, he did work behind the scenes to guarantee election of leaders friendly to Tuskegee and adoption of compatible policies. “The extent to which Washington’s philosophy was accepted among the articulate during the late 1890s,” according to the historian August Meier, “was best illustrated by the conventions of the Afro-American Council.” Al­ though the elected leadership of the Council was captured by Wash­ ington’s confidants, the situation was always volatile and antiBookerites were vocal in their opposition. By 1908, the ideological clash between “conservatives” and “radicals,” such as Ida Wells-Barnett, William Monroe Trotter, Dr. Nathan Francis Mossell, Archibald Grimké, and W. E. B. Du Bois, led to the demise of the council.23 By August 1899, sparks were flying between Bruce and his pa­ trons, as evidenced in a letter from Fortune to Washington: After talking over the extent and scope of the work cut out for Bruce he very candidly stated his position and felt that the consideration I of­ fered him was inadequate for the work and for the necessity he would be under in the future to defend, his position as an ally of ours; hence my telegram changing the figure, which I consider a reasonable com­ pensation under the circumstances. He has submitted to me the drafts

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of two of the proposed letters and corrected them together. They are the ones for the Springfield Republican and the New York Press. We shall have the one for the colored papers ready tomorrow. As to the one to the Constitution I am balancing in my mind the wisdom and the expediency of sending it any thing. It is a very ticklish force with which to deal.24

Bruce was being paid to write four statements defending Wash­ ington’s policies and attacking the northern Black radicals, who voiced their charges at the Afro-American Council convention in Chicago on August 18. In a September letter to the Springfield Republi­ can Bruce characterized the criticism at the recent council meeting as “unwarranted and undeserved,” and he continued to endorse indus­ trial education over political actions as a means to solve the race prob­ lem. In closing, Bruce declared, In all his public utterances bearing on politics, Mr. Washington has been at pains to plainly state it as his firm belief that it is not good for the white man or the black man that the political rights of the black man should be curtailed or abridged or denied in any greater degree than the political rights of white men are abridged or denied. The real friends of the negro will applaud Mr. Washington for his good sense and wise judgment in avoiding entangling political alliances, which would result only in bringing upon himself and the particular work in which he is engaged infinite confusion. An effort to combine industrial education and politics could not result otherwise.25

This opinion was certainly at odds with Bruce’s published record during the previous twenty years. But he was for sale. And for this reason, Bruce demanded additional money to compensate for what his colleagues might well denounce as inconsistencies and oppor­ tunism. In a September letter to the editors of the New York Press, Bruce urged President McKinley to use the Fourteenth Amendment to take federal action against lynchings. This was a position advocated by Fortune that eventually Washington covertly supported as well.26 Bruce followed this editorial with an article in the Independent that contended the hissing of Washington’s name in the Chicago conven­ tion was partly because some of the participants could not hear the

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podium speaker. Nothing was published during this period in the At­ lanta Constitution that carried Bruce’s byline.27 Fortune informed Washington that eighty dollars had been sent to Bruce for his services. But Bruce was not satisfied and demanded ad­ ditional money. Fortune described his old friend as a “depraved char­ acter” with a “very great . . . capacity for mischief.” He also recom­ mended that an additional “$100 will cork him up” because Bruce “hardly lets go a dollar when he gets hold of it.” Bruce may have been paid for a pamphlet he wrote in 1899 discussing the goals of the AfroAmerican Council. In “Concentration of Energy,” he endorsed Wash­ ington’s call for the organization of “respectable businesses” and nonviolent self-help as a method to liberate African American. Fortune’s response also reflected the frustration that Washington’s camp felt after facing a vigorous attack by northern radicals in the third national conference of the Afro-American Council held in Chicago on August 18, 1899. As Washington’s lieutenants sought to stabilize their forces, Bruce was expected to support the party line. But less than a month after the Chicago convention, Fortune informed Washington that “he was surprised to see Bruce had been made financial secretary of the Council. Bruce was a good man to use,” Fortune wrote, “but a bad man to trust.”28 In 1900 Bruce leveled a sharp attack on Washington in an editorial in the Richmond Planet. He placed the responsibility for the de­ plorable condition of African Americans on “ignorant and half-edu­ cated whites” who defined Black progress as a “menace to their own race.” This was also the first time that Bruce publicly supported emi­ gration to Africa. “If the Negro should become a citizen of Africa,” ar­ gued Bruce, “the problem they are now seeking to solve in America would sooner find solution there than it will be likely to under present conditions. It will be possible for the Adopted American to establish a homeland which will give him status among the Nations of the world.” Bruce criticized Washington by contending that his “propa­ ganda has not helped the Negro nearly as much as it has injured him.” He further explained, It has called attention to Negro capacity for sustained effort along in­ dustrial lines, and this has exacted the jealousy . . . of a class of whites in this country which is more potent politically and numerically than

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the element, which gives thousands for the upkeep of Tuskegee. This class of whites . . . are spreading the virus of race prejudice and the report that Negroes are being trained to take the place of white industri­ als. This explains why no Negroes can find employment in shops and mills and factories or an equality with white men and women, and why there is a general strike when an employer dares to break down the barriers and let in a Negro.29

In March 1901, Washington purchased ten copies of Bruce’s pam­ phlet on William Hannibal Thomas, a former Black state legislator in South Carolina and editors of the magazine Negro. In 1901, Thomas published The American Negro: What He Is and What He May Become, a scathing and derogatory attack upon the morals, ethics, religion, and intellectual capacities of African Americans. Along with Bruce, Charles W. Chesnutt and John N. Will aggressively challenged this publication as “unscientific and slanderous.” Local Black groups also pressured public libraries in different sections of the country to remove this text from their collections. Washington did not assume a public role in this campaign, but he contributed money to confront Thomas’s allegations.30 In April 1903, Bruce condemned a program at Madison Square Garden for the “slick” Booker T. Washington and Tuskegee Institute. During the same period, he worked as the editor of the Impending Con­ flict, based in New York City. Melvin J. Chisum, the owner and coedi­ tor, was Washington’s paid spy and provocateur among anti-Washington critics. Through his private secretary, Emmett J. Scott, Washington cooked up another plan to influence Bruce’s editorial opinion and con­ trol his possible cooperation with William Monroe Trotter and his “Boston gang.” By 1901, Trotter had published the Boston Guardian and rejuvenated radical opposition to the Tuskegee Machine. Throughout the spring of 1903, Washington’s forces were fighting to discredit Trotter and anyone associated with his camp.31 In July 1903, Chisum informed Scott that his paper was “neither a corporation nor a partnership. Before having employed” Bruce, “I had an express agreement which is in writing, one clause [of which] reads”: I do hereby consent, pledge myself, and agree, that so long as I am re­ tained as Editor of “The Impending Conflict,” I will not write, publish,

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nor cause to be published, any letters or articles whatsoever, that can be, even remotely constructed as being antagonistic to Dr. Booker T. Washington or his policy.32

This contract was signed before Bruce left for the Louisville conven­ tion of the Afro-American Council in June. The historian Stephen R. Fox characterized this meeting as “a radical debacle,” but it alerted white publications, such as the New York Times and the Literary Digest, to the seriousness of the anti-Washington movement. Bruce supported Trotter and other radicals at the Louisville convention. He had also written what Chisum called “blasted stuff” that “appeared in the Den­ ver Statesmen” upholding those who sought to dethrone “the Wizard.” Chisum also believed that “‘Bruce Grit’” had “never been regularly employed on the staff of any publication through all of his experience, where he received a stipulated salary and could count on getting it.” This fact “will cause him to keep his contract with . . . me,” according to Chisum, and “you’ll see no more of his ‘tommy rot’ from his pen.”33 Washington’s confidant exaggerated his influence and underesti­ mated Bruce’s ability to manage difficult political situations. In July 1903, Scott sent to Wilford H. Smith, Washington’s personal attorney and a Black New York lawyer, an editorial for Chisum’s paper attack­ ing William Monroe Trotter. In this letter, Scott also provided a glimpse of the potential problems that Bruce could cause the Washington camp: I do fear Bruce. I do not think he can be trusted at all, and while for the present we have him absolutely under our control because of the place he holds under General Clarkson, at the same time he could quietly use the information against us and would be only too glad to do it. The point I have in mind is that, I do not believe that Bruce should be per­ mitted to know anything of the probable lawsuit nor of our connection with that in any way. Let me know how far he has been advised in this matter.34

Smith replied that Bruce would not be “trusted with any of our af­ fairs whatever. He knows absolutely nothing and will not be told anything.” Smith stressed, “All my dealings are with Chisum in a very private and confidential way.” Bruce was also working full time for the New York Pork Authority under the direction of James Clarkson, a

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white Washington supporter. The “probable lawsuit” referred to Wil­ ford Smith’s efforts to encourage William Pickens, an undergraduate at Yale, to sue Trotter for libel after Trotter was sentenced to thirty days in jail for his role in the so-called Boston Riot. In late July 1903, Trotter and other radicals had disrupted Washington’s first Boston speech sponsored by the local branch of the National Negro Business League. Washington tried to use Pickens to further punish his adver­ saries and silence the Guardian. Bruce’s knowledge of these plans was used to discredit Washington and his circle of loyalists.35 Pickens had won Yale’s major oratory prize for a speech on the history of Haiti in the spring of 1903. In his address, Pickens criticized the Black nation’s “erratic political history,” intimating that “the island might have been better governed by white men.” Trotter argued in the Guardian that Pickens had “the unique honor of being the first Negro ever to have won literary oratorical honors at Yale by surrendering his self-respect, sacrificing his pride, emasculating his manhood and throwing down his own race.” When Pickens repeated his speech in Cambridge, Trotter described Pickens as “the little black freak student at Yale . . . with his enormous lips, huge mouth, and a monkey grin co­ extensive with his ears.”36 During the legal proceedings, W. E. B. Du Bois interceded on Trot­ ter’s behalf by trying to influence G. W. Andrews, the headmaster of an all-Black school Pickens had attended. Pickens was only function­ ing as “cat’s paw,” Du Bois explained, because Washington was or­ chestrating the entire plan. While serving his thirty-day sentence for disturbing the peace, Trotter declared that he would “rather die” before considering an “abject apology.” The case was dismissed in early November when Trotter’s coeditor, George W. Forbes, printed a retraction. Scott warned his young client that “you may . . . expect the cry . . . that you are being influenced by the Wizard to bring this suit. I believe the dirty gang needs to be thoroughly repressed,” but “just now is an inopportune time for the suit to be brought.”37 Bruce’s action in this confrontation is unclear but it was obvious to Trotter’s camp that Washington was bankrolling the affair to cripple the Guardian. By February 1904, the Impending Conflict was closed, Bruce’s job was secure at the Port Authority, and Chisum was looking for employment in New York City. In a letter to Washington, Charles W. Anderson tried to interpret the events for his close friend and polit­ ical ally:

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On leaving the General I found Bruce-Grit cooling his heels in the outside office. He at once approached me and begged me to put in a good word for Chisum, whereupon I replied, “I thought you and Chisum were not friendly. Some one told me that you had parted company with him over the policy of the ‘Impending Conflict.’” Bruce then told me that Chisum had asked him to write a letter stating that the paper had gone down because he (Bruce) refused to allow the publication to be turned over to the support of Booker T. Washington. He informed Bruce that such a letter would be of service to him, as he could do “some business” with it, and that Chisum had been showing it with his knowledge and approval. Thus you will see, that the whole scheme was put up by these two men, who are still warm friends.38

There is little evidence to suggest that Chisum and Bruce were “warm friends.” Chisum was described by Stephen Fox as “a man of no particular distinction,” while Anderson believed he “has made up his mind not to work, and expects to live by borrowing.” Chisum also reportedly resembled “an armadillo” because of the bulletproof vest he wore to prevent “unpredictable retaliation!” Another colleague described him as “short, stubby, ugly,” with a “big belly.” Alleged to carry a pistol all the time, Chisum fled from a criminal libel conviction in Oklahoma in 1916. During the First World War he secured a posi­ tion as a labor agent for northern employers and concluded his career by working against the Pullman car porter’s union on behalf of the railroad owners in the 1930s. But, in 1903, his “casual unscrupulous­ ness” made him a perfect spy and “errand boy” for the Tuskegee Machine.39 The evidence documents that Bruce only accepted money from Booker T. Washington for canned editorials during 1899, but this arrangement could have begun as early as 1896. However, Bruce fought to retain his integrity, battled Washington’s camp for just com­ pensation, and consistently voiced his disagreements with Washington’s policies. By 1903 he was firmly located in the anti-Washington camp, and in 1905 he became a charter member of Niagara Movement led by Trotter and Du Bois. In the same year, Bruce worked closely with Trotter to take the “boom” off of Washington’s National Business League. Bruce had compromised his editorial voice for six years to support his family during difficult times. From 1902 until his death in 1924,

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however, a permanent job allowed his radical ideas to develop. The loyalty of James Clarkson, Bruce’s white friend, forced him out of the inner circle of Black Republican affairs after 1904. Bruce was one of the many political adversaries whom Washington silenced or controlled with his impressive financial resources, strategic influence, or personal intimidation.40 John Edward Bruce’s struggle with Black Republican politics and the world of racial patronage appointments lasted for almost fifty years. He fought a losing battle to force Republican accountability to African America, the most loyal component of all its political constituents. After years of party service, he received a secure minor appointment at the age of forty-six. Bruce never escaped his childhood legacy, as a former slave, of identifying the Republican Party as a vehicle of libera­ tion for Black people. He was an articulate voice in the debate on the future of African America while the nation and all political parties re­ linquished their responsibility for maintaining equality and justice for all citizens. Bruce confronted rampant southern violence, the rising tide of lynchings, economic slavery, and the declining social condi­ tions that plagued the masses of Blacks. He also was a tireless cam­ paigner for the accountability of the Black elite to the larger struggle of less fortunate African Americans. Although Bruce found it difficult to fully sever his Republican ties, he quickly distinguished himself as an intellectual independent who led the fight to define and capture the historical image of Blacks. Throughout his sojourn in politics, Bruce si­ multaneously maintained an active hand in the Black history move­ ment from the late 1880s onward. This passion and eventually his in­ volvement with Garvey’s Universal Negro Improvement Association replaced his zeal for electoral politics.

5 The Popularization of African American History John Edward Bruce as Historian, Bibliophile, and Black History Advocate

John Edward Bruce covered the room with smoke as he enjoyed his fa­ vorite Cuban cigar. Three officials, David Bryant Fulton, W. Wesley Weeks, and William Ernest Braxton, gathered at his home to discuss the work of the Negro Society for Historical Research (NSHR). Arthur Alfonso Schomburg, the secretary/treasurer, was unable to attend the meeting. Bruce and his colleagues were charter members, having founded this organization in 1911. In the previous five years they had sponsored several activities to promote the preservation of and encourage interest in African American history. They had achieved com­ munity recognition, published occasional papers, and established a li­ brary collection, but soliciting adequate financial support had been a difficult challenge. Bruce and his friends were keenly aware of a new organization called the Association for the Study of Negro Life and History (ASNLH), established by Dr. Carter G. Woodson in the fall of 1915. Bruce and his colleagues had had difficulties with Woodson even though Schomburg had provided generous access to his private library. They admired Woodson’s personal drive and dedication to Black history but could not understand his reluctance to acknowledge Schomburg or the NSHR for providing primary materials and research suggestions that enhanced his publications.1 Bruce and Schomburg had often discussed the problems with Woodson, and other members of the NSHR were aware of Schom­ burg’s assistance to university-trained scholars. As Bruce contem­ plated these concerns, he shared a recent letter from Schomburg with 91

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his colleagues. Schomburg informed his friend that Woodson’s “Jour­ nal of Negro History is out” and described it as a “creditable book.” But he concluded that “they are stealing our thunder in which we are pio­ neer[s].” As Bruce read these words, his colleagues probably smiled and shook their heads in agreement. During the next ten years, mem­ bers of Bruce’s NSHR and Woodson’s ASNLH continued this rivalry while their relationship ranged from cordiality to antagonism.2 From the late 1880s to his death, Bruce played a significant role in the movement to legitimize and popularize the budding field of African American history. He published newspaper articles, authored pamphlets and books, delivered numerous speeches, collected evi­ dence, undertook research, and advocated the adoption of Black history courses in Negro colleges and secondary schools. He also served as a mentor to a collection of younger self-trained Black historians and a father figure to African students visiting the United States. Throughout his career, he was an active participant in research societies, frater­ nal organizations, and public events that encouraged the study and preservation of Black history. Bruce and his colleagues achieved these accomplishments while struggling to secure regular employment or working in jobs unrelated to their history activities. They lacked for­ mal academic training, university affiliation, and the financial resources available to their college-trained peers. Bruce contributed to the late-nineteenth-century Black history movement as a mentor, promoter, bibliophile, organizer, and author of several articles and manuscripts. He, like many of his colleagues, be­ lieved that a sound understanding of African American history legit­ imized Black humanity, reinforced Black pride, and underpinned Black protest and civil rights struggles. Bruce gradually gathered around him a group of younger men and women whom he counseled and whose interest in African American history he encouraged. These efforts started with the Men’s Sunday Club and matured with the de­ velopment of the NSHR. The NSHR was especially important for the popularization and preservation of African American history. Through countless speeches, organizational activity, and some publications, Bruce and his colleagues encouraged the teaching of African American history in Black colleges and secondary schools. Through his interna­ tional contacts and Pan-African views, Bruce collaborated with and promoted an international network of lay scholars who advocated an interest in African and Pan-African history. This chapter investigates

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these achievements and provides an analysis of Bruce’s efforts to enrich the study and appreciation of African American history. By the 1880s a thriving Black history movement had emerged and eventually found new vigor during the period 1895–1915. An assort­ ment of lay scholars published books covering various aspects of Black history between 1880 and 1890. Representative of these histori­ cal works were Joseph T. Wilson’s Emancipation: Its Course and Progress, from 1481 B.C. to A.D. 1875 (1882), a crude attempt to trace Black history from the Exodus through Reconstruction; and The Black Phalanx (1887), an account of the experiences of Black troops from the Revolutionary War through the Civil War; Benjamin Tucker Tanner’s An Outline of Our History and Government (1884), an unorthodox history of the race within the African Methodist movement; Henry A. Wallace’s Carpetbag Rule in Florida (1888), a work primarily based upon the memory of a former South Carolina legislative page; and David Augustus Straker’s Reflection on the Life and Times of Toussaint L’Ouverture (1885), a short history of Haiti and its acclaimed leader. This literature emphasized the themes of race pride, group solidarity, and self-help. Black authors used African American history to legitimize their humanity, assert their equality with whites, document Black achievement, and chal­ lenge scientific claims of Black inferiority. Writing in the A.M.E. Review, R. R. Downs supported this position by declaring, “The race must furnish its own models, manifest its inherent virtues, display a manly prowess and conquer as others have done.”3 The flagship publication of the era was George Washington Williams’s History of the Negro Race in America from 1619 to 1880 (1882). It was widely recognized as the first scholarly history of African Americans. The Magazine of American History considered Williams’s book as “perhaps the most creditable performance that has yet come from the pen of any representative of the African race in America.” The Literary World and the Atlantic Monthly endorsed these sentiments while the Nation was critical, stating that the work “must be judged by the crude performance of a mind in no way exceptionally endowed.” The reviews in the white press were tame compared to the debate that Williams’s text generated in the Black press.4 It is probable that Bruce read with keen interest the attack launched by the Washington Bee, edited by Calvin Chase, on the credi­ bility of A History of the Negro Race. Chase contended that the “History

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is unreliable and contains some gigantic lies.” The major problem, ac­ cording to Chase, was Williams’s assertion about Frederick Douglass and Richard T. Greener having met in debate in 1879 during the Social Sciences Congress in Saratoga, New York. Williams’s evaluation of Douglass’s performance and the contention that Greener “cut right through” his adversary “with a keen and merciless logic” infuriated Chase. T. Thomas Fortune’s New York Globe and the Palmetto Press of Charleston quickly became two of Williams’s staunchest defenders. The Globe believed that the History included “a fund of valuable infor­ mation which is . . . calculated to make every colored man feel that his race has something to be proud of.” In response to Williams’s critics, the Globe asserted that the “few ruthless, ignorant attacks which have been made upon the . . . ‘History of the Negro Race in America’ . . . fills us with amazement.” Few if any efforts by Black authors “bears . . . greater industry, greater love of race,” and “greater learning.”5 The publicity surrounding the History propelled George Washington Williams (1849–91) into national recognition. He was in demand as a lecturer and even traveled abroad. In March 1885, President Arthur appointed Williams minister to Haiti. Although the Senate confirmed the appointment and the Department of State issued a commission, the incoming Democratic administration refused to honor the appoint­ ment. Bruce witnessed these events and knew Williams through Black Republican circles. As early as 1881, Williams had solicited a federal appointment based upon his seventy-seven campaign speeches for the Republican Party and the contention that a government salary was the only way that he could complete his manuscript on African American history.6 In 1887 Williams published his History of the Negro Troops in the War of Rebellion, 1861–1865, which appeared at the same time as Joseph T. Wilson’s Black Phalanx: A History of the Negro Soldiers of the United States in the Wars of 1775–1812, 1861–65 (1887). Both works re­ ceived qualified praise from the critics though neither captured the at­ tention of the public. Within five years, Williams died of tuberculosis and pleurisy on August 2, 1891, in Blackpool, England. “By this time Williams was widely regarded as the historian of his race,” according to his biographer John Hope Franklin, “for he had written two works that were not only the first of their kind, but compared quite favorably in research and composition with other historical works of the pe­ riod.”7

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The emergence of George Washington Williams as a prominent race historian inspired John Edward Bruce to pursue his interest in history. As we have seen, Bruce had also spent his formative years with mentors who encouraged him to study African and African American history. Martin Delany and Henry Highland Garnet planted the intellectual seeds that stressed the “obligations of colored men to the race” and the “capacity of the African” to strive for the “highest civilization.” These Black leaders instructed Bruce to link community service with a command of Black history prior to 1875. The groundwork for this development was laid during Bruce’s youth in Washington, D.C. During the 1880s, Edward Wilmot Blyden instilled an inter­ est in African culture and history while Alexander Crummell fur­ thered these objectives while stressing the “intellectual battle” for racial liberation.8 Through an arrangement with Harry C. Smith (1863–1941), editor of the Cleveland Gazette, Bruce published a six-part series on the history of African American soldiers. The first of these articles appeared on the front page of the Gazette on February 12, 1887. The rest of the series was also to be featured on the front page, appearing every other week. Smith, who was active in Black Republican politics, was described by historian I. Garland Penn as “one of the youngest edi­ tors of the country” and “probably the only Afro-American who has been a member of a white press association.” Smith was also the di­ rector of the Excelsior Cornet Band during the same period when Bruce led the Sable Choristers Glee Club. He played an active role in the successful desegregation of Ohio’s schools in 1887 and believed in the study of Black history as a source of “proper pride of race and self.” Smith was one of the founders of the Afro-American League in 1890 and a key participant in the Niagara Movement, founded in 1905. Mutual ties in music and politics sealed a friendship between the two Black journalists.9 Bruce felt that a newspaper tribute to Black soldiers would fill a gap missed by expensive scholarly publications. The works of George Washington Williams and Joseph T. Wilson had caught the attention of an articulate Black elite but little effort had been made to reach the Black working class. Smith agreed with this conclusion and provided the perfect showcase for Bruce’s ideas. Throughout Febru­ ary and March of 1887, Bruce captured the imagination of Cleve­ land’s Black lay community as his columns detailed the struggles

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and contributions of the 180,000 African American soldiers who had fought in the Civil War. Thus it was Harry C. Smith and the readers of the Cleveland Gazette who launched Bruce’s career as a recognized “historian of the race.” For the next thirty-seven years, Bruce played an active role in legitimizing and popularizing African American history. One of his favorite topics remained the courage and neglected contributions of Black soldiers.10 In July 1889, Bruce was contacted by William Still (1821–1902), one of the leading lay historians of the pre-Emancipation era. Still, who had been active in the Underground Railroad, a network of antislav­ ery activists who assisted escaped slaves in their flight to freedom in the North and Canada, was the former secretary of the Pennsylvania Society for the Abolition of Slavery. In 1872 he published a detailed ac­ count of the society’s assistance to runaway slaves entitled The Underground Railroad. The historian Larry Gara has argued that Still’s book “provided a much-needed corrective to the memoirs of white aboli­ tionists.” While recognizing the contributions of white abolitionists, Still recorded a story of fugitive slaves as independent actors strug­ gling to secure their freedom.11 Still lauded Bruce on behalf of his “big work” for the race and requested his assistance with promoting another edition of The Underground Railroad. Since the Philadelphia Centennial Exposition of 1876, Still’s book had found renewed interest as powerful testimony of the condition of African Americans during slavery. By 1889 it was the most widely circulated publication on the history of the Underground Railroad. As Still neared seventy, the proceeds from sales of The Underground Railroad were an anticipated portion of his personal income. Still knew of Bruce’s work as a literary agent for Black authors and requested his assistance. In the 1890s, Bruce’s reputation as a literary agent had been greatly enhanced by his handling of the sale and dis­ tribution of Edward Wilmot Blyden’s popular Christianity, Islam and the Negro Race (1887). Bruce also agreed with Still’s contention that attempts to “encourage the race in efforts of self-evaluation” must be stressed if Blacks were to improve their struggle for self-reliance. Still also endorsed Bruce’s belief that intellectual independence was a key ingredient in any effort to liberate African America. “We very much need works on various topics,” Still wrote, “from the pens of colored men to represent the race intellectually.”12

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The Bruce papers fail to provide a complete record of Bruce’s rela­ tionship with Still but it is evident that they shared common ground on certain ideas. The timing of Still’s letter also indicates that Bruce was beginning to develop a cadre of lay historians that would eventu­ ally become critical to his efforts to fashion an organized effort to pop­ ularize African American history. By the turn of the century, this goal would be realized with the emergence of the Men’s Sunday Club and the NSHR, two of the preeminent organizations of lay intellectuals prior to the First World War. In the 1890s, Bruce expanded his interest in African American and African history by writing articles and delivering speeches on the role of Blacks in world civilization. For example on September 18, 1892, he spoke to the Second Baptist Church of Washington, D.C., on the accom­ plishments of Euclid and Hannibal. His remarks refuted a speech by Robert Augustus Toombs, former Confederate secretary of state, who claimed that if “Negroes vanished they would leave no single poem, oration, or invention.” Bruce also attacked this argument by question­ ing the definition of race. Bruce believed that in America the “one drop rule” applied while outside of America this formula was reversed. “Negro blood” existed, according to Bruce, in “numerous supposedly white persons” throughout the modern and ancient worlds. Bruce ex­ panded this theme in an article published in the Voice of the Negro in 1905. A reviewer in the New York Age was critical of his assessment of “our eminent men” and of Bruce’s historical perspective. The response to this criticism provides “an excellent example of the tension between race-conscious Black historians,” according to historian Tony Martin, “and others, including conservative Black critics.” Bruce wrote, Sir, the analytical and critical . . . reviewer of the esteemed New York Age . . . sapiently observes that “J. E. Bruce has boldly captured for the race Sappho, Perseus, Tertullian, Cyprian, Terrence, Pope Victor XIV, and Eurybates who signalized himself at the siege of Troy and won im­ mortal praise from Homer.” I rise to remark sotto voce, that I have done no such thing; that I have merely quoted history and the record.

Bruce then supported his argument. He continued, “There are Ne­ groes and colored men in America who hold with white men—alleged scholars—that no good thing can come out of Africa, or has come out

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of it.” He concluded, “We ought to be like the white man, claim everything good, useful, or great, animate or inanimate that originated with the black race.”13 Two of Bruce’s close friends were among a contingent who shared an interest in the Africanness of selected historical figures usually con­ sidered white. Arthur Alfonso Schomburg, lay historian and biblio­ phile, and Mrs. Alice M. Dunbar, widow of poet Paul Laurence Dunbar, shared their observations in a 1913 correspondence. As Mrs. Dunbar wrote Schomburg, “I had heard that [Alexander] Hamilton’s mother was an octoroon; it seems generally known. At least, I teach it to my classes in school, also that [Robert] Browning was of Negro de­ scent—he didn’t deny it, you know.” Some scholars were “quite peeved” when they “spent valuable time researching among the an­ nals of the Despised Ones.”14 Bruce’s interest in history also led him to examine the role of Christianity and Islam in Africa. In an article entitled “The Odious Comparison,” written during 1893, Bruce contrasted the “human ap­ proach of Mohammedan missionaries,” with the “condescending” at­ titude of Christian missionaries in Africa. These observations had been advanced by Edward Wilmot Blyden since the late 1870s. The tendency by Bruce and other Black intellectuals to question the bene­ fits of Christian missionaries in Africa reflected the growing influence of Blyden’s ideas. Bruce’s position also represented a linkage between Christian missionaries in Africa and what he termed the “clam-like si­ lence” of America’s white clergy on the oppression of southern Blacks during the restoration of Democratic rule in the South.15 Bruce began writing poetry in 1878 at the age of twenty-two. These were short efforts dedicated to friends, observations on nature, and reflections on engrossing sights in Washington, D.C. By the 1890s his interest in Black history encouraged his creative focus to examine themes related to Africa. In later years, Bruce’s poetry would examine the climate of race relations, honor Frederick Douglass, and offer trib­ ute to the Garvey movement. “When Africa Awakes” is an excellent example of his interest in the potential power of the continent and its struggle against colonial domination: When Africa Awakes

And rubs her sleeping eyes

And Stretches forth her brawny ebony arms

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And snaps the bonds with which she long waisted

And stands correct in all her mounted pride

Who knows the answer

When Africa Awakes16

Fueling Bruce’s interest in plays and literature was his desire to expand the tools that he could use to discuss the significance of history and its relationship to problems facing African Americans. From 1892 until his death, he wrote several short stories and usually pub­ lished them in regional newspapers. During this period, Bruce also wrote at least five plays. The first of these efforts, written in 1899, was based on the life of Toussaint L’Ouverture. In addition, prior to the First World War Bruce served as president of the Shakespeare Society and the Phalanx Club, two literary organizations. All of these activities were evidence of Bruce’s interest in publishing material on African and African American history as early as the 1880s.17 During the 1890s, lay historians published a flurry of material re­ lated to African American history. Edward A. Johnson (1860–1944), a lawyer, part-time barber, and principal of Washington High in Raleigh, North Carolina, wrote one of the most popular publications of the period, the School History of the Negro Race in America from 1619 to 1890 (1891), which was written for school children. Johnson dedi­ cated his text to “the many thousand colored teachers,” and timed its release to mark the first twenty-five years of Black freedom. The book, which was adopted by Black school systems in North Carolina and Virginia, became extremely popular among Black educators. Johnson believed that Black children must learn the “many brave deeds and noble characters of their own race.” Johnson’s book, according to his­ torian Clarence Contee, “was not a carefully documented study, it con­ tained little that was new and was replete with errors.” Nonetheless its popularity demanded that three additional editions be published in 1896, 1899, and 1911. Johnson followed his School History in 1899 with a History of Negro Soldiers in the Spanish-American War, which included a brief review of Liberia and an extended account of Black participa­ tion in the Spanish-American War. In 1945, the historian Helen Boardman wrote that Johnson should be remembered as a “pioneer in adapting Negro history to the capacity of children.”18 Other examples of historical material published during this decade include William Hooper Councill’s Lamp of Wisdom; or, Race

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History Illuminated (1898); Laura Eliza Wilkes’ Story of Frederick Dou­ glass (1898), the first Douglass biography written by a Black woman; John S. Durham’s To Teach the Negro History (A Suggestion) (1897), a se­ ries of six lectures delivered at Hampton and Tuskegee Institutes; John Wesley Cromwell’s History of the Bethel Literary and Historical Associa­ tion (1896), a popular pamphlet written by the founder of the District’s most important historical society; and William H. Crogman’s Progress of a Race (1897), a history of race with excessive use of biblical argu­ ments. The A.M.E. Church Review also provided an important forum for historical matters and was the leading journal publishing lay histo­ rians. David Augustus Straker (1842–1908), a Detroit lawyer, was one of many contributors to the Review’s efforts. His publications in the Review included “Are We Now Influenced More by Opinion Than Fact?” (volume 1, April 1885); “The Congo Valley: Its Redemption” (volume 2, January 1886); and “The Negro in the Profession of Law” (volume 8, October 1891). Straker also believed that “there is enough history of the Negro race to make a Negro proud of his race. . . . Why not then teach the Negro child more of himself and less of others, more of his elevation and less of his degradation? This only can produce true pride of race, which begets mutual confidence and unity.”19 The Review had a long and distinguished record of publishing a wide variety of articles stressing economic and moral development, self-help, race solidarity, and African and African American history. Benjamin Tucker Tanner (1835–1923) launched the magazine as a quarterly in 1884 after gaining the endorsement of the A.M.E. General Conference. Tanner was also a widely read lay historian who authored books on ecclesiastical topics and the general history of the race. He gave up the editor’s post in 1888 after becoming a bishop. Reverdy Cassius Ransom (1861–1959), a brilliant orator and community ac­ tivist, was Tanner’s most prominent replacement. He served as editor of the Review from 1912 to 1924 and continued the tradition of featur­ ing topics related to African and African American history.20 In 1893 Bruce drafted a prospectus for a “Negro Reader.” This textbook featured biographical sketches of seven Black historical fig­ ures. Bruce included Frederick Douglass, Martin Delany (1812–85), Benjamin Banneker (1731–1806), Toussaint L’Ouverture (1743–1803), Prince Gaghanga Acua, Abraham Hannibal (1692?–1782), and Robert Brown Elliott (1842–84). Douglass and Brown were older contempo­ raries while Delany was Bruce’s mentor during his youth. Toussaint

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L’Ouverture, and his successful struggle against the French, had been a favorite topic of Bruce’s speeches and plays. Bruce also admired the exploits of Hannibal while serving the Russian czar Peter the Great. Prince Gaghanga Acua was a curious choice considering the number of nineteenth-century African personalities Bruce could have selected. Acua was an African prince from the Cameroons who was active in the transatlantic slave trade. He repudiated his involvement in slavery after living a year in England. Elliott, a prominent Reconstruction politician, was the editor of the South Carolina Leader.21 Bruce’s prospective “Reader” had a decided Pan-African flavor. This reflected his international view of the race question and an appre­ ciation for African and Caribbean history. The audience for the textbook was “Negro youth,” especially those attending the Black school systems throughout the nation. It is interesting that the first draft of this project excluded Black women. This was uncharacteristic consid­ ering his close ties with several Black female leaders and friends. He corrected this oversight when the project was published in 1910.22 Bruce attached to the prospectus a list of Black and white support­ ers who endorsed his project. Those who had published material in Black history included Bishop Benjamin Tucker Tanner, Dr. J. Robert Love, Reverend Alexander Crummell, and attorney David Augustus Straker. All these men were active participants in the late-nineteenthcentury Black history movement and were Bruce’s close associates and friends.23 In March 1896, Robert H. Terrell (1857–1925), a former principal of the M Street High School (formerly the Preparatory School for Colored Youth) wrote Bruce that “I hope that scheme of yours to teach children about colored heroes will be carried out. It is lamentable to see what little they know about their own people who have played an impor­ tant part in the development of this county.” Bruce had doubtlessly contacted Terrell in the hopes of eventually getting his prospective “Reader” adapted as a textbook by the District’s colored school sys­ tem. Terrell encouraged Bruce to complete his project and commended him for being “liberal minded . . . far beyond the average brother in newspaper work. I have noticed that whenever you can say anything to help a man you always do it.”24 As we have seen, Bruce published his “Negro Reader” under the title of Short Biographical Sketches of Eminent Negro Men and Women in 1910. It was written in a narrative style that discussed the careers and

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contributions of twenty-one “illustrious” members of the “race.” Bruce hoped that “the moral portraits . . . offered . . . will call for the thoughtful attention of the younger generation of the Negro race here and abroad.” Each of the sketches was followed by a series of ques­ tions intended to test the reader’s knowledge of the material. Bruce, similar to self-trained historians of his era, made factual errors and failed to provide documentation. Short Biographical Sketches was well received by Bruce’s peers but never formally adopted by a Black school system. For the next fourteen years, Bruce would promote his textbook and request influential friends, such as Robert Smalls or Robert Terrell, to use their contacts in making the “Negro Reader” re­ quired reading for Black youth.25 Bruce continued to punctuate his interest in Black history in the 1890s by publishing an array of historical articles. In an editorial enti­ tled “Judas, Benedict Arnold, and Their Modern Imitators,” Bruce detailed how the “Negro traitor, Des Verney” betrayed Denmark Vesey’s 1822 insurrection in Charleston, South Carolina. Using history to inter­ pret the present, Bruce then proceeded to castigate “present day Negro traitors.” In September 1891, Bruce drafted an article on “The History of Negro Journalism.” Bruce believed that the Black press had played an “enormous role” in “spreading knowledge” throughout the Black community. Black newspapers have always struggled with fi­ nancial obligations, according to Bruce, because of their “necessary” journalistic “charity” in publishing material that “can yield no rev­ enue.” Bruce concluded this article by pleading for an enlightened Black press and continued support from the Black community.26 In 1897, Bruce wrote an article entitled “Toussaint L’Ouverture.” The bulk of this article traced the history of the slave trade in the New World. Bruce identified Bishop Bartolome de Las Casas’s recommen­ dations to Emperor Charles V of Spain as a key factor that greatly increased the importation of African slaves. During 1899, Bruce contin­ ued his interest in African world history by delivering an address on “Alexander Pushkin.” Pushkin (1799–1837) was the grandson of Abra­ ham Hannibal, one of Bruce’s favorite historical figures. Bruce traced Pushkin’s ancestral connection with his African grandfather and outlined his career as one of Russia’s greatest poets.27 On July 14, 1897, Bruce published “A History of Negro Musicians” in the Boston Transcript. This article caught the attention of a univer­ sity-trained scholar, Professor Henry C. Mercer, curator of the Ameri-

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can and prehistoric archaeology section of the University of Pennsyl­ vania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology, who wrote that he enjoyed Bruce’s notes on Negro music. “Your race was not given half the credit it deserves.” The “Negro” gave America “nature music,” wrote Mercer, “which the white student here has not been able to pro­ duce.” This comment reflected the popular nineteenth-century notion that ethnic and racial groups had innate differences. Bruce and such diverse Black thinkers as W. E. B. Du Bois, William H. Councill, John Hope, and E. J. Blackshear all accepted this argument. Blackshear, principal of Prairie View State Normal School in Texas, and Hope both thought the African American’s contribution to American culture would come from his “emotional nature.” Du Bois had often contended that race unity and solidarity would be based upon “Negro cultural achievement.” Bruce came to this position through his rela­ tionship with Edward Wilmot Blyden. He supported Blyden’s con­ tention that the “Negro race . . . had special inherent attributes which it should strive to project in a distinctive ‘African Personality.’” But, like Du Bois, Bruce was always quick to caution that the race also faced an “intellectual battle.” These views on cultural uniqueness fu­ eled an interest in African history and Black American folk culture, as well as a Black literary outpouring in the 1890s. In 1897, Du Bois expressed the ambivalence that this debate often generated in Black in­ tellectuals: One feels his two-ness—an American, a Negro, two unreconciled strivings, two warring ideas in one dark body. . . . The history of the American Negro is the history of this strife, this longing to attain selfconscious manhood, to merge his double self into a better and truer self. . . . He would not Africanize America for America has too much to teach the Negro soul in a flood of white Americanism, for he knows that Negro blood has a message for the world. He simply wishes to make it possible for a man to be a Negro and an American, without being cursed and spit upon.28

From 1900 to 1915, John Edward Bruce and a score of lay historians provided the fuel for the Black history movement. Most of their pub­ lished books and articles relied upon a combination of biblical sources, personal recollections, biographical sketches, military exploits, and historical chronicles to popularize Black history. A small number of

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self-trained historians, such as George Washington Williams and to a lesser degree Bruce, used primary sources to document Black achieve­ ments in ancient and modern civilizations. Examples of this literature included Bruce’s Short Biographical Sketches of Eminent Negro Men and Women (1910); Pauline Hopkins’s Primer of Facts pertaining to the Early Greatness of the African Race (1905); Booker T. Washington’s Story of the Negro (1909); John W. Cromwell’s Negro in American History (1914); William H. Crogman and J. W. Gibson’s Colored American from Slavery to Honorable Citizenship; John R. Lynch’s Facts of Reconstruction (1915); and Charles V. Roman’s A Knowledge of History Is Conducive to Racial Solidarity (1911). By the turn of the century, a small group of Black intellectuals had emerged who were products of university graduate training. They employed “scientific” history and the latest anthropological theories to pioneer the scholarly investigation of African American history. In all academic fields as of 1914 a total of fourteen Blacks had earned doctorate degrees. Prior to the First World War, W. E. B. Du Bois, Carter G. Woodson, Richard R. Wright Jr., Benjamin Brawley, and George Edmund Haynes were the leaders among a tiny group of Black Ph.D.’s who pursued professional careers in history.29 Du Bois (1868–1963) and Woodson (1875–1950) were the most dis­ tinguished of these pioneering Black academics. When Du Bois com­ pleted his Ph.D. in 1895, he became both the first African American to receive a doctorate from Harvard University and the first to earn the Ph.D. in history. His dissertation, “The Suppression of the African Slave Trade of the United States of America, 1638–1870,” was pub­ lished under the same title in 1896. Through the efforts of Albert Bush­ nell Hart, Du Bois’s Harvard advisor, this manuscript became the first volume in the Harvard Historical Studies series. Hart also arranged for Du Bois to become the first Black scholar to present a paper at the American Historical Association convention in 1891. Through Hart’s assistance, Du Bois also delivered a paper entitled “On the Benefits of Reconstruction” at the 1909 meeting. Du Bois was also the first Black scholar to be published in the American Historical Review. In 1915 Du Bois had published The Negro, an important and pioneering Black history survey. Du Bois’s achievement was incorporating the historical information available in his era with the anthropological insights of Columbia University’s Franz Boas.30

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The field of history proved too narrow for the scholar-activist Du Bois, who eventually sought professional satisfaction outside of acade­ mia. After thirteen years of teaching and research at Atlanta Univer­ sity in Georgia, Du Bois left the classroom to become director of pub­ licity and research of the recently organized National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP). Throughout his life he blended protest politics with historical scholarship. The longevity of his career allowed him to explore several different philosophical posi­ tions. He also experimented with writing poetry, short stories, novels, and essays. His contribution to African American historiography was primarily based upon his scholarly publications. The Philadelphia Negro (1899), Black Reconstruction (1935), The Suppression of the African Slave Trade (1896), and The Negro (1915) are recognized by scholars as signif­ icant contributions to the professionalization of African American history. Like his self-trained peers, Du Bois believed that Black history could uplift the race and encourage group solidarity. He also had a passionate commitment to the power of truth. “The world was think­ ing wrong about race,” Du Bois argued, “because it did not know. The ultimate evil was stupidity. The cure for it was knowledge based upon scientific investigation.” He later wrote, “Race prejudice was based on wide-spread ignorance. My long-term remedy was truth: carefully gathered scientific proof that neither color nor race determined the limits of a man’s capacity or desert.”31 Lawrence D. Reddick, a close associate of Carter G. Woodson, described his mentor as “first and last an individual, an independent” man. Considered by many of his professional associates to be “diffi­ cult,” “distant,” “stubborn,” “cantankerous,” and “erratic,” Woodson was not admired for his personality but for his steadfast commitment to scholarship and his energetic advocacy of Black history. One of nine children born of ex-slave parents, Woodson graduated from high school at the age of twenty-two. Dividing his time between teaching high school and attending college, Woodson graduated from Berea College, Berea, Kentucky, in 1903. He later completed a second B.A. and master’s degree from the University of Chicago by 1908. In 1912 Woodson became the second African American to earn a Ph.D. in history from Harvard University. After completing his doctorate, Woodson began a long and productive career researching the African Amer­ ican past. His first monograph, The Education of the Negro prior to 1861,

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appeared in 1915, followed by A Century of Negro Migration (1918), The History of the Negro Church (1921), and The Negro in Our History (1922). Woodson authored or coauthored another fourteen books and scores of articles on Black history during his life. However, his main contri­ bution to the Black history movement was the establishment of key in­ stitutions that benefited generations of Black scholars and self-trained historians and assisted younger Black academics to establish their careers.32 In 1915 Woodson founded the Association for the Study of Negro Life and History and the following year he established the Journal of Negro History. In 1921 he organized the Associated Publishers, Incor­ porated. Both of these efforts provided important outlets for Black au­ thors and scholars who found it difficult to get their research pub­ lished in white journals. Woodson also created Negro History Week in 1926 and the Negro History Bulletin in 1937 to popularize an interest in Black history and encourage Black youth to appreciate the importance of their history. From 1915 to 1950, Woodson managed all of these en­ deavors with an “iron fist.” He found it difficult to delegate or cooperate with colleagues when his authority or perspective was questioned.33 Throughout his life he often called his campaign to professionalize African American history as the “Cause.” Woodson justified his pas­ sionate search to reveal, document, and publish Black records because he believed that “if a race has no history . . . it stands in danger of being exterminated.” Successfully undertaking this endeavor would refute the “conviction that the Negro’s history supported the view that the best role for him was one of subordination.” Woodson wanted the world to “see the Negro as a participant rather than a lay figure in history.”34 Woodson and his university-trained peers waged a struggle to professionalize a discipline in an intellectual environment that rele­ gated African Americans to the status of second-class human beings. From the late nineteenth century through the Second World War, white supremacy reigned as an acceptable intellectual position in the academic arena. The study of African American and African history was viewed by Black scholars and their self-trained counterparts as a powerful tool to affirm the humanity and document the contributions of African people to world civilization. In Woodson’s view, the publi­ cation and dissemination of scientific truth would “disabuse the mind

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of the white man of the idea of racial superiority.” Effectively to publi­ cize the accomplishments of African Americans would allow them to “enjoy a larger share of the privileges of democracy,” Woodson wrote, “as a result of the recognition of [their] worth.” He further declared, “What we need is not a history of selected races or nations, but the history of the world void of national bias, race hate, and religious prej­ udice.”35 John Edward Bruce knew all the members of the small community of university-trained Black scholars who were publishing and teaching in the field of African American history. They were not social acquain­ tances or close friends but fellow advocates trying to popularize and legitimize the study of Black history. He corresponded with Woodson and Du Bois. All three were members of the American Negro Acad­ emy (ANA) and Du Bois was a corresponding member of Bruce’s NSHR. Bruce admired Woodson’s ability to overcome a marginal edu­ cation in his youth and his tenacious drive to become a successful pro­ fessional. He considered “Dr. Du Bois . . . unquestionably the greatest Negro scholar in America.” When Bruce joined the Garvey movement, Du Bois became a political adversary but he continued to respect his intellectual achievements.36 Bruce was acquainted with Richard Wright Jr. through their asso­ ciation in the ANA. Bruce was also a close friend of Bishop Benjamin Tucker Tanner, one of Wright’s superiors in the A.M.E. Church and a prominent self-trained historian. Wright was also aware of Bruce’s ef­ forts encouraging Black ministers to promote “in . . . Negro institu­ tions . . . a chair of Negro history.” Even though Wright left the aca­ demic world after completing his doctorate, he maintained an impor­ tant dialogue on the historical mission of the A.M.E. Church through his books and articles circulated within A.M.E. circles.37 Bruce was encouraged when Benjamin Brawley and George Haynes established Black history courses at their respective colleges between 1912 and 1913. He was also acquainted with both scholars through his close friend Kelly Miller, a charter member of the ANA and a member of Howard University’s faculty. Miller served with Haynes and Brawley as associate editors of the Journal of Negro History. As early as 1899, Miller thanked Bruce for publishing an article in the Star of Zion “containing your kind defense of my position on the race question.”38

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Bruce’s influence can also be seen in the struggle to establish Black Studies at Howard University. Miller, a professor of sociology and mathematics, and Alain Locke, a professor of philosophy, led the fac­ ulty’s agitation to change the curriculum. Both of these Black scholars were friends and worked closely with Bruce in the ANA. Locke was also a corresponding member of the NSHR and had often heard Bruce campaign for the necessity of Black colleges to include Negro history in their course offerings. In 1924 Bruce and Arthur Schomburg so­ licited funds and helped convince Howard’s administration to support Locke’s participation in the reopening of King Tutankhamen’s tomb in Luxor, Egypt.39 From 1898 to his death, Bruce was a bridge between universitytrained scholars and self-trained Black intellectuals. His close associa­ tion with Alexander Crummell tied him to the world of college gradu­ ates and aspiring professionals in the ANA. In this capacity he became a friend and correspondent with men who were involved with Black educational institutions and advocates of professionalizing the budding field of African American history. Bruce also served as a mentor to a group of self-trained Black historians during his early days with the ANA. Together they organized the Men’s Sunday Club and the Negro Society for Historical Research. Both efforts were important contributions to popularizing the Negro history movement. In March 1897, eighteen men met in the Lincoln Memorial Congrega­ tional Church in Washington, D.C., formally to launch the ANA. The establishment of this Black historical association was part of a larger movement in America that encouraged not only the forming of profes­ sional and learned organizations but also the founding of ethnic cul­ tural societies. Alfred A. Moss Jr. and Robert H. Wiebe have argued that these developments were due fundamentally to the pressure of a changing industrial order and the need for ethnic groups to organize institutions to confront nativist hostility, justify their place in America, and document their contributions to society. Deteriorating political and economic conditions accompanied with a rise in violence and increased segregation further encouraged African Americans to form their own historical societies. The ANA was the most prestigious insti­ tution of its kind during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.40

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The first president of the ANA was seventy-eight-year-old Alexan­ der Crummell (1819–98). Membership was to be limited to forty indi­ viduals who were “graduates or Professors in Colleges, Literary char­ acters; Authors, Artists, and distinguished writers.” Crummell be­ lieved the ANA should be “devoted to literary, ethnographical, folklore investigation, pertaining wholly and entirely to Africa and to the world-wide Negro race,” and he thought “it should be inclusive of real thoughtful, reading men who have done something” and “exclu­ sive of all mere talkers and screamers.” In Crummell’s opinion, there were many race men who “would be glad to undertake the great work.”41 Crummell often shared his private interpretations of ANA politics with Bruce and encouraged his younger associate to publish articles that endorsed his perspective on the race.42 Bruce played an active role in the ANA from 1897 to 1924. Throughout this twenty-seven-year period he served in a variety of administrative roles, presented papers at yearly meetings, recruited prospective members, linked the organization to West African leaders and publications, established cooperative programs with similar groups, and promoted the image of the ANA through publications and speeches. Prior to the March inaugural meeting, Bruce wrote John W. Cromwell vowing to make “the ANA a fixture among the great in­ stitutions of this caste-cursed country.”43 Bruce viewed his political connections as a valuable resource for the ANA and an opportunity to promote the new organization with elected officials. During its first years of operation, the ANA published occasional papers by Kelly Miller and W. E. B. Du Bois. In 1898 the ANA printed one thousand copies of Occasional Paper No. 3, which consisted of two speeches by Alexander Crummell, and delivered sev­ eral copies to members, libraries, newspapers, and schools. Bruce took the initiative to distribute copies of the pamphlet to Republican and Democratic politicians throughout the Northeast. “If our white friends in the North who are anxious to know what the Negro is doing toward the solution of the racial problem—what the thinkers of the race are contributing to that end,” wrote Bruce, “would subscribe to the lit­ erature of the academy they would find that which not only concerns Negroes, but the nation of which they are a part.”44 After Crummell’s death in 1898, Du Bois served as the ANA’s president for five years. In 1903 Archibald H. Grimké (1849–1930)

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became the academy’s third president and held the reigns of leadership for sixteen years. Du Bois was highly respected for his educa­ tional accomplishments and active intellectual life but his style left most members longing for a change in leadership. Throughout his tenure as president, Du Bois was usually distant and seemingly unin­ terested in the vitality and direction of the organization. Grimké, a Harvard law school graduate and respected member of the District’s legal establishment, was unanimously elected with a mandate to rein­ vigorate the ANA. In 1912 Bruce led the Academy into the interna­ tional community by supporting the election of J. E. Casely Hayford (1866–1930) and Duse Mohamed Ali (1866–1945) as corresponding members. Hayford, a West African lawyer and author, was a disciple of Edward Wilmot Blyden and editor of the Gold Coast Leader. Hayford’s books, Gold Coast Native Institutions (1903) and Ethiopia Un­ bound: Studies in Race Emancipation (1911), had earned the forty-fiveyear-old scholar-activist considerable attention as an articulate advo­ cate for African nationalism and a contributor to the field of African history. Bruce was a close friend of Hayford’s and a frequent contribu­ tor to the Leader.45 The historian Robert A. Hill has described Duse Mohamed Ali “as the central figure of Pan-African thought and expression of the pre1914 period.” He was the son of a Sudanese mother and an Egyptian father, Abdul Salem Ali, an officer in the Egyptian army. From 1885 to 1908 Duse Mohamed pursued a theatrical career performing throughout Europe, the United States, and Canada. By 1909 he launched a ca­ reer in journalism by publishing articles on Egyptian nationalism and racial oppression in the New Age (London, England). In 1911 he wrote In the Land of the Pharaohs, a short nationalist history of Egypt that re­ ceived critical acclaim among Black intellectuals. Duse Mohamed began publishing the African Times and Orient Review (ATOR), a London-based journal that nourished Pan-African and Pan-Asian senti­ ments, in July 1912. Bruce regularly published in this journal and served as the American representative for the ATOR. During the fall of 1921, Duse Mohamed toured the United States and gave lectures in New York and Washington, D.C. Between speaking dates, he stayed at Bruce’s home in Yonkers, New York. In December, they both traveled to the District for the ANA’s annual meeting. Duse Mohamed deliv­ ered a lecture entitled “The Necessity of a Chair of Negro History in

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Our Colleges.” This topic reflected a mutual concern that Bruce and Duse Mohamed had expressed for several years.46 In 1914 Bruce and John Cromwell sponsored their mutual friend and colleague, Arthur Schomburg, for membership in the ANA. Schomburg wrote Cromwell in December 1913 to tender his applica­ tion and request his support. He believed himself to be an appropriate candidate because he had “striven for twenty years to collect whatever is meritorious pertaining to the history and development of the Negro.” Schomburg also asked Cromwell to solicit the support of W. E. B. Du Bois only if he or Bruce could not support his application. Schomburg had corresponded with Du Bois since 1904 and periodi­ cally loaned him materials from his extensive private library. Their re­ lationship was cordial but the university-trained scholar did not con­ sider Schomburg a “genuine historian.” Schomburg was admitted to the ANA through the efforts of Bruce and Cromwell during the 1914 annual meeting. In addition, Carter G. Woodson joined the academy the same year. Both men were active members, and Schomburg became the ANA’s fifth president in 1920. The previous year John Bruce was elected to the academy’s executive committee, and in 1920 Schomburg sponsored Alain Locke, a friend and colleague, for mem­ bership in the ANA.47 On December 27, 1916, Bruce joined Robert H. Terrell, an acquain­ tance since their days in the Bethel Literary and Historical Association in the 1880s, in presenting papers in honor of Frederick Douglass. Three years later, Bruce was confronted by one of the Young Turks of the New Negro movement. In December 1919, A. Philip Randolph (1889–1979) delivered an exciting and controversial paper to the twenty-third annual meeting of the ANA. Randolph was a Harlembased Socialist and coeditor with Chandler Owen (1889–1967) of the Messenger. Both were articulate advocates of a Marxist position and aggressively attacked discrimination, lynchings, segregation, and those elements in the Black community they considered “reactionary.” In their Messenger editorials they continually argued that their program was a “scientific” approach to Black liberation while criticizing established Black leadership and institutions. Randolph frequently de­ nounced such ANA members as William Pickens, Kelly Miller, W. E. B. Du Bois, James Weldon Johnson, Archibald H. Grimké, Robert Terrell, and Bruce.48

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In Randolph’s speech entitled “The New Radicalism and the Negro,” he attacked American capitalism and declared that Black bourgeois leadership was dead. According to the Washington Bee, Ran­ dolph contended that “the ‘old crowd’ leaders [who] have guided the Negro race . . . [are] not in the position to give advice to the Negro.” This “right wing” or “‘center order’ of society” is bankrupt because “a great proportion of their education had been devoted to the less essen­ tial things in life.” They have studied “Greek and Latin” rather than “the more essential studies, the economical, political, and social history of various races of the human family.” Randolph closed his com­ ments by calling upon Blacks to cut their ties with “the capitalist, the Republican and Democratic parties who have been exploiting [them] and the poor white since the abolition of slavery.”49 Carter G. Woodson reacted to this speech by declaring that “Mr. Randolph is a prophet” and “the leader of tomorrow.” Bruce was probably in the audience to participate in the spirited debate, “which evoked considerable discussion” after Randolph’s remarks. He be­ lieved that Randolph “diplomatically” voiced “bitter attacks on all things not socialistic.” The young radical “consigned to everlasting perdition the old leaders, political and spiritual,” Bruce wrote, “despite the fact that without these old leaders’ efforts in the past in blaz­ ing a path for the younger leaders to tread.” Randolph and his follow­ ers were “like the snake in Aesop’s fable, biting the hand that gave it warmth.”50 Bruce found that “Randolph’s argument in favor of Socialism for Negroes . . . was not wholly convincing.” His “rhetorical effort . . . was brilliant, masterly,” and “eloquent” but it lacked “efficacy as a solvent of all the social, political and economic evils of . . . humanity. I have no faith in Socialism,” Bruce declared, “nor in its propagandist.” Hubert Henry Harrison (1883–1927), Bruce’s friend and former Socialist, left the Socialist Party in 1917 because he was a firm believer in “the American doctrine of ‘Race First.’” In Harrison’s view, “Since the So­ cialists were mostly Americans who had been reared in an atmosphere of color prejudice, they habitually thought “White First,” and whenever “their economic interests were involved they were usually ready to sacrifice the Negro.” Harrison determined that if Blacks thought in terms of “American First” or “Class First,” they would be minimizing their group interests. In self-defense or until whites transformed their morality, “Negroes must think ‘Negro First.’”51

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Bruce anchored a New York–based contingent of ANA members who included such men as Schomburg, Charles D. Martin, pastor of the Moravian Brethren Church in Harlem; Robert T. Browne, president of the Brooklyn Negro Library Association; Arthur U. Craig, an 1895 graduate from the University of Kansas’s School of Electrical Engi­ neering and the first African American to hold a degree in this field; Henry P. Slaughter, Howard Law School graduate and noted biblio­ phile; Henry A. Williamson, bibliophile, chiropodist, and prominent Masonic leader; and W. E. B. Du Bois. Bruce dedicated twenty-seven active years to the ANA and its various programs. He also founded the NSHR, which Schomburg characterized as the “fair daughter” of the ANA. This organization was molded after the ANA but catered to a different membership.52 While never intimidated by his university-trained colleagues, John Edward Bruce enjoyed the company of those whose background was similar to his own. This motivated him to establish the Men’s Sunday Club to provide a forum for self-trained intellectuals. The meetings of this organization were usually held in his Yonkers, New York, home. It is not clear when the Men’s Sunday Club was first organized, but by 1905 its leading members were Bruce, Schomburg, David Bryant Fulton, W. Wesley Weeks, and William Ernest Braxton.53 The purpose of the Men’s Sunday Club was to discuss world issues, particularly those affecting Blacks. Bruce was clearly the group’s leader, and he served as a mentor to its younger male members. Weeks was a musician who had appeared in minor concerts in New York City. Braxton was a painter and among the first Blacks to use the etching press. Both were struggling artists trying to establish their ca­ reers. They probably depended upon Bruce for professional contacts and character references when necessary.54 Fulton and Schomburg were self-trained historians strongly influ­ enced by Bruce’s accomplishments and his enormous contacts within the Black press. Fulton (1861–1941) was born of slave parents in North Carolina and educated in a primary school established by the Ameri­ can Missionary Association. In 1887 he relocated to New York City and became a porter for the Pullman Palace Car Company. After nine years with the railroad, he worked in a music house and the Brooklyn YMCA. Fulton organized the Society of Sons of North Carolina and

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belonged to the Prince Hall Lodge No. 38 of the Free and Accepted Masons.55 Fulton began his literary career by contributing articles to the Wilmington, North Carolina Record, a Black-owned newspaper. After moving to New York and working as a Pullman porter, he began using the pen name “Jack Thorne” to protect his identity from railroad authorities. In 1892 Thorne published Recollections of a Sleeping Car Porter, a forty-five-page account of the “many things seen that suggest the humorous as well as the tragic and ridiculous” in “the checkered life of the porter.” His second book, Hanover; or, The Persecution of the Lowly (1900), was a novel that focused upon southern racial violence. Hanover combined fiction and eyewitness reports that detailed a Black view of the race riot that took place in Wilmington in November 1898. By 1903 Thorne gained prominence through the many articles he published in New York periodicals such as the Brooklyn Daily Eagle, the New York Age, and the Brooklyn Citizen. Eagle Clippings, a collection of his New York contributions, appeared in 1907. This volume, accord­ ing to the author, challenged race slander and criticized political and social developments hostile to African Americans. Thorne believed that the bulk of his writings were directed toward “answering traduc­ ers and endeavoring to ward off the blows aimed at my people by the enemy.”56 Schomburg’s biographer has written that Bruce was a “friend, companion, and surrogate father. Together they shared the pleasure . . . of acquiring books and artifacts revealing the contributions of the black race to world history.” Schomburg was born on January 24, 1874, in San Juan, Puerto Rico, the son of a “Black unwed thirty-yearold laundress” from St. Thomas, Virgin Islands, and a German-born merchant residing in San Juan. His parents never married, and Schom­ burg had little to no relationship with his father and paternal relatives. He was raised in San Juan and St. Croix, Virgin Islands, by his mother, Mary Joseph, and her family. Schomburg often claimed that he attended the Instituto de Ensenanza Popular (Institute of Popular Teach­ ing) in San Juan and St. Thomas College, a secondary school in the Virgin Islands, but there are no records to substantiate his attendance. Bernado Vega, a cigar maker and a leader in the Puerto Rican inde­ pendence movement in New York City, contended that young Schom­ burg “learned his ABCs” from the politically active tabaqueros (cigar makers) in San Juan.57

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Schomburg arrived in the United States on April 17, 1891. After seven active years with the Puerto Rican section of the Cuban Revolu­ tionary Party, he met John Edward Bruce through his involvement with the Prince Hall Masons. This association lasted for at least twenty-six years and Bruce became his best friend, mentor, and confi­ dant. Through Bruce’s connections Schomburg became a mainstay in the Black community and a respected member of several literary and cultural organizations that promoted Black history. These included the Pen and Pencil Club, Loyal Sons of Africa, American Negro Academy, Phalanx Club, and the Friends of Shakespeare Society. Bruce shared Alexander Crummell’s dislike of men “who despised the race, priding themselves on their racial and social connections with whites, while at the same time demanding recognition as race leaders.” To Bruce, Schomburg was a “mulatto who was not living a fool’s paradise about his racial identification.” His friend and colleague “‘thought Black.’ Race is the key to history,” Bruce wrote, “and the Negro is not going to make history in the United States or in the world at large as a black man in a chemically whitened skin and with chemically straightened kinks.”58 Schomburg began assembling his collection of Africana books, lit­ erature, documents, and memorabilia after he joined the Prince Hall Masons in 1892. He became master of Lodge Number 38 in 1911 and rose to the rank of grand secretary of the Grand Lodge of the State of New York in 1918. He and Bruce aggressively defended the legitimacy of the Black Masonic movement, which was consistently denounced by America’s white Masons. Schomburg also edited Transactions, a Black Masonic journal.59 By the time Schomburg became affiliated with the American Negro Academy and the Negro Library Association of New York City in 1914, he was considered by his peers to be one of the leading Black book collectors and bibliophiles in the nation. Schomburg doubtless published editorials supporting Cuban and Puerto Rican independ­ ence in New York’s Spanish-speaking press prior to 1900. His first English article—”Is Hayti Decadent?”—appeared in the Unique Adver­ tiser in 1904. He also published an article on the Cuban poet Gabriel de la Concepcion Valdez, known to his contemporaries as Placido, in the Norfolk, Virginia, New Century. Du Bois edited two of Schom­ burg’s articles, “The Fight for Liberty in St. Lucia” and “Sabastian Gomez,” that appeared in the Crisis. Charles S. Johnson and Alain

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Locke, two friends and university-trained scholars, provided editorial assistance for later published material. Schomburg always had trouble writing coherently in English since his primary language was Spanish. In 1915 the poet James Johnson assisted Schomburg in compiling his Bibliographical Checklist of American Negro Poetry. This effort was pub­ lished by Charles F. Heartman, a white Mississippi-based book dealer. Schomburg was always critical of this project. “I permitted myself to be tempted and rushed by an eager money grubber. My hasty job was deficient,” wrote Schomburg. “The experience taught me that true scholarship requires time and calm effort.”60 One year after Bruce’s death in 1924, Schomburg’s most important literary contribution to the Negro history movement, “The Negro Digs Up His Past,” was published in Alain Locke’s special Harlem edition of the Survey Graphic in March 1925. Locke edited this article and reprinted it in The New Negro (1925), his anthology of the Harlem Re­ naissance. Schomburg contended, The American Negro must remake his past in order to make his future. Though it is orthodox to think of America as the one country where it is unnecessary to have a past, what is a luxury for the nation as a whole becomes a prime social necessity for the Negro. For him, a group tra­ dition must supply compensation for persecution, and pride of race the antidote for prejudice.61

Schomburg believed that Blacks were “thinking more collectively” and “retrospectively” during the 1920s. The excitement of the Renais­ sance era and its emphasis upon Black history could turn African Americans into “enthusiastic antiquarian[s].” The “desire to have . . . a history” must be “well documented . . . for coming generations.” Schomburg also argued that “The Negro Society for Historical Research . . . had brought together for the first time . . . African, West In­ dian and Afro-American scholars.” The “late John E. Bruce . . . was the enthusiastic and far-seeing pioneer of this movement.” He concluded this article by calling for the “scientific study of African institutions and . . . cultural history,” and denounced “the blatant Caucasian racialist with his theories . . . of race superiority” but quickly cau­ tioned against “an Ethiopian counterpart—the rash and rabid amateur who tries to prove half of the world’s geniuses to have been Negroes

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and to trace the pedigree of nineteenth-century Americans to the Queen of Sheba.”62 There are two organizations that provide insights into the formation of the Men’s Sunday Club. Fulton, Schomburg, and Bruce, who were all members of the Prince Hall Mason Lodge Number 38, shared a passion for collecting and documenting Black Masonic history. Bruce and Schomburg were also active bibliophiles while Fulton, in his published pamphlets and newspaper articles, had often discussed the importance of Black history as being a basis for race solidarity. These mutual inter­ ests and probably a genuine friendship combined to create a forum for self-trained thinkers to explore and debate race concerns. Schomburg and Bruce were also active participants in the “Ladies Day” forums sponsored by the Sons of North Carolina. Black women from North Carolina organized and sought association with the Sons of North Car­ olina. They were initially refused but persisted until the men acted. David Bryant Fulton led a committee that recommended “that on the third Sunday of each month the doors of the Society were to open not alone to the women but to the general public at large.” During these occasions the society sponsored literary and history programs.63 Bruce, Schomburg, and Fulton joined such speakers as the journal­ ist T. Thomas Fortune; George H. White, lawyer and former North Carolina congressman; W. T. Jemmott, corresponding member of the NSHR; George E. Wibecan, noted collector and bibliophile; Mary E. Parker; and D’Macon Webster. Probably W. Wesley Weeks shared his musical talents and William Braxton may have sold his art works dur­ ing these gatherings. Nonetheless, the Masons and the Society of Sons of North Carolina provided a forum for these lay scholars and artists to share ideas and began planning a formal organization to promote the study of Black history.64 On April 18, 1911, Bruce, Schomburg, Fulton, Weeks, and Braxton founded the NSHR, thus predating by four years Carter Woodson’s Association for the Study of Negro Life and History. The organization had a decidedly Pan-African and nationalist flavor, which strongly re­ flected Bruce’s direction and guidance. Bruce was elected president, Schomburg served as secretary-treasurer, and Fulton became the li­ brarian. Braxton and Weeks filled the appropriate positions for their skills, art director and musical director.65

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Braxton designed the society’s membership certificate, a docu­ ment that featured Egyptian pyramids and palm trees and the motto “Resurgam—Race Is the Key to History.” Certificates were signed by Bruce and Schomburg and sent to members, corresponding members, and honorary members in Europe, the Caribbean, Central and South America, and Africa. African honorary members included James J. Dossen, vice-president of Liberia; Edward Wilmot Blyden, statesman and leader in Sierra Leone; Casely Hayford, Gold Coast (Ghana) ac­ tivist; and Mojola Agbebi, president of the African Baptist Union of West Africa (Nigeria). All these men were friends of Bruce’s and con­ stituted an important part of his African connection. Noted correspon­ ding members included W. E. B. Du Bois; Alain Locke, Howard Uni­ versity professor of philosophy; Daniel Murray, a member of the staff of the Library of Congress and accomplished bibliophile; and Duse Mohamed Ali, editor and publisher of the African Times and Orient Review. The society’s constitution specified that qualifications for mem­ bership included “character, intelligence, race love, a strong desire to know its history, [and] belief in its possibilities and right to equality with any other race or people.”66 Shortly after the NSHR was established, Schomburg and Bruce re­ ceived letters of congratulation and approval from African Americans and Black supporters in the international community. At least one en­ thusiastic inquiry sought historical information related to African American history to “study it” for a material to be used for essays and popular presentations with a view of stimulating interest . . . and en­ couraging our young men and women.” Schomburg reassured the writer that the society would eventually establish branch affiliations “in every community in the country where there are earnest seekers after the truth.” Bruce responded to the New Haven inquiry by en­ couraging Mr. Perrault to form a group to “engage in an intensive study of Negro history, ancient and modern. I am a friend of all young men of the race who have hitched their wagon to a star. . . . Go to it, and may God bless you all.”67 One of the major goals of the society was to collect “data, pam­ phlets, [and] books bearing upon the history and achievements of the Negro race.” In addition, these self-trained historians wanted “to es­ tablish a circulating library for its members” that included “published writings of the Negro and the Negro’s friends upon subjects that enlighten and encourage the race in its struggle upward.” Although Ful-

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ton was the designated librarian, Schomburg handled these duties and managed the society’s book collection. In his 1912 presidential address, Bruce claimed that the NSHR had already assembled twelve hundred rare books. Yet one year later William Ferris reported that the organization had only three hundred books and pamphlets. This dis­ crepancy may be due to the exaggerations of an ambitious leader, Bruce’s tendency to include portions of Schomburg’s private library with the NSHR, or simply Ferris’s failure to compile an accurate count. Nonetheless, two of the rarest books in the society’s collection were an autographed copy of the poems of Phillis Wheatley, a gifted African servant who died in Boston; and a narrative of the life of Gus­ tavus (Olaudah Equiano) Vassa, a former slave and navigator born in 1745. Schomburg stored the NSHR books with his own collection and loaned out material to the membership. He often struggled to get books promptly returned and threatened to limit access to his private materials. In 1913 Schomburg complained to Bruce that “having books is so tedious . . . it is annoying to a collector when a book is loaned and it requires going after.68 The NSHR sponsored public lectures and published three occa­ sional papers. Both efforts fulfilled the society’s goal “to teach, enlighten, and instruct” Black folk in their “history and achievements.” Bruce and Schomburg were the primary organizers of a lecture series designed to promote the ideas of prominent African American per­ sonalities, self-trained historians and university-trained scholars. Most presentations would take place at Sunny Slope Farm, Bruce’s home in Yonkers, New York. In October 1911, Bruce approached J. B. Sullivan, business manager of the Junto Book Company and a local contact in Yonkers, to speak before the NSHR. Sullivan appreciated Bruce’s “praise of his writing” but doubted that his ideas would be appropriate for the program since he might speak on “usury.” He hoped to discuss his views with Bruce and decide if they were “worth reciting before your society.” Bruce then issued an invitation to Alain Locke in November 1911 to speak to “our Negro Historical Society” on a subject of his selection. Locke was a 1907 graduate of Harvard and winner of the college’s Bowdoin Prize for the outstand­ ing English essay. He also was elected Phi Beta Kappa and became the first African American Rhodes scholar. In the fall of 1911, Locke had just returned from graduate school in England and Germany. While living in Europe, Locke cofounded the African Union Society

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and cultivated relationships with several African and West Indian student leaders.69 On December 9, 1911, Locke delivered a lecture entitled “The Question of a Race Tradition.” He believed that the “trauma of the slavery experience still dominated racial thinking” in America. Blacks must surrender, Locke explained, the “sentimental ties which bind us to the abolitionist period of history.” African American salvation cannot be based upon “sentimental [and] mistaken” racial attitudes, and Blacks must reach beyond the “abolitionist period of our history” and turn “back toward our African past.” Locke concluded by declaring that “patient and painstaking scholarship [will] recover” a “remote racial past” that will become the basis for the revival of Black culture and awareness.70 On December 15, Schomburg sent a letter from Locke to Bruce for the society’s files. Schomburg had previously written Locke express­ ing appreciation for his stirring remarks to the NSHR. He informed the young scholar that the membership was “proud and honored to have you amongst us.” Schomburg told Locke that they must work to­ gether “for the common good of our race. I am always at your serv­ ice,” wrote Schomburg, “wherever you may command me.” This was the beginning of a long and close relationship among Locke, Schom­ burg, Bruce, and the NSHR. Thirteen years later Locke would repre­ sent the society at the reopening ceremony of King Tutankhamen’s tomb in Luxor, Egypt.71 The first of the society’s published papers was Dr. York Russell’s Historical Research (1912). William Ferris described Russell as a “bril­ liant . . . physician, scholar, and orator.” He was an NSHR member and maintained a practice in New York.” At one time Africa was foremost,” wrote Russell, “among the civilized countries of the ancient world.” Blacks must comprehend that the “past is the common prop­ erty of the . . . present.” Russell closed his remarks by stressing the re­ lationship between the present and the past: When Africa of the present is great, Africa of the past will loom into prominence, for then we shall become arbiters of our own des­ tinies, write our own histories, make our researches, organize our own libraries, establish our colleges, [and] create our own monu­ ment[s].72

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David Fulton authored the society’s second publication, A Plea for Social Justice for the Negro Woman (1912). Fulton, who was an advocate of closer cooperation between African Americans and West Indians, believed that there were historical lessons in the Black diaspora, Africa, and the Jewish experience that could be instructive for racial solidarity in the United States. Fulton contended that the “greatest drawback” to the Black struggle “upward is our ignorance of our history; to realize our own worth and possibilities. We are the only peo­ ple that love enemies; and to love them that hate us only begets justly merited contempt.” He encouraged Blacks to “love them that love you” and to reflect upon the strength of the Jews. Fulton ended his remarks by stating that “the salvation of the Jew lay in his ability to hate enemies; and a race can have no worse enemy than he who seeks to degrade its women.”73 In 1913, Schomburg addressed a class of Black teachers attending the summer session at Cheyney Institute in Pennsylvania. In this speech, which was published by the NSHR as their third occasional paper, he argued for the inclusion of African American history as a formal part of the academic curriculum. He maintained, The university graduate is wont to over-estimate his ability, fresh from the machinery that endows him with a parchment and crowns him with knowledge, he steps into the world to meet the practical men with years of experience and mother wit.74

In closing, Schomburg challenged his audience to consider: “Where is our historian to give us our side . . . and [where is] our chair of Negro history?” While some “helpful white” scholars have made important contributions to African American history, Black historians must “give us with trenchant pen the story of our fore-father.” This concept envi­ sioned the eventual development of African American studies programs in American universities.75 After 1915 the relationship between self-trained historians and univer­ sity-trained Black scholars was usually played out within the arena of Black research societies and voluntary associations. Two factions con­ gregated around distinct historical study groups as the New Negro movement emerged prior to the First World War. The ASNLH was led

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by Carter G. Woodson and Benjamin Brawley while the NSHR de­ pended upon Bruce and Schomburg. The former gradually won the favor of white philanthropists and tried to establish its base on Black colleges. The latter became firmly situated in the UNIA and the Gar­ vey movement. Woodson’s organization established the Journal of Negro History and the Associated Publishers, Inc., to promote their views. The NSHR tried and failed due to inadequate funding to pub­ lish a journal known as the Monthly Review. The NSHR then used the Negro World and the Daily Negro Times, papers published by UNIA, to voice their sentiments on Black history. In addition, Schomburg’s mas­ sive personal library, approximately ten thousand volumes, was a valuable research tool. Even with these resources, Schomburg was somewhat insecure during personal encounters with universitytrained colleagues. His biographer details these shortcomings: Among Bruce and the self-trained historians . . . he more than held his own, but it was quite a different matter with such scholars as W. E. B. Du Bois, Carter Woodson, and other university-trained colleagues. Not that they attempted to obstruct his activities; in fact, he was wel­ comed into their circle and respected for his bibliophilic accomplish­ ments. In their presence he submerged his feelings of insecurity, but to others he would magnify and misconstrue as slighting and deferential the actions and remarks of his formally educated conferees. Under such circumstances Schomburg was much more at home with his colleagues.76

If the above observation is correct, Schomburg did not restrain his published criticism of university-trained historians. In a 1922 Negro World column entitled “Schomburg Tears Carter Woodson to Pieces for Historical Narrowness,” he wrote a scathing review of Woodson’s The Negro in Our History (1922). Relying upon his extensive knowledge of obscure sources, Schomburg cited evidence to show that Woodson’s argument was “not based on a careful examination and research of the sources, but rather on speculative opinion and findings of latter-day writers.” Schomburg challenged Woodson’s contentions that an exten­ sive discussion of miscegenation was an appropriate topic for Black youth and that Africa had indigenous and original mulatto popula­ tions; that Denmark Vesey, the South Carolina rebellion leader, was born in San Domingo rather than St. Thomas; and that slavery was

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milder in the West Indies than in the United States. He also challenged Woodson’s incorrect assumptions about the Black population in fif­ teenth-century Seville, Spain.77 Bruce and Schomburg had loaned Woodson illustrations for his book, while Schomburg had given Woodson access to his private col­ lection. They both regretted that Woodson failed to acknowledge this assistance. “A charitable appreciation for those who helped Dr. Woodson,” wrote Schomburg, “with rare prints, engravings, etc., would not have in any way harmed . . . the preface. It is one of the few books lacking this feature of long-established custom.”78 Bruce and Woodson were cordial and occasionally corresponded with one another. In 1918, Woodson solicited Bruce for a contribution to the ASNLH. In January 1923, Woodson sent Bruce an autographed copy of The Negro in Our History and requested his opinion. Bruce had earlier approached Woodson about publishing a proposed biography of Edward Wilmot Blyden. Woodson assured Bruce that he would review the manuscript but only publish “what seems [a] good business proposition or at the author’s expense.”79 Another interest that Bruce and Schomburg shared was in materials that documented African suc­ cess in European societies. Bruce used this material to deliver speeches and publish columns on topics such as “The Negroes in Seville (Spain),” “Greeks, Romans, and Negroid Egypt,” and “Ancient Glory of the Negro Race.”80 Bruce readily shared his collection with friends, and he fulfilled requests for articles on specific topics for Black newspapers. In No­ vember 1893, J. W. E. Bowen requested “facts . . . to refute the charge that the educated Negro is not a success.” His reply was to appear in the Cincinnati Christian Educator. Bowen’s inquiry is intriguing since he held a Ph.D. from Boston University and was a professor of theol­ ogy at Gammon Theological Seminary in Atlanta, Georgia. Although it is ironic that Bowen would turn to the self-trained journalist for this information, this correspondence confirms the respect that the edu­ cated elite had for Bruce’s command of pertinent facts and argumen­ tative skills. Bruce not only sent him the necessary information but made the topic of “The Negro in the Republic of Letters” and Black intellectual achievement one of his favorite subjects for the next twenty years. His desire to have his hands on an assortment of sources relating to Black history and the condition of African Ameri­ cans often caught the attention of his colleagues and friends. E. E.

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Cooper, publisher of the Colored American, praised Bruce’s prowess as an “editorial and literary pugilist.” Schomburg regularly sent books and shared literary finds with Bruce, but also stated “I don’t know how you will have time to read . . . since you are so busy . . . you think and act and sleep and eat negro.” This correspondence was signed “Sonny,” while Bruce was called “Pop” by his dear friend Schomburg.81 Bruce also served as a consultant and advisor to bibliophiles and collectors who organized efforts to promote and popularize African American history and literature. In April 1896, Charles Alexander of Philadelphia wrote Bruce to request his “advice and cooperation” in organizing a “Society for the Promotion of Afro-American Literature,” the goal of which was to “study the poetry, romance, history, biogra­ phical sketches and other writings produced by Afro-Americans.” Alexander’s proposed Afro-American Society was planned one year before the founding of the American Negro Historical Society, the first narrowly defined historical society among African Americans. Alexan­ der pleaded for Bruce’s confidentiality “because if this thing is crystal­ lized,” Alexander wanted “to have the honor of having planted the germ.” There is no information about the outcome of Alexander’s so­ ciety, but apparently it failed and he turned his interest to publishing the Boston Colored Citizen and then Alexander’s Magazine. “I have stud­ ied your writings very carefully,” concluded Alexander, “and to be candid with you I regard your contributions to the public press . . . as vastly . . . more important than those of any other colored man.”82 Bruce was a member of a tight network of Black bibliophiles that included John Wesley Cromwell, Henry Proctor Slaughter, Reverend Charles D. Martin, Dr. Jesse E. Moorland, Daniel Alexander Payne, Kelly Miller, Alain Locke, William Carl Bolivar, and Schomburg. On the evening of December 28, 1916, Bruce, Martin, Moorland, Slaughter, Murray, and Schomburg met at Cromwell’s Washington, D.C., home. These men enjoyed discussing personal treasures accumulated while searching for rare books. In addition, Bruce had read a paper on Fred­ erick Douglass at the ANA’s annual meeting the previous day. His col­ leagues critiqued his presentation and offered their impressions of the “sable statesman.” These men had all corresponded with one another, and Bruce, Schomburg, Martin, and Cromwell were close friends. The purpose of the gathering was to establish the Negro Book Collectors

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Exchange, a prospective organization that excited these committed collectors.83 The objectives of the exchange were to register major Black collec­ tors, “centralize all literature written by colored people,” and provide a clearinghouse for Africana materials. Members also expected to share, trade, or sell duplicate copies with those enrolled in this network. Slaughter became the president and Cromwell the vice-presi­ dent. Martin served as the librarian and Bruce as the publicity agent. Schomburg, the secretary/treasurer, helped the registrar, Daniel Payne, to compile an accurate list of members.84 No additional information exists on the operations of the Negro Book Collectors Exchange, which may have never met again or simply failed to continue because of the extensive obligations of the founders. The fact that they did meet and sought to devise a collective strategy suggests that there were mutual concerns among Black bibliophiles. Schomburg’s biographer, Elinor DesVerney Sinnette, has shown that Black collectors were worried that white institutions would acquire “considerable amounts of black related material,” especially those that barred Blacks from access to their collections. Bruce and his fellow col­ lectors may also have wanted to pool their financial resources to outbid white collectors for important items related to African Americans. Other members of the group, such as Bruce, Schomburg, and Moorland, also wanted prominent collections deposited in Black college libraries.85 Bruce had corresponded with both university-trained scholars and shared their passion for book collecting. Kelly Miller persuaded Jesse Moorland to donate his private collection to Howard University in 1914. Alain Locke, an avid collector of African art and books related to the Black diaspora, willed his collection to Howard upon his death in 1954.86 Slaughter’s private collection was one of the largest among the Black bibliophiles. At one time his library numbered more than ten thousand newspaper clippings and three thousand pamphlets cover­ ing race relations. He was quoted as saying, “My books are my best friends and I would furnish a house with books rather than with fur­ niture.” Slaughter had purchased many of his books from William Carl Bolivar, firms in England, and auction companies in New York City and Philadelphia. Bruce and Slaughter were members of the

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ANA and active supporters of the Prince Hall Masons. In 1946 Atlanta University purchased his private collection.87 Daniel Alexander Murray worked at the Library of Congress for fifty-two years, as an assistant librarian and as the personal assistant to the librarian of Congress, Ainsworth R. Spofford. Bruce’s political activities probably put him in touch with Murray’s brother, who managed the Senate’s restaurant. Murray, who was four years older than Bruce, was his closest chronological peer among Black collectors. Mur­ ray was also a corresponding member of the NSHR, a member the ANA, and a member of the American Negro Historical Society of Philadelphia. He and Bruce also provided historical information to Black members of Congress, and they published articles relating to Black history in the Voice of the Negro. Murray bequeathed his biblio­ graphical collection on Black authors to the Wisconsin State Historical Society in Madison and his private book collection to the Library of Congress.88 The Reverend Charles Martin was also close to Bruce. Both were active in the ANA and the Negro Library Association, and Martin was a cofounder of Bruce’s Loyal Sons of Africa. Martin began making gifts and loans of books and Black memorabilia to the 135th Street Harlem library well before 1926. When he died his colleagues were unable to persuade his wife to sell his collection intact to an academic institution or research facility. Instead, the books were parceled out to dealers and brokers around the country. Martin’s wife was white and was never accepted by his Harlem congregation; and some Black bib­ liophiles believed that his white widow was insensitive to the need to preserve an important resource for Black posterity and research for racial uplift.89 William Carl Bolivar was seven years Bruce’s senior, a correspon­ ding member of the NSHR, a charter member of the American Negro Historical Society, and the cousin of Daniel Murray; he was known to some of his fellow collectors as “Uncle Billy.” Bolivar published his first article on Philadelphia’s Black community in 1866 and by 1892 regularly contributed columns on Black history to the Philadelphia Tri­ bune. In 1907 he became the director of the Department of Negro History at Downingtown, Pennsylvania. Bolivar’s collection was divided up among a number of friends and collectors, including Schomburg, Slaughter, and possibly Bruce.90

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John Wesley Cromwell, one of Bruce’s closest friends, was a founding member of the ANA, a corresponding member of NSHR, president and cofounder of the Bethel Literary and Historical Associa­ tion, and one of the first self-trained historians to publish early in the Journal of Negro History. From the late 1880s to Bruce’s death in 1924, they maintained friendly communication and a mutual commitment to legitimizing the study of Black history. Bruce used Cromwell to co­ ordinate the placement of memorial gifts, in the name of the NSHR, to the Alexander Crummell and the Benjamin Banneker Schools in the District of Columbia. In 1912 they shared their regrets that Howard University had failed to purchase the collection of Walter B. Hayson, a prominent bibliophile and their colleague in the ANA. The majority of Cromwell’s collection stayed within his family, while a small portion was deposited at Howard University.91 Schomburg and Bruce maintained a father-and-son relationship for at least twenty-five years. Bruce and his wife, Florence, also lived with the Schomburg family in Brooklyn for a short time. They were also tied together through a series of organizations that included the NSHR, the ANA, the Loyal Sons of Africa, the Prince Hall Masons, the Pen and Pencil Club, the Men’s Sunday Club, the Phalanx Club, and the Friends of Shakespeare Society. Bruce was eighteen years older than Schomburg and appreciated his younger colleague’s attention and admiration. Schomburg became Bruce’s protégé and dedicated partner in the struggle to popularize African American history. Bruce clearly felt an obligation, as he put it, to mentor younger men who “thought Black.” Moreover, he had enjoyed a supportive relationship with the leading Pan-African advocates of the nineteenth century and looked forward to sharing his experiences with aspiring Blacks who could uplift the race. Schomburg became one of the preeminent biblio­ philes of his era. Bruce’s influence and his numerous contacts greatly facilitated Schomburg’s entry into African America and his love affair with collecting books on the Black experience.92 Before Schomburg sold his ten-thousand-volume collection to the New York Public Library in 1926, he and Bruce regularly communi­ cated about rare books and their impressions of new additions to their respective collections. There are no specific lists of Bruce’s holdings in his papers, but his papers do provide a picture of a man who had great respect for the knowledge and information that an extensive

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personal library could provide. When Bruce died in 1924, Florence Bruce gave the bulk of his collection to Schomburg, keeping only a few items she wanted for personal memories.93 Even though Bruce maintained a hectic schedule of organizational ac­ tivities from 1900 to 1924, he continued to publish and lecture on African American history while encouraging the Black community to appreciate and identify with their African heritage. In 1904 Bruce began publishing Tracts of the People. These pamphlets averaged three pages in length and sold for one cent. In the compiler’s notice, Bruce stated, “The aim will be to give the history of the negro race from the dawn of civilization down to the present time.” He also hoped that this material would be a “useful . . . reference as well as inspiring ne­ groes to look up . . . and blaze the way to a splendid manhood and womanhood.” This effort was financed by Bruce and printed in Yonkers, New York.94 The tracts were another effort by Bruce to popularize Black history with the masses of African America. They were short articles, crisply written and inexpensively priced. Fifteen consecutively num­ bered tracts are deposited with the Bruce papers. There may have been additional pamphlets published but it seems that Bruce termi­ nated the project after one year due to a shortage of funds. The tracts covered three general subject areas: personal development, African history, and African American history. Bruce believed that discussions of such issues as “Jealousy,” “Self Reliance,” “Business Engagements,” and “Self Valuation” placed in an historical context would be instructive for his readers. Bruce also concentrated on the history of ancient Ethiopia, using biblical sources and the French historian Rollin. Babylon, the “great and splendid city” of the Ethiopian Empire, was cited by Bruce as a “tribute to the genius, in­ dustry and enterprise of . . . Black builders” who established “the chief city of the known world.” In his observations on African American history, Bruce described Phillis Wheatley’s “thirst for knowledge” as the vehicle that allowed her “to write her name on the scroll of fame more than one hundred years ago.” Wheatley’s ac­ complishments should serve as a model, Bruce wrote, for “colored girls all over America.”95 By the turn of the century, Bruce was periodically employed by publishing firms to review prospective manuscripts by Black writers.

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Bruce evaluated Overshadowed, a new novel by Sutton E. Griggs, for the Orion Publishing Company and Daniel Webster Davis’s Weh Down Souf, a book of poetry published by B. E. H. Helman-Taylor Company. Bruce was paid twenty-five dollars by Orion and encouraged by Hel­ man-Taylor to be critical because they were “in no hurry for the manu­ script.” Both books were eventually published by each firm, but Bruce’s critique is unfortunately not included in his papers. Doubtless he endorsed Griggs because they shared nationalist sentiments about the condition and goals of the race. Clearly, Bruce was gaining a repu­ tation as a Black literary critic in addition to his acknowledged expert­ ise in Black history. Publishers also viewed Bruce’s popular bylines in several Black newspapers as means to gauge the literary appetite of Black readers.96 On October 30, 1902, Bruce received a letter from Moses Da Rocha, a student at Edinburgh University, Scotland. Rocha had written an introduction to Bruce’s proposed book on “Negro Literature Published from 1800 to 1902.” Bruce had first conceived of this project in 1893 as a joint effort with the Black journalist Charles A. Johnson, a correspondent for the Chicago Appeal and clerk in the War Department. Bruce intended this book to be an anthology that would include his critical comments and works by such authors as Booker T. Washington, T. Thomas Fortune, Frances E. W. Harper, Paul Laurence Dunbar, George Washington Williams, Edward Blyden, J. Robert Love, and Phillis Wheatley. After almost ten years of planning, Bruce decided that he “couldn’t make it [the book] go,” and put all his energy into the publication of the “Negro reader” for Black youth. This effort would become a reality in 1910. Bruce maintained correspondence with Da Rocha, who later became a physician, for the next fifteen years. Da Rocha was a corresponding member of the NSHR and part of Bruce’s European connection of personal contacts and friends, a group that included John Richard Archer, the first Black mayor of a London metropolitan borough (Battersea), and Alice M. Dunbar, the wife of Paul Laurence Dunbar.97 In April 1905, Bruce was moved by the level of racial violence and continued lynchings that plagued southern Blacks to voice his con­ cerns not only about these issues but also about the alleged superior­ ity of the Anglo-Saxons, in an article entitled “The Stronger vs. the Weaker Nations.” Speaking in the language of his period, which asso­ ciated race and national origin, Bruce declared,

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[The] strength of which the Anglo-Saxon race so proudly boasts is physical rather than moral in its character—artificial rather than natu­ ral. It is the strength of the brute and the bully, and its thin veneer of civilization and Christianity does not conceal its true character.98

Bruce enjoyed attacking the pretentious claims of Anglo-Saxons by using history to uncover forgotten facts for his Black readers. In a 1906 speech before the St. Mark’s Lyceum Society, he argued that most elite southern “aristocrats” were actually descended from prisoners and indentured servants deported from England. Bruce also informed Blacks that the English had been enslaved by ancient Romans who considered them to be inherently stupid and ugly. Thus did Bruce attempt to balance the propaganda that whites had always been supe­ rior to people of African descent.99 In December 1909, Bruce delivered a long speech at St. Mark’s Methodist Episcopal Church on “Some Serious Phases of the Problem of Race.” Bruce argued that “the development of Negro citizenship . . . has been considerably retarded” by white men who perverted the government and principles of the United States. After discussing the difficulties of slavery and the resulting restraints upon Black life dur­ ing the post-Emancipation era, Bruce warned his audience that history demands a collective solution to the dilemma of racism. “Cooperation is the magic word,” he asserted, “by which this race of ours is to be saved.”100 Bruce believed that Black ministers could play an invaluable role in emphasizing the importance of African American history. The min­ ister had a captive audience every Sunday and served as the primary leader of an independent Black institution. Bruce became a regular speaker to the annual alumni meetings of the Virginia Theological and Seminary College. In October 1914, he praised the seminary for creat­ ing a “Man Factory,” essentially an educational facility that stressed the relationship between racial loyalty and community responsibility. Future leaders must understand, he said, the value of learning of the “past greatness of Negroes.” If the “Greeks and Romans journeyed into . . . Egypt, our ancestral home . . . for the purpose of gathering knowledge and wisdom at the feet of its black philosophers,” the pres­ ent generation of African Americans can also find valuable lessons in their history.101

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In 1914, speaking to the alumni of the new Virginia Theological Seminary and College, Bruce again endorsed the significance of Black history: I see no good reason why we as a race should not begin to look into our history and encourage the young to study what it teaches and what it connotes. Therefore, I ask you gentlemen, and all thinking men and women of the race, to think seriously about this matter of teach­ ing the young the history of the Negro—ancient and modern. This the only way we can hope to stimulate race pride and confound our critics.102

In 1916 Bruce published The Awakening of Hezekiah Jones, a novel exploring the struggle for race unity and the battle for Black patronage and influence within the Republican Party. John W. Cromwell, Bruce’s long-time colleague and fellow Black history advocate, wrote the pref­ ace, in which he described his friend as “a master of the art of graphic expression” and an author who “excels as a delineator of character,” with a writing style that is “unique and inimitable.” The story of Hezekiah Jones was based upon Bruce’s political experiences and his conception of responsible Black leadership. He hoped his novel would “teach a lesson to black men everywhere who seem to have lost faith in the self-redeeming power of the race and in the honesty and in­ tegrity of those whom they have chosen to be their leaders.”103 Near the end of the First World War, Bruce authored a popular pamphlet entitled A Tribute for the Negro Soldier. In the forward, Em­ mett J. Scott, a journalist and former private secretary to Booker T. Washington, stated “that this booklet [should] find a place . . . in the li­ braries of those who would be informed as to the real worth and history of the negro soldier.” Bruce argued that “the Negro soldier . . . is blood brother to some of the bravest men who had ever lived. From Africa . . . through Europe, over to America, on the sea, in the South Sea islands, even to the very North Pole itself, our brave feet have wandered, and despite handicaps we have acquitted ourselves as men.”104 He further declared, History, as it is usually written, conceals from us our brotherhood with many men because they are called by the name of the land where they

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live, not by their race. To give this knowledge to the negro soldier . . . and inspire him to greater deeds is our aim [and] we dedicate this vol­ ume to the modern Nubians—the negro soldiers of the United States of America. Democracy, brotherhood, [and] justice only can revive and rehabilitate the nations who survive in this titanic struggle. The Negro like the Libyans of old will be at the footsteps of these nations de­ manding his place in the sun.105

In May 1918, Bruce sent a copy of A Tribute for the Negro Soldier to the Library of Congress. Daniel Murray acknowledged Bruce’s gift and informed him that “he had been interested in the subject . . . and gathering similar matters since the outbreak of the War.” He wanted the government to create a commission of three or five “to gather . . . information that will enable the part [played] by the Colored Soldiers [to be] preserved and transmitted to later generations.”106 Murray be­ lieved that he, Schomburg, Woodson, Du Bois, and Bruce could be a team and unearth “a valuable collection of matter” related to Blacks and the war effort. This was an interesting mixture of self-trained and university-trained historians but Murray failed to grasp the clash of personalities that would have made the group unworkable. Du Bois, Woodson, and Scott all competed to write the history of Black troops during World War I, but only Scott’s Official History of the American Negro in the World War (1919) received financial support from the government.107 Two years before his death, Bruce published The Making of A Race (1922). His health was failing but his mind was sharp, and he felt com­ pelled to release his last pamphlet. “The starting point in the making of a Race is the home,” Bruce contended. The Negro must “establish good homes” with a “healthy and helpful environment” in which to teach the “correct principles of living.” He also identified the “spirit of cooperation, Unity, Brotherhood,” and the elimination of the “open degradation” of Black women by “alien Races” as key ingredients in his conception of a productive Black community. Bruce stressed that “in the making of a Race, the acquisition of useful knowledge should not be neglected.”108 History would play an essential part in Bruce’s conception of “useful knowledge”: It is knowledge that is easily obtainable in a first-class library, and the young should be fed early and often on it, as, the more extensive their

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knowledge of Race achievement, past and present, the greater their re­ spect for their Race. Go to the Public Library and read “Timbuctoo the Mysterious,” by Felix Dubois, “Volney’s Ruins of Empire,” Ludolph’s “History of Abyssinia,” and the Father of all History, “Herodotus,” and your opinion of Negro civilization, culture, and leadership will undergo a metamorphosis. This knowledge should be gathered and imparted to the young of the Race, because it will help to form their character and to give them a more comprehensive understanding of the significance of the Negro Race.109

Bruce remained a faithful and dedicated advocate of African Ameri­ can history for at least thirty-seven years. He helped establish histori­ cal societies that promoted Black history, published a stream of arti­ cles and pamphlets, mentored younger men, and encouraged commu­ nication between African Americans and Africans. Bruce also supported Black women who were aspiring self-trained historians and struggled against an all-male literary establishment. He continu­ ally voiced an international perspective on the race question and ad­ vocated linkage between the problems of the present and lessons that could be learned from the past. His work with Black bibliophiles and their efforts to preserve Black literature and memorabilia were central to the establishment of important academic and institutional research collections. Bruce served as a bridge between self-trained and univer­ sity-trained intellectuals and facilitated periodical cooperation between them. Throughout his life Bruce extolled history as a critical weapon in the liberation of Black minds and a vital ingredient in uplifting the Black community. With little formal education and few financial resources, he became one of the pioneers blazing the trail for the even­ tual recognition of African American history as a legitimate academic discipline. But his passion for historical knowledge extended beyond the intellectual community. Bruce and his self-trained colleagues pop­ ularized what Woodson called the “Cause” in churches, barber shops, reading clubs, youth groups, and other institutions that served and in­ fluenced the masses of African Americans. During the last years of his life, Bruce channeled his commitment to Black history into the Garvey movement. Bruce’s contributions should never be forgotten by those who now reap the harvest of his passion for history and his labors to promote a truer understanding of the past.

6 “Grand Old Man of the Movement” John Edward Bruce, Marcus Garvey, and the UNIA

Mrs. Florence Bruce was the only woman among a group of middleaged Black men gathered around the gravesite. All of the mourners were dressed in black while Florence wore a large hat with a long black veil to hide the tears in her eyes. Marcus Garvey stood next to her resembling an aristocrat in his Black tux with two medals on the lapels. He had been a man who had always found the right words for difficult times, but now he stood quietly gazing on the casket and re­ flecting upon the loss of a valuable member of his movement. Arthur Schomburg positioned himself just next to Garvey’s left. His sober de­ meanor was complemented by a faint smile on his face. He had known “Bruce Grit” longer than any other member of the funeral party. Schomburg knew that life had been difficult for Bruce during the previous year. He had been in great pain and doctors had given up on his condition two years earlier. Schomburg also remembered the good times he had shared with the man who was his friend, comrade, and surrogate father. The remaining mourners wore white gloves and the ceremonial aprons of the Prince Hall Masons. Bruce had been a member of Lodge No. 38, and it was time for his fraternal brothers to play their part in the funeral ceremony.1 When John Edward Bruce died on August 7, 1924, he was an hon­ ored official of the Universal Negro Improvement Association (UNIA) with the title of “Duke of Uganda.” The New York Age reported that “Harlem buried its first ‘royalty.’” Three memorial services, one after another, lasted the entire day. Reverend Charles Martin, his good friend and fellow bibliophile, conducted the religious rites at Liberty Hall. Then members of the UNIA took charge, “with speeches by Gar­ vey, William Sherrill, his first assistant, and George Carter, Secretary General.” At the end of these ceremonies “a brief service was held 135

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under the auspices of the Prince Hall Lodge of Negro Masons.” The UNIA was holding its fourth international convention, and “5000 members” of the association, “in regalia of crimson and gold, with sabers drawn, marched behind the hearse to Liberty Hall.” Foreign dignitaries from “colored nations around the world” took time to honor the “grand old man” of the UNIA while the local Black commu­ nity grieved at the loss of a true warrior.2 This chapter examines Bruce’s contribution to the UNIA and his role as an important mentor to Marcus Garvey. Bruce met Marcus Mosiah Garvey (1887–1940) in New York sometime in March or April 1916. Garvey, who was then unknown to the masses of Harlem, had few dollars and no influential contacts. He had initially come to America to raise funds for a Tuskegee-like industrial school for Blacks in Jamaica. Bruce described him as “a little sawed-off and hammered-down Black Man, with determination written all over his face, and an engaging smile that caught you and compelled you to listen to his story.” Garvey had the “strongest regard” for Bruce and delighted in calling him a “true Negro” who felt “honored to be a member” of the race. Although this was their first direct contact, they had probably known of one another through a network of friends and associates long before 1916. This casual meeting survived Bruce’s ini­ tial skepticism, eventually producing an enduring friendship and a firm political alliance that both men cherished. Within five years Gar­ vey had built the largest mass movement in African American history and Bruce emerged as his trusted ally, an invaluable advisor, and the most uncompromising UNIA promoter among the Black intelligentsia.3 Marcus Garvey was born in St. Ann’s Bay, a small parish located on the northern coast of Jamaica in the British West Indies. He was the youngest of eleven children produced by the union of Marcus and Sarah Garvey. All of Garvey’s siblings except an older sister, Indiana, died in childhood. Limited access to poor medical facilities doubtless contributed to the premature deaths of the Garvey children. In 1923 Garvey characterized his parents as “black Negroes.” He described his father, Marcus, as “a man of brilliant intellect . . . and courage” who faced “consequences, . . . took . . . chances,” and “died poor.” His mother Sarah was a “sober and conscientious Christian, too soft and good for the time in which she lived.” While his father was “severe,

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firm, determined, bold, . . . strong” and refused “to yield to superior forces if he believed he was right,” his mother was “always willing to return a smile for a blow, and ever ready to bestow charity upon her enemy.”4 Garvey was raised in a peasant environment but his parents were not impoverished. His father was a “master mason” who “did both stone and brick work beautifully.” Neighbors in the village sought the elder Garvey’s advice on legal issues because “he was well-read” and respected for his “silent” and “stern” behavior. Not only his peers but his family as well always called him “Mr. Garvey.” Although not for­ mally educated, Garvey’s father spent long hours in his private li­ brary, and he encouraged his son to revere the knowledge that could be gained from reading. “In my tender years I went to . . . [my fa­ ther’s] books and I gathered inspiration,” Garvey wrote, “and what inspiration I gathered, changed my outlook from the ambition of [being] . . . a wharf-manor or . . . cowboy, . . . to being a personality in the world.” His parents also “engaged in small-scale peasant farm­ ing,” and Sarah supplemented the family income by selling pastries during periods of financial adversity.5 Garvey’s first lessons “in race distinction” made a formidable im­ pression upon his goals and aspirations as a youth. In addition to his older sister, he spent his “early years” with the children of two white families who lived on the property adjoining his home. “We romped and were happy playmates together. To me,” recalled Garvey, “there was no difference between white and black.” We “were . . . innocent fools who never dreamed of a race feeling and problem.” This friendship was terminated when Garvey reached fourteen. The parents of two young white girls decided to separate the children and send them to Edinburgh, Scotland. Garvey was informed by one of his friends that “she was never to write or . . . get in touch with me, for I was a ‘nigger.’” Garvey recalled that “at maturity the black and white boys . . . separated, and took different courses in life. I grew up then,” and began “to see the differences between the races more and more.” As young men, “My school mates . . . did not know or remember me any more. Then I realized that I had to make a fight for a place in the world.”6 These developments were accompanied by a series of financial and legal problems that took a heavy toll on Garvey’s family. In 1901 he left school at the age of fourteen to become a full-time printer’s

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apprentice with his godfather, Alfred Ernest “Cap” Burrowes, a local tradesman. Through Burrowes’s assistance Garvey began to perfect both the printing skills and the personality strengths that would be valuable assets during his mature years. “He taught me many things,” Garvey wrote, “and at fourteen I had enough intelligence and experi­ ence to manage men. I was strong and manly, and I made them re­ spect me.” Burrowes also owned a library and encouraged young Gar­ vey to read and further his self-education.7 By 1903 Garvey had relocated to Kingston, Jamaica’s capital city, to work as a printer with his maternal uncle. He was sixteen and as­ sumed the responsibility of providing assistance to his family. “My fa­ ther gave me at the age of fifteen the care of my mother and an elder sister,” Garvey wrote later, “when he himself was not in a position to care for his family. I . . . did all that was possible for me to do to assist a father who had money to provide for himself and made no good use of it.” Sarah Garvey joined her son in Kingston, but she died in 1908.8 Living in an urban environment not only enabled Garvey to ex­ pand his knowledge of the newspaper business; it also exposed him to an exciting collection of street orators and nationalist advocates. Their debate on issues and ideas related to Jamaican self-determination and the destiny of the race politicized Garvey. “I started to take an interest in the politics of my country,” Garvey wrote, “and then I saw the injustice done to my race because it was black, and I became dissatisfied on that account.” During this period, Garvey energetically studied the art of public speaking by observing Jamaican orators in churches, parks, barbershops, and street corners, and by participating in discus­ sion groups. His oratorical skills would eventually develop into valu­ able tools affirming his aspirations for leadership.9 In 1905 Garvey was hired in the printing department of P. A. Ben­ jamin Manufacturing Company. He described this job as “an excellent position as manager of a large printing establishment, having under my control several men old enough to be my grandfather.” In a colo­ nial society where most administrators were imported from Great Britain, Garvey was the youngest member of a small minority of Black managers. At the age of twenty-one, he was the only foreman who supported the workers in a printers strike in November 1908. Garvey was fired for participating in this labor revolt but he gained a reputa­ tion among workers and community supporters for his leadership and

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organizational skills. Shortly after this strike he secured a position in a government printing office.10 During these early years in Kingston, Garvey’s mentor was Dr. J. Robert Love, publisher of the Jamaica Advocate, radical social reformer, and articulate Pan-African nationalist. Love was doubtless the link through whom Garvey established contact with John Edward Bruce. As we have seen, Bruce and Love maintained a prolific correspon­ dence from 1893 until Love’s death in 1914. They were colleagues and friends, and Bruce also considered Love a mentor. Garvey’s name is not mentioned in the surviving letters between Bruce and Love, but it is possible that they discussed Love’s young and ambitious protégé. Bruce and Love were considerably older than Garvey, well established in their respective journalistic careers, and involved in an international commerce of issues and ideas related to Black self-determination. It is also highly probable that Love discussed with young Garvey the ac­ complishments of his friend in America who “thought Black.”11 Love campaigned for improvements in Jamaica’s school system and aggressively advocated self-determination for the island’s Black population. Amy Jacques Garvey, Garvey’s second wife, described Love as a “landed proprietor who qualified for the ‘better class’ (those ignored the Black masses) but he attended all sick people . . . and pub­ lished a newspaper that voiced the opinions of the submerged ‘lower class.’”12 In May 1895, Love wrote an editorial in the Jamaica Advocate that defended his challenge to British colonial rule: Some are whispering that we are dangerous. We don’t care if we are. If to speak out thoughts freely and fearlessly—if to advocate the equal rights of all citizens—if to teach the class to which we belong their rights and privileges, as their duties and responsibilities, if to do these is to be dangerous, then we wish to be [as] dangerous as we can be, and no power can arrest our action to this direction.13

Moreover, in March 1901, Love played a key role in coordinating the visit of the Trinidadian attorney Henry Sylvester Williams to Jamaica. Williams, the secretary of the London-based Pan-African Association, was the convener of the First Pan-African Conference in 1900. Garvey contended that “much of my early education in race con­ sciousness” came “from Dr. Love” and his Jamaica Advocate,14 and

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Love espoused Black nationalism and Black power. In 1897 he summed up his ideas on race redemption in a letter to his friend Bruce: I am wedded the older I grow to the idea of the independent self-sus­ taining efforts of the race to lift itself up. However far short we may fall of the achievements of the whites (and I am by no means certain that we will fall short at all) the exertions will develop our powers and bring out . . . the good that is in us.15

Garvey’s second Kingston mentor was S. A. G. (Sandy) Cox (1871–1922), the founder of the National Club, an anticolonial political organization established in 1909. Cox, who was a lawyer and an elected member of the Legislative Council, published the Daily News, an antigovernment newspaper, and he enunciated a political program that British colonial officials identified as subversive when he advo­ cated “Jamaica for the Jamaicans.” Garvey’s relationship with the Na­ tional Club lasted for approximately a year. He was elected assistant secretary and assisted with publishing Our Own, the club’s newspa­ per, and Cox’s influence fueled his aspirations for emancipating the race. During Garvey’s association with Cox and Love, he established Garvey’s Watchman, the first of several newspapers. This was a shortlived effort, but it was the first example of Garvey’s use of his ample journalistic skills as powerful propaganda tools.16 Between August 1910 and June 1914, Garvey traveled first to Central and South America and then to England. Initially he joined the legion of West Indian workers seeking employment and eco­ nomic opportunities in Latin America. Garvey spent two years working and wandering through Costa Rica, Panama, Ecuador, Nicaragua, Spanish Honduras, Columbia, and Venezuela. While working in Costa Rica as a timekeeper on a United Fruit Company banana plantation, and as a dock laborer in Port Limon, he wit­ nessed Blacks laboring under and living in appalling conditions. Garvey protested this exploitation by launching La Nacion, a newspaper published in Port Limon, which challenged Costa Rican au­ thorities, petitioned the British consul for support, and encouraged Black workers to fight for improved conditions. Garvey was ar­ rested for his actions and eventually expelled by the Costa Rican government. This pattern was repeated in Colon, Panama, where he

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continued to agitate by establishing La Prensa, another protest newspaper.17 By the fall of 1912 Garvey had relocated to England after briefly returning to Kingston. In the next two years he would establish another link with Bruce and refine his political and intellectual ideas. Garvey attended some classes at Birkbeck College, a branch of the University of London for working-class students without formal qual­ ifications for admission, and he spent considerable time listening to debates in the House of Commons and perfecting his own oratorical skills in Hyde Park’s Speakers Corner. While working on the docks of London, Cardiff, and Liverpool, Garvey “gained a wealth of informa­ tion from African and West Indian seamen,” according to Amy Jacques Garvey, which confirmed that “suffering was indeed the lot of the race, no matter where they live.” Black sailors directed Garvey to Duse Mohamed Ali, an articulate African nationalist, Shakespearean actor, aspiring entrepreneur, and publisher of the African Times and Orient Review (ATOR).18 Through Duse Mohamed and a network of associates within the ATOR, Garvey immersed himself in an international circle of Black students, intellectuals, and anticolonial activists. Bruce was a col­ league of Duse Mohammed and a well-connected member of the African, African American, and Caribbean Pan-Africanist community that affiliated with the ATOR. This was the second time in Garvey’s career that he had been introduced to Bruce’s name and his ideas on the race question. Two years after Duse Mohamed left the English stage, in 1911, he published In the Land of the Pharaohs. This was “reputedly the first history of Egypt,” according to the historian Robert A. Hill, “written by an Egyptian and a work that was critically well received.” The notori­ ety of Ali’s book generated an invitation to organize the entertainment for the First Universal Races Congress held in London during 1911. Duse Mohamed emerged form this congress as the publisher of the ATOR.19 He described the purpose of this venture in the first issue, published in July 1912: There [is] ample need for a Pan-Oriental, Pan-African journal at the seat of the British Empire which would lay the aims, desires and in­ tentions of the Black, Brown and Yellow Races—within and without the Empire—at the throne of Caesar.20

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Garvey secured a clerk’s position with the ATOR in 1913, and Duse Mohamed became an important mentor. Through the pages of the ATOR, Garvey was exposed to articles by and about such leading Black figures as W. E. B. Du Bois, William Ferris, Edward Wilmot Bly­ den, Alain Locke, Booker T. Washington, Majola Agbebi, J. E. K. Ag­ grey, Alexander Crummell, Robert Russa Moton,21 and Felix E. M. Hercules.22 Bruce was also a frequent contributor to and a general agent for the ATOR in the United States. He and Duse Mohamed were introduced in 1912 by their mutual friend J. E. Casely Hayford, the leading West African nationalist after the death of Blyden. They also shared a mutual friendship with Amanda Ira Alridge, the daughter of the Black Shakespearean actor Ira Alridge, and both were members of the Société Internationale de Philologie et Beaux.23 In 1911 Duse Mohamed became a corresponding member of the Negro Society for Historical Research (NSHR) through the efforts of Bruce. They maintained a consistent correspondence, they shared po­ litical and intellectual interests, and Bruce provided lodging in his home for Duse Mohamed’s 1921 visit to the United States. Garvey’s name did not appear in their correspondence until he began to achieve public attention in the fall of 1918. By November 1921, Bruce served as a mediator between Garvey and Duse Mohamed during a temporary breach in their relationship. His influence on both men led to Duse Mohamed’s appointment as the foreign secretary of the UNIA in 1922 and as assistant editor of the Negro World.24 In October 1913, Garvey joined his intellectual mentors by pub­ lishing an article in the ATOR entitled “The British West Indies in the Mirror of Civilization.” His association with an English community of West African and Caribbean nationalists had sharpened his view of race struggle as a worldwide movement through which “democracy” would spread “itself over the British Empire.” Garvey began to fash­ ion a mission that positioned Jamaica and himself at the center of this revolt: I make no apology for prophesying that there will soon be a turning in the history of the West Indies; and that the people who inhabit that portion of the Western Hemisphere will be the instruments of uniting a scattered race who, before the close of many centuries, will found an Empire on which the sun shall shine as ceaselessly as it shines on the Empire of the North to-day. This may be regarded as a dream, but I

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would point my critical friends to history and its lessons. Would Cae­ sar have believed that the country he was invading in 55 b.c. would be the seat of the greatest Empire of the World? Had it been suggested to him would he not have laughed at it as a huge joke? Yet it has come true. England is the seat of the greatest Empire of the World, and its king is above the rest of monarchs in power and dominion. Laugh then you may, at what I have been bold enough to prophecy, but as surely as there is an evolution in the natural growth of men and nations, so surely will there be a change in the history of these subjected regions.25

Within a year, Garvey’s vision of a Black “Empire” based in the West Indies would be transformed to a worldwide movement seeking to establish an “African Empire.” As he described this conversion, I read of the conditions in America. I read Up from Slavery, by Booker T. Washington, and then my doom—if I may so call it—of being a race leader dawned upon me in London after I had traveled through almost half of Europe. I asked, “Where is the black man’s Government?” “Where is his King and his kingdom?” “Where is his President, his country, and his ambassador, his army, his navy, his men of big affairs?” I could not find them, and then I declared, “I will help to make them.”26

Garvey’s perception of Washington coincided with the same per­ ception that had encouraged Bruce to endorse the 1895 Atlanta Com­ promise speech. Both men admired Tuskegee’s all-Black staff and took pride in an independent Black educational institution. Before joining the anti-Tuskegee Camp, Bruce argued that Washington’s declarations of self-reliance and racial solidarity could provide a vehicle for elimi­ nating white influence over Black life. Garvey infused Washington’s philosophy with a dose of African and African American history fo­ cused upon the goal of terminating foreign rule over the African conti­ nent. In addition, in the same year that Garvey arrived in England, Washington sponsored the International Conference on the Negro in April 1912.27 This meeting, better known as the Tuskegee Conference on Africa, attracted considerable attention among African intellectuals. After discussing issues related to industrial education and missionary activity in Africa, the conference offered a procedure for promoting trade between African America and West Africa. The African Union

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Company was established for this purpose, but the First World War intervened and the project died. Although the actual participation of African delegates was limited, West African nationalists, such as J. E. Casely Hayford, were impressed with the Hampton-Tuskegee ap­ proach to Africa. The apolitical nature of Washington’s African re­ demption program, according to historians George Shepperson and J. Ayodele Langley, “would leave nationalist agitation in the hands of West African . . . nationalists while enabling them to enjoy the benefits of Pan-Negro transatlantic commerce and educational cooperation.” Hayford and his colleagues respected African American advocates of international Black solidarity but they were not prepared to relinquish political leadership of their struggle to Blacks in the diaspora. These sentiments were expressed in a letter to the conference from Hayford read by his brother, the Reverend Mark C. Hayford. Hayford praised the conference for providing a platform of racial solidarity between “aborigines of the Gold Coast and other parts of West Africa” and their “brethren in America.” But he cautioned that “there is an African nationality” that will guide the struggle for “a national aim, purpose, and aspiration . . . for our brethren over the sea.” The Tuskegee Con­ ference was given substantial coverage in the ATOR and further fu­ eled Garvey’s interest in Booker T. Washington.28 Bruce and J. E. Casely Hayford were friends and colleagues who had met through their mutual mentor, Edward Wilmot Blyden. After Blyden’s death in 1912, Hayford became the leading advocate of West African nationalism. Bruce published articles in Hayford’s paper, the Gold Coast Leader, and served as the American agent for his publica­ tions. Hayford was a corresponding member of Bruce’s NSHR and provided an entrée for Bruce’s communication with African national­ ists. Hayford and Bruce maintained communication for over twenty years. In 1912, Hayford joined a seven-member West African syndicate that took control of the ATOR. This situation offered the opportunity for a young Garvey to be influenced by Hayford’s ideas and created still another linkage between Garvey and Bruce. The most important of Hayford’s books was Ethiopia Unbound: Studies in Race Emancipation (1911). One of the primary themes revolved around a fictional African intellectual who is educated in England and then returns to the Gold Coast to become a political activist. In 1915 Hayford wrote Bruce, “I am sure if we live long enough we shall see changes that will astonish us.” One of these astonishments was the emergence of Marcus Garvey

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as the preeminent nationalist of the post–World War I Black nationalist movement.29 Garvey left Southampton, England, for Kingston, Jamaica, on June 17, 1914. His two-year sojourn in Europe had left his “brain afire.” Garvey declared that “there was a world . . . to conquer. I was determined that the black man would not continue to be kicked about by all the other races and actions of the world, as I saw it in the West Indies, South and Central America and Europe, and as I read of it in America.” He landed in Jamaica on July 15, 1914, and organized the Universal Negro Improvement Association and African Communities League (ACL) five days after his arrival.30 The objectives were divided into general and local (Jamaican) goals: General Objectives To establish a Universal Confraternity among the race.

To promote the spirit of race pride and love.

To reclaim the fallen of the race.

To administer to and assist the needy.

To assist in civilizing the backward tribes of Africa.

To strengthen the imperialism of independent African states.

To establish Commissionaires or Agencies in the principal countries of

the world for the protection of all Negroes, irrespective of Nation­ ality. To promote a conscientious Christian worship among the native tribes of Africa. To establish Universities, Colleges and Secondary Schools for the fur­ ther education and culture of the boys and girls of the race. To conduct a world wide commercial and industrial intercourse. Local (Jamaican) Objectives To establish industrial colleges for the further education and culture of our boys and girls. To reclaim the fallen and degraded (especially the criminal class) and help them to a state of good citizenship. To administer to and assist the needy. To promote a better taste for commerce and industry. To promote a universal confraternity and strengthen the bonds of brotherhood and unity among the races. To help generally in the development of the country.31

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The initial Jamaican years of Garvey’s early UNIA were tailored toward social and moral improvement. The organization’s ambitions to “establish a Universal Confraternity among the race, to promote a conscientious Christian worship,” to rehabilitate “the fallen and degraded,” to set up educational institutions, and to promote “brotherhood and unity among the races” sought to penetrate a racial system where 630,000 Blacks were subservient to a mulatto middle class and a small white elite. In two difficult years, Garvey’s efforts at racial uplift were thoroughly rejected by the Jamaican “coloreds,” who were determined to keep Garvey and his followers in their place, refusing to identify with their Black brethren and fighting to preserve their privi­ leged position in colonial society.32 In 1916 Garvey informed Robert Russa Moton that he had been “helped by the cultured whites to do something . . . in uplifting the masses.” However, “the so-called representatives of our own people have sought to down us” and have waged “a secret campaign” to de­ stroy “the existence of a Negro society.”33 As Garvey explained his struggle with those he called “wolves in sheep’s clothing,” I never knew there was so much color prejudice in Jamaica, . . . until I started the work of the Universal Negro Improvement Association. The daily papers wrote me up with big headlines and told of my movement. But nobody wanted to be a Negro. Men and women as black as I, and even more so, had believed themselves white under the West Indian order of society. I had to decide whether to please my friends and be one of the “black-whites” of Jamaica, and be reasonably prosperous, or come out openly and defend and help improve and protect the integrity of the black millions and suffer. I decided to do the latter, hence my offence against “colored-black-white” society in the colonies and America. I was openly hated and persecuted by . . . colored men of the island who did not want to be classified as Negroes, but as white. They hated me worse than poison [and] . . . opposed me at every step. I was a black man and therefore had absolutely no right to lead; in the opinion of the “colored” element, leadership should have been in the hands of a yel­ low or a very light man.34

Garvey’s experience with Jamaica’s mulatto middle class resem­ bled Bruce’s struggle with the colored aristocracy of Washington, D.C.

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Both challenged the color phobia that stressed the superiority of Euro­ pean features; the disproportionate political influence that positioned the coloreds as a buffer between the white elite and the Black masses; the acceptance of a racial system that created divisions based upon class and color; and the powerlessness of masses of their respective communities. Bruce and Garvey were both ambitious dark-skinned men who viewed their struggle for upward mobility as being blocked by a so-called representative class dominated by a mulatto elite thor­ oughly hostile to their darker brethren. This position was reinforced by their mutual mentor J. Robert Love and served as one of the philo­ sophical links between these two men.35 After some success attracting a following among Jamaica’s Blacks and receiving endorsements for his work from members of the white elite, Garvey wrote Booker T. Washington in 1914. “I have been keeping in touch with your good work in America,” he began, “and although there is a difference of opinion on the lines on which the Negro should develop himself, . . . the fair minded critic cannot fail in admiring your noble efforts.” Garvey explained that “we are organized out here on broad lines and we find it conductive to our interest to pave our way both industrially and intellectually.” A “Circular Appeal” was attached describing the UNIA’s goal to “es­ tablish educational and industrial colleges.” Garvey closed by informing Washington that “we shall send you regularly” a copy of the Negro World and requesting “a small donation to carry out our work.”36 Washington declined to make a contribution but he did encourage Garvey to “come to Tuskegee and see for yourself what we are striv­ ing to do for the colored young men and women of the South.” But before Garvey could make arrangements to “tour the states,” Wash­ ington died on November 14, 1915. Garvey did hear from Emment J. Scott, Washington’s private secretary, who promised “to assist” him “in any way.” Prior to going to work for Washington in 1897, Scott had been a journalist for the white-owned Houston Daily Post and then published on his own weekly, the Houston Freedmen, from 1894 to 1897. Scott and Bruce became friends through a network of Black jour­ nalists in the 1890s, and Bruce assisted Scott in publishing materials about Edward Blyden’s 1895 tour of the United States in the Freedmen. This was the final pre-American link that would draw Bruce and Gar­ vey together. Scott did not mention Bruce’s name in his 1916 corre-

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spondence to Garvey, but it is likely that Scott encouraged Garvey to contact Bruce when Garvey visited the Tuskegee Institute in the spring of 1916. And in 1918, Scott described Bruce as “one who is seeking to redress the wrongs of the Negro people of the world” and as a writer “favorably known to Negro readers.” Considering Garvey’s agenda to help uplift the Blacks of Jamaica, Scott would have seen Bruce as a key contact for an ambitious West Indian seeking to raise funds in the United States.37 Garvey arrived in New York City on March 23, 1916. He had been linked to Bruce for at least sixteen years through an international network of Pan-African intellectuals, African nationalists, and African American leaders, and although they had never met in person, Garvey considered Bruce an important American contact. More than that, they were destined to become closer friends and partners in shaping the American years of the UNIA. It is also apparent that Garvey had al­ ready decided to base his movement in the United States rather than fight a losing battle against Jamaica’s mulatto middle class, and an American tour to raise funds for an industrial school could have been a convenient cover story designed to maintain his Jamaican following while he explored moving his organization to a much larger Black community. Nonetheless, prior to his departure, Garvey leveled a final volley at the “representative class” who had fought his movement in Jamaica: Representative and educated Negroes have made the mistake of drawing and keeping themselves away from the race, thinking that it is degrading and ignominious to identify themselves with the masses of the people who are still ignorant and backward; but who are crying out for true and conscientious leadership, so that they might advance into a higher state of enlightenment. . . . The prejudices of the educated and positioned Negro towards his own people have done much to create a marked indifference to the race among those of other races who would have been glad and will­ ing to help the Negro to a brighter destiny. Yet these very Negro “gen­ tlemen” who have been shunning their own people do not receive bet­ ter treatment. . . . They are snubbed and laughed at just the same as the most menial of the race, and only because they are Negroes, belonging to . . . [a] race that has been sleeping.38

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Drawing upon his knowledge of Black history and prophetically pre­ dicting what would be termed the New Negro Movement in African America, Garvey concluded, Sons and daughters of Africa, I say to you arise, take on the toga of race pride, and throw off the brand of ignominy which has kept you back for so many centuries. Dash asunder the petty prejudices within your own fold; set at defiance the scornful designation of “nigger” uttered even by yourselves, and be a Negro in the light of the Pharaohs of Egypt, Simons of Cyrene, Hannibals of Carthage, L’Ouvertures and Dessalines of Hayti, Blaydens, Barclays, and Johnsons of Liberia, Le­ wises of Sierra Leone, and Douglasses and Du Boises of America, who have made, and are making history for the race, though depreciated and in many case unwritten.39

Garvey relocated to New York City when Bruce was sixty years old and at the peak of his career. Garvey’s arrival in the United States co­ incided with the emergence of the New Negro Movement. From 1916 through 1919, the migration of several thousand Black southerners to northern cities, postwar racism faced by returning Black troops who had fought in Europe, the unprecedented growth of Black newspapers and journals, the widespread support of retaliatory violence by Black intellectuals, social violence committed by the masses of urban African Americans, and an exposition in race pride and racial con­ sciousness fueled a political and cultural revival in Black America. Contemporary leaders labeled this flurry of protest and renewal the spirit of the “New Negro.”40 Garvey waded into the turbulent waters of the New Negro move­ ment with his characteristic zeal and commitment to success. His racial temperament and organizational skills were a perfect match for the forces changing the landscape of African America. A new genera­ tion of Blacks simultaneously repudiated Booker T. Washington’s abandonment of political activism and accommodation to white vio­ lence while affirming his commitment to economic self-determination, business ownership, thrift, and property ownership. Garvey articu­ lated these goals while preaching the message of racial salvation to the masses. “I am the equal of any white man; I want you to feel the same way,” Garvey declared. “No more fear, no more cringing, no more

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sycophantic begging and pleading.” We are demanding “that freedom that Victoria of England never gave; that liberty that Lincoln never meant; that freedom, that liberty that will see us men among men, that will make us a great and powerful people.”41 An important tool in the rise the American stage of the UNIA was Garvey’s ability to recruit a talented core of self-trained Black intellec­ tuals who articulated and defended his goals and objectives. From their first meeting in 1916, Garvey viewed Bruce as both an important contact and a potential addition to the future success of the UNIA. Bruce, according to Garvey, was “a man who does not talk simply because he is in a position for which he must say or do something.” He was a “true Negro,” dedicated to the race. Garvey had no doubt heard Bruce’s name and accomplishments endorsed by J. Robert Love, Duse Mohamed Ali, J. E. Casely Hayford, and Emmett J. Scott. In addition, with the death of Washington, Garvey needed a respected African American to vouch for his credibility and provide the entrée into a network of influential personalities who could assist in fund raising and the establishment of a UNIA presence in the States. Bruce “prom­ ised” Garvey “such aid in the furtherance of his plans” as he “could give him, morally and substantially.” He also supplied a “list of the names of . . . leading men in New York and other cities, who . . . would encourage and assist him. Some of them were Clergymen; some pro­ fessional men and some of them private citizens.” Bruce believed that they “parted the best of friends.”42 Garvey began a year-long fund-raising tour of the States in June 1916 by lecturing in Boston. By November he had visited Philadel­ phia, Pittsburgh, Baltimore, Washington, D.C., and Chicago. Demon­ strating the same mobility that characterized his stays in Central America and Europe, Garvey managed to survey African American institutions and meet Black leaders in thirty-eight states. Throughout this amazingly demanding schedule, Garvey enjoyed assistance from the growing Jamaican immigrant community. He secured lodging with a Jamaican family in Harlem and received financial support from Jamaican clubs in New York and Boston. A partial list of Bruce’s refer­ rals included Dr. R. R. Wright Jr. an A.M.E. clergyman, the editor of the Christian Recorder, and a University of Pennsylvania Ph.D.; Dr. William G. Parks, vice-president of the National Baptist Convention and pastor of Union Baptist Church, Philadelphia’s largest Black con­ gregation; Reverend J. C. Anderson, a graduate of the University of

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Chicago and prominent fund raiser in AME circles; Dr. Triley, a Methodist Episcopal minister in Philadelphia; and Mrs. Ida Wells-Barnett, a militant journalist, an antilynching advocate, and the wife of Ferdinand L. Arnett, a leading Chicago attorney. Garvey described these leaders as “conscientious workers, and not mere life service dig­ nitaries.” “With men and women of this type,” he wrote, “I can quite understand that the time is at hand when the stranger, such as I am, will discover the American Negro firmly and strongly set on the pin­ nacle of fame.”43 The above comments provide insight into Garvey’s American in­ tentions and his burning desire to become a driving force in the African American community. While touring the States, he maintained a public commitment to raising funds for an industrial school in Ja­ maica and he contended that his American visit was a temporary de­ parture from the Caribbean. During a dinner in the home of Ferdi­ nand and Ida B. Wells-Barnett, Garvey informed his hosts that “Ne­ groes” in Jamaica were held in “subjection” and that they had “no educational facilities outside of grammar-school work. He wanted to return to his native home,” Wells-Barnett wrote, “to see if he could . . . help to change that situation.” Garvey also sought the assistance of W. E. B. Du Bois in April 1916 after Bruce suggested that he might be in­ terested in his Jamaican project. After visiting Du Bois’s New York of­ fice, writing a letter of explanation, and providing tickets to his first American lecture, Bruce and Garvey concluded that “Prof. Du Bois did not think well of this plan.” Within three years Du Bois and Gar­ vey would be ideological adversaries and arch rivals for the leadership of Black America, while Wells-Barnett would remain sympathetic to Garvey’s efforts in America.44 By June 1917, Garvey had returned to New York, established a base in Harlem, and joined a contingent of street orators that fre­ quented a debating hub on 135th Street and Lenox Avenue. On June 12 he addressed a gathering sponsored by Hubert Harrison, one of Harlem’s most respected intellectuals and a brilliant street speaker. This meeting launched the Liberty League, one of Harlem’s many racial uplift organizations, and Garvey “spoke in enthusiastic ap­ proval of the new movement and pledged . . . his hearty support.” Al­ though Garvey was no match for Harrison’s oratorical skills, his pres­ entation was well received by the two thousand Harlemites who packed Mother Bethel A.M.E. Church. In the next few weeks, several

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of Harrison’s key associates would leave the league and begin work­ ing with Garvey’s UNIA. This group included Isaac Allen, Louis A. Leavelle, Samuel A. Duncan, W. A. Domingo, Edgar M. Grey, Charles C. Seifert, Alexander Rahming, August V. Bernier, Irena MoormanBlackston, Anselmo Jackson, Arthur Reid, Orlando M. Thompson, and John Edward Bruce.45 At the time of the Liberty League speech, Garvey began conven­ ing weekly Sunday meetings in Harlem’s Lafayette Hall. During a gathering on July 8, Garvey spoke on “The Conspiracy of the East St. Louis Riots,” declaring that the riot was a “massacre” that “will go down in history as one of the bloodiest outrages against mankind. . . . Negroes of America have given their life blood to make the Republic the first among nations of the World” and their reward has been “a continuous round of oppression.” Bruce and his colleagues were par­ ticipants in these early meetings and by the fall of 1917 they repre­ sented the core of UNIA’s initial leadership. In a November letter to Nicholas Murray Butler, president of Columbia University, Garvey listed Isaac Allen as president of the UNIA, Duncan as the third vicepresident, Seifert as the second vice-president, Moorman-Blackston as the president of the ladies division, and Bruce as the chairman of the advisory board.46 From November 1917 to July 1918, Garvey struggled with mem­ bers of his organization who were committed to socialism and elec­ toral politics. Isaac Allen, Louis Leavelle, and Samuel Duncan had po­ litical ambitions and viewed Garvey’s organization as a political club in which they could launch their respective electoral careers. All three were expelled from the UNIA in 1919. W. A. Domingo and Anselmo Jackson cut their ties to Garvey by 1919 and joined forces with a group of Black Socialists and Communists who published the Emancipator. After this newspaper folded in May 1920, Domingo became affiliated with Cyril Brigg’s Crusader and the African Blood Brotherhood (ABB), an all-Black auxiliary of the Communist Party. Jackson became an as­ sociate editor of the Crusader and also edited his own publication, Our Boys and Girls. Garvey solidified his control of the UNIA by becoming president of the New York branch, shifting the headquarters from Kingston to New York City, and winning a turf war with the Socialists and Republican politicians. The UNIA was incorporated in July 2, 1918, under the laws of New York State and on July 31 the African Communities League (ACL) was incorporated as the business arm of

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the UNIA. The Negro World appeared in the summer of 1918 and quickly became the most widely circulated race paper in America and a voice of opposition to European colonialism.47 When Bruce “discovered that Garvey had departed from his origi­ nal plan and had reorganized his society into a ‘great world move­ ment,’” he joined the opposition. From January 1918 to October 1919, Bruce was critical of Garvey and his movement. In a January 1918 let­ ter to the Negro World, Bruce listed fifteen questions intended to dis­ credit Garvey. These included the following: Have you any visible means of support? Is your present organization a branch of the Jamaica Industrial School Scheme which you launched on your first arrival in America? Are you aware that you are playing with fire and may get your fingers burned? And if you were a citizen of this country instead of an un­ known wandering alien with a grudge against toil, your brilliant philippics and criticisms of native Americans of African descent m[i]ght be more effective, if you were more responsible than you seem to be? Who are you anyway and what is your game?48

Although these questions were meant to embarrass Garvey, he did not hesitate to publish them in the Negro World. Even though Bruce was estranged from the UNIA, Garvey realized that a person with Bruce’s credibility could play an important role in his efforts to influence African America. He wisely kept communication open and tried to ameliorate Bruce’s attacks upon his leadership. Bruce followed this editorial with another statement that characterized Garvey as an “ora­ tor who has thrilled audiences . . . by the witchery of his eloquence” and who would be an “effective critic . . . if he had naturalization pa­ pers signed and properly sealed.” He also wrote that Garvey “has about as much influence with the 400,000,000 people of Africa who are to be consolidated under his leadership into one great . . . Negro Na­ tionality . . . as the Statue of Liberty, or a deaf and dumb Choctaw In­ dian [Bruce asserted] he is only fooling the unthinking among people of the Negro race.” “Mr. Garvey,” Bruce concluded, “will find that the

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Negro race is not so easily organized as he imagines it is, but that it is a pretty good meal ticket until the period of disillusionment wanes.”49 In January 1919, Bruce responded to an inquiry from Major Walter H. Loving, a Black intelligence officer, regarding his relationship with Garvey. Bruce informed Loving “not [to] insult me by linking my name with any movement, plan, scheme, plot or enterprise with which Marcus Garvey is identified.” Bruce wrote that he had “studied his methods and his tactics” and concluded that “his scheme . . . was impracticable, utopian and jackassical.” He further contended that Garvey was trying to “relieve gullible Negroes of their surplus cash” and that he had “written a number of articles in our race papers” criti­ cizing Garvey’s leadership.50 Bruce’s view of Garvey was colored by his extensive participation in racial uplift organizations and the critical observations of numerous other Black leaders. From their perspective, Garvey was a young and inexperienced Jamaican immigrant who was unfamiliar with Amer­ ica’s racial terrain and the specific problems facing African Americans. Garvey’s “idea[s]?” were “all right,” Bruce wrote, “but the method all wrong—all gas.” Bruce had advocated an international view of the race question throughout his life and had experimented with PanAfrican organizations long before Garvey’s arrival in the United States. In September 1913, Bruce and his close friends, Reverend Charles D. Martin and Arthur Schomburg, had organized the Loyal Order of the Sons of Africa (LOSA). This was to be a “world-wide or­ ganization, with headquarters in Africa, whose officers shall be di­ vided proportionately between that country, the West Indies, and the United States.” Bruce wanted the “grievances of the race . . . stated clearly and succinctly in a carefully drawn paper and circulated among all Negroes in these countries who think black.” Bruce was also cofounder of the Hamitic League of the World (HLW), another effort similar to the LOSA established with George Wells Parker and Rev­ erend John Albert Williams. The LOSA and the HLW were short-lived organizations but their goals remained part of Bruce’s vision for the race.51 In addition to his activities with the LOSA and the HLW, Bruce was also a close friend, colleague, and probable advisor to the Rev­ erend Orishatuke Faduma, a Sierra Leonean, formerly known as James Davies. Faduma studied at London University and Yale Univer-

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sity during the 1880s, taught for seventeen years in Black schools in America, and joined the American Negro Academy in 1899. During the period 1912–14, he was the intellectual voice of the ill-fated Backto-Africa Movement led by Chief Alfred Charles Sam of the Gold Coast. The majority of Chief Sam’s recruits came from Oklahoma; sixty colonists reached West Africa, but the majority returned to the States after September 1915. Bruce did not support Chief Sam’s call for emigration but he endorsed Faduma’s ideas on “Race patriotism,” Negro nationalism, and greater African American participation in the “industrialization of Africa by Negro technical expertise.”52 In Septem­ ber 1915, Faduma published his reflections upon the failed African return, declaring, Now is the time for us to prove our manhood. Let the African and the Negro scattered over the world begin to read history and its philoso­ phy with a purpose. . . . It is certainly better for American Negroes to die of African fever in the efforts to contribute to Africa’s develop­ ment, than to be riddled by the bullets of the White mob who control the local government of the United States. . . . It is better to live even among pagans, where the majority respect their laws and life is secure, than to live in a country where only the minority are law keepers as in the Southern States. . . . Men may die but ideas and movements do not.53

Garvey’s critics used the failures of Chief Sam’s African return to un­ dermine his program for African Americans. Faduma’s ideas, however, were highly respected before and after his association with Chief Sam’s movement, and Bruce’s association with Faduma was another expression of his intellectual ties to Garvey’s vision even before the UNIA established a base in America.54 Garvey and Bruce were passionately committed to a Pan-African conception of race redemption and the belief that Black leadership should be accountable to the masses. Even though they shared a com­ mon philosophy on the issues of race, Bruce doubted Garvey’s dedica­ tion and his integrity while also relying upon third-party opinions to formulate his evaluation of Garvey’s sincerity. Garvey’s patience with Bruce’s doubts finally paid off in the fall of 1919. Garvey also patiently withstood Bruce’s vacillation and eventual hostility to his leadership. Garvey never attacked Bruce and he even courted his support during

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their period of animosity. This rift ended in October 1919. After listen­ ing to Garvey explain his goals and the objectives of the UNIA in an impassioned street-corner lecture, Bruce was converted to the “great campaign.” In 1922 he explained his conversion: I was among those who opposed him at the start and who wrote against him, and I tried my best to defeat his aims, which I confess, I did not then thoroughly understand. They seemed to me wild, chimerical and impossible of accomplishment. I stood, one night, at a corner of Lenox Avenue and 135th Street, when Garvey, standing on an especially built platform—a step ladder—with which he could take liberties without falling, unfolded, in part, the plan of his Organiza­ tion, which was to draw all Negroes throughout the World together, to make one big brotherhood of the Black Race for its common good, for mutual protection, for commercial and industrial development, and for fostering of business enterprises. This sounded not only good to me, but practical. The things he proposed were easy of accomplish­ ment under a leader as full of his subject as he, and “Why not?” I said to myself, “let him try out his plan; since no one else has submitted a better one, why oppose him?” and from that cold night, in October, I ceased writing and talking against Garvey.55

Having studied Garvey, Bruce had concluded that he had passed his test for true leadership. Garvey had an “absence of the love of money and a desire to help the masses to get on and up,” and his “bull-dog tenacity” and “straightforward methods” were “putting out of busi­ ness” the old leadership. By 1922 Bruce believed that the UNIA was “the most powerful Negro Organization in the World.” There is ab­ solutely no corner of the earth,” Bruce argued, “where there is a Black or Brown or Yellow face, where there is not a Branch of the UNIA.”56 From October 1919 to his death in August 1924, Bruce was a trusted and loyal lieutenant to Garvey. He began publishing a regular column in the Negro World in May 1920, served as Garvey’s private secretary from 1921 to 1923, and was the most articulate defender of Garvey and the goals of the UNIA. He was sixty-three and in the twi­ light of a long and prestigious career dedicated to racial uplift and Black self-determination. When he committed his final years to Gar­ vey’s campaign, Bruce brought substantial credibility to the move-

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ment. Indeed, many of Garvey’s critics acknowledged Bruce as the most respected member of the UNIA’s inner circle. Bruce’s close relationship with Edward Blyden and Alexander Crummell had provided a legion of contacts throughout Africa. This network aided the UNIA in spreading its influence throughout the continent. Bruce’s association with the political elite of Liberia, espe­ cially Chief J. J. Dossen and President C. D. B. King, was doubtless the prime reason why the UNIA came close to establishing a land base in Africa.57 Bruce was also close to a cadre of African nationalists, includ­ ing Majola Agbebe, J. E. Casely Hayford, W. E. G. Sekyi, and Sol T. Plaatje, that encouraged the participation of the African elite in the UNIA.58 Bruce’s journalistic skills helped the Negro World and the Daily Negro Times to flourish from 1920 to 1922. An experienced journalist, he encouraged the spirit of cooperation among an impressive collec­ tion of writers that included Arthur Schomburg, William Ferris, Hu­ bert Harrison, Duse Mohamed Ali, and Robert Poston. This team of self-trained historians published literary reviews and historical columns that captured the imagination of over fifty thousand sub­ scribers and several hundred thousand readers a week.59 Bruce’s participation in numerous fraternal and professional or­ ganizations exposed Garvey and the UNIA to a broad segment of African America. In some cases, Bruce coordinated a pro-Garvey bloc inside organizations that were not viewed as supportive of the UNIA. This was especially true of his participation in the American Negro Academy. Bruce and Schomburg also exerted considerable pressure on the Prince Hall Masons, helping to make this organization one of the strongest UNIA supporters during the early 1920s. Garvey even joined the Masons with Bruce’s sponsorship, but failed to attend lodge meetings on a regular basis. Bruce urged his fellow Masons to organ­ ize into “One people, with one purpose, [and] One destiny.” These very words became a rallying call for the UNIA after Bruce’s associa­ tion with Garvey.60 Bruce’s influence on Garvey and the UNIA can also be seen in Bruce’s Pan-African business activities from the turn of the century to his death. He had been interested in investing in gold in the Gold Coast and tried to import coffee from Liberia. These ideas appear to have influenced Garvey’s own community businesses as well as the ill-fated Black Star Line.61

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Bruce was a major intellectual force within the UNIA and a major influence upon Garvey’s conception of race struggle. In the UNIA, he reinforced the need to create and define an independent conception of Black history. Bruce brought this message to his literary contributions to the UNIA, which included plays, poems, and artistic criticism. In addition, he helped organize history lectures in local UNIA branches that featured himself, Schomburg, J. A. Rogers, and Hubert Harrison.62 Bruce declined the presidency of the American sector of the UNIA in August 1920. His health was slowly fading and he wanted a younger man to assume the responsibilities of the post. He died approximately four years after making this decision. In a letter to Garvey declining the position Bruce explained, I do not understand your “back to Africa” movement slogan to mean what the critics have mischievously interpreted it to mean. I think I see with tolerably clear vision that your purpose is to lay the foundation broad and deep, so that the Negroes of the coming day will know bet­ ter than we, who are now blazing the pathway and preparing the race for African nationalization, how to possess and hold and develop the heritage which the Almighty has given to the black race.63

The five thousand mourners who paid tribute to Bruce on the day of his funeral honored more than the life of a man. Bruce symbolized the constant struggle for dignity and cultural survival that African Ameri­ cans faced from the late nineteenth century through the 1920s. Bruce demonstrated that even without a formal education, family connec­ tions, and personal wealth, Black folk could still become important players in determining their own individual and collective future. The “grand old man” of the UNIA had passed but his legacy, accomplish­ ments, and determination would remain an impressive example for the race.

Conclusion The Making of a Race Man:The Meaning and Significance of John Edward Bruce’s Life

In August 1924, Mrs. Florence Bruce addressed a dedication ceremony sponsored by the Boston division of the UNIA, which was naming its meeting hall in honor of her late husband, John Edward Bruce. During the previous three weeks a series of tributes had been sponsored by community groups and the UNIA faithful to commemorate her hus­ band’s life and contributions to the race. Mrs. Bruce was not a regular public speaker but she believed that these events kept her mind occu­ pied and her husband’s memory alive. The audience was packed with Garveyites of all ages, an outpouring of Boston’s Black working class, leaders of the Black press, Black Republicans and Democrats, and a few members of the Black elite. Regardless of age, status, color, sex, or political affiliation, Bruce’s achievements were unanimously respected while a majority saw a reflection of their own lives in Bruce’s wideranging career.1 Mrs. Bruce declared that “in spite of her grief,” she would devote herself to the “spiritual and physical emancipation of the race.” These were the goals of her husband and she encouraged the audience to preserve them regardless of racist opposition.2 How did Bruce’s life fit within a larger community and what were the links that tied him to the struggle of African Americans for meaningful emancipation? Why is Bruce’s legacy important, and what are the broader implications of his life? How can an understanding of Bruce’s unique contribution help scholars to comprehend a neglected but rich component of Black history? This conclusion addresses these questions, establishing the historical meaning of Bruce’s biography and positioning his life within the broader context of African American history. . . . 159

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In October 1922, Bruce published a detailed summary of his philoso­ phy and the goals that had shaped his life. He believed that a combi­ nation of strong families, Black pride, Black history, racial unity, and group cooperation would provide the tools for liberating African America. “To make the race powerful,” argued Bruce, “stop helping to make white men powerful with your money and your influence.”3 He further elaborated, Help to build up your own Race in business, in the professions, in all the industries and in the proportion that we help each other, we help ourselves individually and collectively. . . . The keyword then is Co­ operation, and I pray to clarify our vision and enable us to see more clearly the duty we owe to ourselves and to our posterity.4

Throughout his adult life, Bruce campaigned for racial unity, co­ operation, self-reliance, pride, and economic independence. Unlike W. E. B. Du Bois and Booker T. Washington, Bruce did not see a contradiction between pursuit of these goals and a militant stand on political and civil rights. He challenged segregation and refused to accommo­ date to white power but also questioned the wisdom of integration. Bruce was among a minority of Black thinkers, prior to 1900, who endorsed the cultural uniqueness of African people and the necessity to employ this resource for Black advancement. He was educated in this position by Edward Wilmot Blyden and J. Robert Love, his mentors and prominent nineteenth-century Pan-African nationalists. Bruce did not support emigration, but he did advocate that Blacks struggle in America as an independent force outside white society. He cam­ paigned for these ideas as a leader and key participant in an array of Black organizations, including mutual aid groups, literary and histori­ cal societies, fraternal organizations, economic initiatives, political caucuses, and journalistic efforts. Bruce’s extensive organizational activities and his frequent newspaper columns linked him with a national community of Black ac­ tivists, intellectuals, organizers, ministers, and political leaders. Through his many contacts, such as Reverend Alexander Crummell, T. Thomas Fortune, Ida Wells-Barnett, and Arthur Schomburg, Bruce spread his ideas about critical issues in Black America. Bruce, along with Schomburg, was a leader in the Black history movement; he and

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Fortune played key roles in the drive for Black political independence; Bruce worked with Wells-Barnett in the struggle against lynchings and anti-Black violence in the South; and he and Crummell cam­ paigned for intellectual independence in the American Negro Acad­ emy. John Bruce, who had fled from slavery and had little formal educa­ tion, was a self-made man. Through determination, desire, and intel­ lectual ability, he hammered his way to the top of Black journalism. He was one of a collection of nineteenth-century Black men and women who battled difficult odds to establish successful lives and ca­ reers. Arthur Schomburg described these resourceful and often neg­ lected individuals as the “rank and file of the fields.” The emergence of professionalization in the twentieth century limited the opportuni­ ties for Bruce and his self-trained peers.5 Bruce struggled with the Republican Party for over thirty-five years to force accountability to a loyal African American constituency. He was among a generation of Black politicians who witnessed the erosion of Reconstruction gains and the eventual death of political equality by the turn of the century. This was a difficult and bitter expe­ rience that resulted in a minor patronage position with the New York Port Authority during the last twenty years of his life. Bruce was also among the generation of African Americans who witnessed the death of Frederick Douglass and the rise of Booker T. Washington. During Douglass’s declining years, he and other Young Turks challenged the senior statesman’s vision of race struggle and criticized his interracial marriage.6 Bruce had a precarious relationship with Booker T. Washington. Similar to other Black nationalists, he admired Washington’s institu­ tional building skills, especially the all-Black staff employed by Tuskegee Institute. However, Bruce’s staunch support for Black politi­ cal and civil rights was never compatible with Washington’s accom­ modationist policies. By the turn of the century, Washington and his Tuskegee Machine controlled an extensive network of Black newspa­ pers and magazines through financial bribes and political intimida­ tion. Bruce was one of several Black journalists who compromised their editorial voice for financial gain. This decision was partly due to his lack of a full-time job and the need for additional funds to support

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his new family. Bruce shortly terminated this arrangement and com­ mitted his journalistic talents to the anti-Washington camp. Throughout his association with the Tuskegee Machine, he fought to maintain his integrity, sometimes challenged Washington’s lieutenants, and published anti-Washington columns when not being paid for canned editorials. Bruce’s relationship with Washington was part of a larger ideolog­ ical debate among Black leaders during the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Washington was a formidable opponent who did not hesitate to crush his political adversaries. Bruce escaped this fate and contributed his ideas and energy to the Black radical movement that challenged the Tuskegee Machine from 1903 to 1915.7 From the late 1880s to his death in 1924, Bruce was a central link in the triangular trade of ideas and issues that flourished among Blacks in America, Africa, and the Caribbean. Blyden and Crummell en­ dorsed his credibility with the African elite while J. Robert Love and his Jamaica Advocate kept Bruce updated on the West Indies. After Bly­ den’s death in 1912, Bruce cemented a relationship with Majola Ag­ bebi and J. E. Casely Hayford, Blyden disciples and influential African nationalists. Bruce also had close ties with African leaders in South Africa, such as John L. Dube and Solomon Plaatje, pioneers in the South African Native Congress. In Liberia, Bruce established friendships with several officials, including President C. D. B. King and Vice-President James J. Dossen. In addition to these relationships, Bruce cultivated an African audience through articles in the Gold Coast Leader and the African Times and Orient Review. Bruce also experi­ mented with commercial schemes financed by African entrepreneurs and assisted his African friends in placing their children in American colleges.8 Bruce’s international view of race cooperation and struggle led him to the Garvey movement. When he joined Garvey’s “crusade” in October 1919, his African network played an instrumental role in le­ gitimizing the appeal of the UNIA among the African elite and in the spread of Garveyism in the continent. Bruce was a trusted and loyal advisor to Marcus Garvey, a father figure to the movement, and a buffer between those who had ideological and personal differences within the UNIA. Garvey, who sought out his assistance and culti­ vated their relationship, understood that Bruce was a valuable re-

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source and a critical link to the African and African American intelligentsia.9 Throughout his life, Bruce was a tireless advocate for the masses and for the accountability of Black leaders to the community. Long before his association with the UNIA, he advocated closer cooperation between African and African American while insisting that workingclass Blacks challenge middle-class leadership. This theme had been evident in Bruce’s writing since he was twenty-one years old. Al­ though Bruce directed his rhetoric against white supremacy, he also waged a consistent class war against the privileges of color and class within African America.10 Bruce was a leader in the Black history movement and the efforts to popularize African American history. He served as an anchor and mentor for a cadre of younger self-trained historians and intellectuals, such as Arthur Schomburg, David Bryant Fulton, and Laura Eliza Wilkes. Bruce and these men and women laid the foundation for the broader appreciation of African American history that flourished in the 1930s and 1940s. In addition, Bruce and his colleagues champi­ oned the teaching of Negro history in Negro colleges and the numer­ ous secondary and primary schools that served Black students. Unfor­ tunately, these important pioneers have been overlooked when schol­ ars chart the intellectual and historical course of acceptance for African American history as a legitimate discipline within the academy.11 The life of John Edward Bruce provides a window onto the lives of the Black thinkers, writers, and activists who worked to cultivate a Black audience, and who had little interest in attracting a white fol­ lowing. In the words of Antonio Gramsci, they were “produced by so­ cial conflict” and reflected “the ideas and aspirations of their class,” even though they enjoyed “no formal status or employment as intel­ lectuals.” Like his colleagues, Bruce learned about the world by trying to al­ leviate the problems of his race. Clearly he understood the struggles, needs, and aspirations of African Americans in the years between Abraham Lincoln and Marcus Garvey. And in some ways most impor­ tant, Bruce’s life demonstrates that the ideas of Black nationalism and separatism can be combined with the philosophy of political and civil protest.

Notes

NOTES TO THE INTRODUCTION

1. George Shepperson, “Notes on Negro American Influences on the Emer­ gence of African Nationalism,” Journal of African History, vols. 1–2 (1960), 299–312. Additional Shepperson publications that include this theme are “Ex­ ternal Factors in the Development of African Nationalism, with Particular Ref­ erence to British Central Africa,” Phylon, vol. 22 (1961), 207–25; “Pan-Africanism and ‘Pan-Africanism’: Some Historical Notes,” Phylon, vol. 23, no. 4 (1962), 346–58; “The African Abroad or the African Diaspora,” in T. O. Ranger, ed., Emerging Themes of African History (London: Heinemann Educational Books, 1968); “An Early African Graduate,” University of Endinburgh Gazette, vol. 32 (January 1962); “The Afro-American Contribution to African Studies,” Journal of American Studies, vol. 7 (December 1974); “Introduction,” in Martin L. Kilson and Robert I. Rotberg, eds., The African Diaspora: Interpretive Essays (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1976); “Joseph Booth and the Africanist Diaspora,” The Tenth Melville J. Herskovits Memorial Lecture (Evanston: African Studies Program, Northwestern University, March 6, 1972); and Shepperson and Thomas Price, Independent African: John Chilembwe and the Origins, Setting and Significance of the Nyasaland Revolt of 1915 (Edinburgh: University of Edinburgh Press, 1958 and 1987). Shepperson, professor emeritus of commonwealth and American history, University of Edinburgh, has trained several students who have centered their research upon issues related to Africa and the African diaspora. Some examples include J. Ayodelle Langley, Pan-Africanism and Nationalism in West Africa, 1900–1945 (London: Oxford University Press, 1973); Carol Page, “Black Amer­ ica in White South Africa: Church and State Reaction to the African Methodist Episcopal Church in Cape Colony and Transvaal, 1896–1910” (Ph.D. diss., Uni­ versity of Edinburgh, 1977); and Ian Duffield, “The Business Activities of Duse Mohamed Ali: An Example of the Economic Dimension of Pan-Africanism, 1912–1945,” Journal of the Historical Society of Nigeria, vol. 4, no. 4 (June 1969). T. O. Ranger, personal discussions with author, spring 1977. Ranger is also an expert on the interaction between Africa and the African diaspora. An example of his research on the influence of the African diaspora upon African thought would be “Recent Developments in the Study of African Religions and 165

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NOTES TO THE INTRODUCTION

Cultural History and Their Relevance for the Historiography of the Diaspora,” Ufahamu, vol. 4, no. 2 (1973), 17–34. For additional Ranger materials review Ranger and Isaria N. Kimambo, eds., The Historical Study of African Religions with Special Reference to East and Central Africa (London: Heinemann Educational Books, 1972); Ranger and Richard Werbner, eds., Post-Colonial Identities in Africa (Atlantic Highlands, NJ: Zed Books, 1996); Ranger and John C. Weller, eds., Themes in the Christian History of Central Africa (Berkeley: University of Califor­ nia Press, 1975); and Voices from the Rocks: Nature, Culture, and History in the Matopo Hills (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1999). 2. Shepperson, “Notes on Negro American Influences on the Emergence of African Nationalism,” 299. 3. Peter Gilbert, ed., The Selected Writings of John Edward Bruce: Militant Black Journalist (New York: Arno Press and the New York Times, 1971). The best ex­ amples of Bruce’s relationship to the Garvey movement have been published by Tony Martin; these include Race First: The Ideological and Organizational Struggles of Marcus Garvey and the Universal Negro Improvement Association (Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1976) and Literary Garveyism: Garveyism, Black Arts, and the Harlem Renaissance (Dover, MA: Majority Press, 1983). Bruce is also generously mentioned in Judith Stein, The World of Marcus Garvey: Race and Class in Modern Society (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1986) and Robert A. Hill, ed., The Marcus Garvey and Universal Negro Improvement Association Papers, vols. 1–9 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1983–89). Selected examples of the broad use of Bruce’s views to understand differ­ ent aspects of African American culture and intellectual life include Elinor Des Verney Sinnette, W. Paul Coates, and Thomas C. Battle, eds., Black Bibliophiles and Collectors: Preservers of Black History (Washington, DC: Howard University Press, 1990); Willard B. Gatewood, Aristocrats of Color: The Black Elite, 1880–1920 (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1993); Tony Martin, ed., African Funda­ mentalism: A Literary and Cultural Anthology of Garvey’s Harlem Renaissance (Dover, MA: Majority Press, 1991); Wilson Jeremiah Moses, Afrotopia: The Roots of African American Popular History (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998); Bess Beatty, A Revolution Gone Backward: The Black Response to National Pol­ itics, 1876–1896 (Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1987); Elinor Des Verney Sin­ nette, Arthur Alfonso Schomburg: Black Bibliophile and Collector (Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 1989); and Herbert Shapiro, White Violence and Black Re­ sponse: From Reconstruction to Montgomery (Amherst: University of Massachu­ setts Press, 1988). 4. Ralph L. Crowder’s published articles on Bruce include “John Edward Bruce: Pioneer Black Nationalist,” Afro-Americans in New York Life and History, vol. 2, no. 2 (July 1978), 47–66; “Street Scholars: Self-Trained Black Historians,” The Black Collegian (January/February 1979), 8–22 and 80; “John Edward Bruce, Edward Wilmot Blyden, Alexander Crummell, and J. Robert Love: Mentors, Pa-

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trons, and the Evolution of a Pan-African Intellectual Network,” Afro-Americans in New York Life and History, vol. 20, no. 2 (July 1996), 56–91; “Frederick Dou­ glass, Booker T. Washington, and John Edward Bruce: The Relationship of a Militant Black Journalist with the ‘Father of the Civil Rights Movement’ and the ‘Wizard of Tuskegee,’” Afro-Americans in New York Life and History, vol. 20, no. 2 (July 1998), 91–110; “Race, Politics, and Patronage: John Edward Bruce and the Republican Party,” Afro-Americans in New York Life and History, vol. 26, no. 1 (January 2002), 75–111; “From Slavery to Freedom: John Edward Bruce’s Childhood and Adolescence,” Afro-Americans in New York Life and History, vol. 26, no. 1 (January 2002); “‘Grand Old Man of the Movement’: John Edward Bruce, Marcus Garvey, and the UNIA,” Afro-Americans in New York Life and History, vol. 27, no. 1 (January 2003), 75–113; and “Street Scholars and the Harlem Experi­ ence,” Afro-Americans in New York Life and History, special issue edited by Ralph L. Crowder, forthcoming. William Seraile’s Bruce Grit: The Black Nationalist Writings of John Edward Bruce (Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press, forthcoming) should add to the recent literature on Bruce. John Cullen Gruesser’s edited version of John Edward Bruce’s Black Sleuth (1907–9; reprint, Boston: Northeastern University Press, 2002) represents the first of several potential literary works drafted by Bruce that could be published. Gruesser believes that Bruce was one of the ear­ liest African American writers to publish a detective story. The Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture has recently released for public and institutional purchase four volumes of the John Edward Bruce papers. Prior to this decision, researchers had to have written permission from Bruce’s descendants, Mrs. Agnes Conway (New York, New York) and/or Ms. Onnie Millar (Brooklyn, New York). 5. Tony Martin, Literary Garveyism, 100–104 and 114–15; Tony Martin, ed., African Fundamentalism, 58–64, 148–49, and 334–35; and Gruesser, introduction to The Black Sleuth. Bruce’s second novel, The Awakening of Hezekiah Jones: A Story Dealing with Some of the Problems Affecting the Political Rewards Due the Negro (Hopkinsville, KY: Phil H. Brown, 1915), would be a worthy project to publish as a supplement to The Black Sleuth. 6. Ralph L. Crowder, introduction to “Laura Eliza Wilkes: A Memorial Address on the Life and Death of a Neglected Pioneer Black Female Historian Pre­ sented by John Edward Bruce in 1922,” Afro-Americans in New York Life and History, vol. 24, no. 2 (July 2000), 71–79. NOTES TO CHAPTER 1

1. This story is based upon information found in “Introduction: The Bruce Collection,” Calendar of the Manuscripts, the John E. Bruce papers (hereafter, Bruce papers), Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, New York

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Public Library, New York, New York (hereafter, SCRBC), 166. It appears that this introduction was authored by Dr. Lawrence Reddick, who succeeded Arthur Alfonso Schomburg as curator of the Schomburg Collection in 1938 and served in this capacity until 1948. During the Depression, Works Projects Administra­ tion (WPA) employees began compiling an annotated bibliography of the col­ lection’s manuscripts. Reddick and his staff completed the work begun by the WPA. In July 1897 Bruce received an appointment by New York’s Governor Levi P. Morton to head the New York colored delegation to the Centennial Exposition held in Nashville, Tennessee. The Bruce papers do not contain corre­ spondence from Governor Morton regarding the Nashville exposition, but Richard Hill of Nashville, Tennessee, and T. B. S. Capponi of St. Augustine, Florida, did write Bruce regarding the opposition to the “proposed Race Coun­ cil in Nashville.” See Richard Hill to Bruce, August 2, 1897, Bruce papers, MS. 244 (#1253), SCRBC; and T. B. S. Capponi to Bruce, August 9, 1897, Bruce papers, Bruce C. 1 (#1254), SCRBC. Bruce published a critical review of lower-class Black behavior he observed in public while attending the Centennial Exposi­ tion. He believed that many were “bumptious, overbearing and greasy in pub­ lic places . . . sometimes insulting and . . . always looking for trouble.” See the Raleigh Gazette, August 7, 1897, quoted in Willard B. Gatewood, Aristocrats of Color: The Black Elite, 1880–1920 (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1990), 186. The journal entry numbers, Calendar of Manuscripts, for the aforementioned documents have been included with the respective dates. Hereafter these num­ bers will be identified with number sign (#), whenever possible. 2. I. Garland Penn, historian of the Black press, referred to Bruce as the “prince of Afro-American correspondents.” This observation was made in 1891, a time when Bruce had not reached his full stature in the world of Black jour­ nalism. See Penn, The Afro-American Press and Its Editors (Springfield, MA: Wiley and Company, 1891; reprinted New York: Arno Press and the New York Times, 1969), 346. 3. For Bruce’s opposition to accommodation see “Reflections on the Deci­ sion in the Civil Rights Cases,” November 1, 1883; “Is This Our Country,” No­ vember 7, 1883; and “The Application of Force,” October 5, 1889; Bruce papers, B. 6-47 (#940), B. 7-99 (#941), and B. 7-82 (#1003), SCRBC; these articles have also been reprinted in Peter Gilbert, ed., The Selected Writings of John Edward Bruce: Militant Black Journalist (New York: Arno Press and the New York Times, 1971), 23 and 29. Alfred A. Moss Jr., The American Negro Academy (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1981), 30. 4. William Glenn Cornell, “The Life and Thought of John Edward Bruce” (M.A. thesis, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, 1970), 38. On Febru­ ary 12, 1887, Bruce published in the Cleveland Gazette the first of a six-part series on the history of the Black soldier in the wars fought by the United States. This was the first of a large collection of articles on the role of Blacks in the history of

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the world. Bruce expanded on this theme by writing plays and poems and de­ livering speeches on Africa and African American history from the late 1880s to his death in 1924. 5. George Shepperson, “Notes on Negro American Influences on the Emer­ gence of African Nationalism,” Journal of African History, vols. 1–2 (1960), 299. Additional Shepperson publications that have explored this theme include “Ex­ ternal Factors in the Development of African Nationalism, with Particular Ref­ erence to British Central Africa,” Phylon, vol. 32 (1961), 207–25; “Pan-Africanism and ‘Pan-Africanism’: Some Historical Notes,” Phylon, vol. 33, no. 4 (1962), 346–58; “Abolitionism and African Political Thought,” Transition (1964), 22–26; and Shepperson and Thomas Price, Independent African: John Chilembwe and the Origins, Setting and Significance of the Nyasaland Revolt of 1915 (Edinburgh: Uni­ versity of Edinburgh Press, 1958 and 1987). See also Ralph L. Crowder, “The In­ ternational Correspondence of John Edward Bruce, 1880–1924: A Neglected Cat­ alyst in the Commerce of Pan-African Ideas,” paper presented at the annual con­ ference of the Association for the Study of Afro-American Life and History, New York, New York, April 1981; and Crowder, “John Edward Bruce and the Trian­ gular Trade in Pan-African Ideas,” paper presented at the Tribute to the First Pan-African Conference, Hunter College, New York, New York, October 1988. 6. John E. Bruce, “A Sketch of My Life,” May 1, 1876, Bruce papers, Bruce B. 12 (#911), SCRBC; Cornell, “The Life and Thought of John Edward Bruce,” 11; and Gilbert, ed., The Selected Writings of John Edward Bruce, 1. Scholars have overlooked the following evidence in the Bruce papers re­ lating to Bruce’s youth: John E. Bruce (Bruce Grit), “Public Men I Have Met,” n.d., B. 5-25 (#2130), SCRBC; “Sketch of Childhood under Slavery,” “Lincoln and J. Wilkes Booth,” n.d., B. 5-24 (#2065), SCRBC; “A Black Boy’s Impression of Some Great Men He Has Met and Known,” n.d., B. 5-27 (#2063), SCRBC; and “Reminiscences of a Colored Journalist,” n.d., B. 5-16 (#2059), SCRBC. This ma­ terial should be approached with caution since it may represent Bruce’s effort to embellish his earlier life when he began to gain notoriety from journalism. 7. Bruce, “A Sketch of My Life,” 1. 8. Ibid., 2. In “Sketch of Childhood under Slavery,” 1–2, Bruce also dis­ cussed the feelings of desperation endured by slaves who were separated from their families and loved ones. 9. Ibid. 10. Ibid., 3. 11. Ibid. 12. Ibid. In Bruce’s later years, the relationship and name of Busie Patterson became altered. On at least one occasion, he used the first name Basil and identified his cousin as “my mother’s uncle.” See Bruce, “Major Martin Robinson Delany,” Bruce papers, July 5, 1920 (#1860), SCRBC. This was a speech before the American Negro Academy.

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13. Ibid., 3–5. 14. Penn, The Afro-American Press and Its Editors, 346–47. Penn (1867–1929) was a Black educator and clergyman in the Methodist Episcopal Church. He was born in New Glasgow, Virginia, and educated at Rust College, Holly Springs, Mississippi. For additional information on his career see Frank L. Mather, ed., Who’s Who in Colored America, 1928–1929 (Chicago: Mather, 1930), 288; and SCRBC, the Bruce papers, Calendar of the Manuscripts, 445. A list of Bruce’s speeches and articles that discussed his youth and social conditions in Washington, D.C., include the material cited in note 5 above and “Washington’s Colored Society,” 1877, F. 10-21 (#915); “Reminiscence No. 1 of Visit to Freder­ ick Douglass,” n.d., B. 9-97 (#2137); “Major Delany and Other Prominent Race Men Personally Encountered in Course of Journalistic Work,” 1922?, B. 9-25 (#1977), all in Bruce papers, SCRBC. Also see Bruce, “‘Negro,’ ‘Colored,’ or ‘Afro-American,’” in Gilbert, ed., The Selected Writings of John Edward Bruce, 50–52; this article was written sometime in the 1890s. 15. Haynes Johnson, Dusk at the Mountain: The Negro, the Nation, and the Cap­ ital—A Report on Problems and Progress (Garden City, NJ: Doubleday, 1963), 72, quoted in Gatewood, Aristocrats of Color, 36. Gatewood’s book is invaluable for understanding the mentality and perceptions of the Black elite; especially note chapter 2, “Washington: Capital of the Colored Aristocracy,” 39–68. 16. Gatewood, Aristocrats of Color, 36. 17. Ibid., 36–35, x, and 320. Robert Cruden’s Negro in Reconstruction (Engle­ wood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall, 1969), 166, was also quite critical of the emerging Black bourgeoisie in the 1860s. In his view, They strove to prove themselves worthy of white acceptance. But al­ ways there was the color line. The response of many such blacks was particularly destructive to black psychological wholeness; they blamed the color line not on whites, but on the mass of blacks, who by their presumed vulgarity, laziness, thriftlessness, and immorality held back decent and industrious blacks from achieving their due. Bound to the black mass by color and by economic necessity, they psycholog­ ically rejected their fellows. Thus, they provided no leadership, and by the same token, the masses expected none from them. 18. Bruce, “Major Martin Robinson Delany,” 1–13. 19. Bruce, “A Sketch of My Life,” 5. 20. Bruce, “A Black Boy’s Impressions of President Lincoln and J. Wilkes Booth,” 1–6. 21. Bruce, “A Black Boy’s Impression of President Lincoln and J. Wilkes Booth,” 1–2; and “Public Men I Have Met,” 1–14. In addition to Martin R. De­ lany (1812–85) and Henry Highland Garnet (1815–82), the other Pan-African advocates who became friends with Bruce prior to 1897 included Dr. J. Robert

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Love (1839–1914), Edward Wilmot Blyden (1832–1912), and Alexander Crum­ mell (1819–98). 22. Penn, The Afro-American Press and Its Editors, 346–47; John E. Bruce, “A Sketch of My Life,” 2; “Public Men I Have Met,” 1–2; and “Major Martin Robinson Delany,” 1–5. The Bruce papers provide little information on how Bruce learned to read and write. Primary school contributed to this process but he probably perfected these skills through his exposure to articulate employers, as­ sociates, friends, and family members. A good example of this process is described by Frederick Douglass while he lived and worked as an urban slave in Baltimore, Maryland. See Douglass, Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass (1845; reprint, New York: Signet, 1968), 57–58. 23. Bruce, “Martin R. Delany: An Appreciation,” July 1919, Bruce papers, B. 5-10 (#1805), SCRBC. 24. Bruce, “Public Men I Have Met”; and Penn, The Afro-American Press and Its Editors, 111. 25. Cornell, “The Life and Thought of John Edward Bruce,” 13–14; Penn, The Afro-American Press and Its Editors, 346–48; and Gilbert, ed., The Selected Writ­ ings of John Edward Bruce, 4–5. 26. Cornell, “The Life and Thought of John Edward Bruce,” 14–15; and Gilbert, ed., The Selected Writings of John Edward Bruce, 4–5. Late-nineteenth-cen­ tury correspondents functioned similarly to modern-day stringers. They freelanced their material with a wide variety of publications. When reader response was deemed appropriate by the editor, correspondents would be offered the op­ portunity to publish their own columns. Although Bruce had a successful career in journalism, his published material never produced enough income to support his personal or family needs. He struggled throughout his life to maintain full-time employment to supplement his newspaper income. 27. “Introduction: The Bruce Collection,” 164; and Gilbert, ed., The Selected Writings of John Edward Bruce, 5. 28. “Introduction: The Bruce Collection,” 164; and Gilbert, ed., The Selected Writings of John Edward Bruce, 5. Shortly after 1897, Bruce founded the Chronicle of New York with his close friend, Charles W. Anderson. In 1908, he established the Yonkers, New York, Weekly Standard. Both of these efforts faced financial hardship that contributed to their short life span. In 1897, John Sherman, then secretary of the treasury, and Frederick Douglass were listed among the origi­ nal fifty-six subscribers to the Weekly Argus. At the age of twenty-three, Bruce possessed some reputation but probably this support was cultivated through his cousin, Busie Patterson, and his political network in Washington, D.C. 29. “Introduction: The Bruce Collection,” 165; and Gilbert, ed., The Selected Writings of John Edward Bruce, 5. 30. Bruce, “Four Errors against Christian Religion,” March 23, 1877, Bruce

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papers, B. 8-105 (#912), SCRBC; and “Old Time Religion,” December 5, 1877, Bruce papers, B. 8-108 (#913), SCRBC. 31. Bruce, “Sketch of Childhood Under Slavery,” 1–2. 32. Gayraud S. Wilmore, Black Religion and Black Radicalism (Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1972), 37. Additional sources that help to define the meaning of slave religion and its ability to service the spiritual and material concerns of the slave community would include Leonard E. Barrett, Soul-Force: African Heritage in Afro-American Religion (Garden City, NY: Anchor Press, 1974); Sterling D. Plumpp, Black Rituals (Chicago: Third World Press, 1972); Joseph R. Washington, Black Religion (Boston: Beacon Press, 1964); Joseph R. Washington, The Pol­ itics of God (Boston: Beacon Press, 1967); Albert J. Raboteau, Slave Religion: The “Invisible Institution” in the Antebellum South (New York: Oxford University Press, 1978); and John B. Coles, ed., Masters and Slaves in the House of the Lord: Race and Religion in the American South (Lexington: University of Kentucky Press, 1988). 33. Wilmore, Black Religion and Black Radicalism, 36. 34. Bruce, “Washington’s Colored Society,” 1877, Bruce papers, M.S. B.F. 1021 (#913), SCRBC. 35. Bruce, “Washington’s Colored Society”; and Gatewood, Aristocrats of Color, 160. 36. Gatewood, Aristocrats of Color. Especially review chapter 2, “Washington: Capital of the Colored Aristocracy,” 39–68, and chapter 6, “The Color Fac­ tor,” 149–81. Further examples of Bruce’s concern for the issue of color phobia among the Black elite are found in Cleveland Gazette, December 11, 1886; Wash­ ington, D.C., Colored American, May 6, 1899, and August 11, 1900; “Color Preju­ dice Among Negroes,” 1916?; and “‘Negro’ ‘Colored,’ or ‘Afro-American,’” in Gilbert, ed., The Selected Writings of John Edward Bruce, 125–26 and 50–52; Henry Johnson to J. E. Bruce, November 24, 1893, Bruce papers, MS. 98 (#1146), SCRBC; pay attention to Bruce’s notation on this letter. Harry C. Smith, editor of the Cleveland Gazette, native of West Virginia, and a mulatto, was one of the strongest critics of the “upper tens” and the “blue vein” mentality. Benjamin Davis, editor of the Atlanta Independent and W. Calvin Chase, editor and publisher of the Washington Bee also published arti­ cles similar to the critical remarks of John Bruce on the color consciousness of the Black elite. For further information on Black journalists who were identified as “mulatto baiters,” see Gatewood, Aristocrats of Color, 158–63. 37. Bruce, “A Sketch of My Life,” 1–3; “Reminiscences of a Colored Jour­ nalist,” 2–4; and “Public Men I Have Met,” 1–4. 38. Penn contended that Bruce was privately tutored by “Mrs. B. A. Lockwood, once the female candidate for president on the equal rights ticket.” See Penn,TheAfro-AmericanPressandItsEditors,344.NeitherBruce’srelationshipwith Mrs. Lockwood nor tutorial instruction from her is mentioned in the Bruce papers.

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39. This argument is not to suggest that Bruce and his dark-skinned contemporaries were the only advocates of racial pride and group solidarity. Bishop Henry McNeal Turner and Henry C. Smith are only two of the many light-skinned men with a mulatto ancestry who spoke loudly against class and color phobia during the late nineteenth century. Willard B. Gatewood has doc­ umented this response quite well in chapter 6, “The Color Factor,” in Aristocrats of Color, 149–81. 40. Examples of this observation would include the material authored by Bruce and listed in note 5 above. Additional sources that represent Bruce’s re­ flection upon his childhood in later life include “Major Martin Robinson Delany and Other Prominent Race Men”; “Major Martin R. Delany,” 1922?, Bruce pepers, B. 9-37, SCRBC; and “Major Martin Robinson Delany.” Bruce stated that Busie (Basil) Patterson introduced him to Henry Highland Garnet and Martin Robinson Delany in a speech delivered before the American Negro Academy on July 5, 1920. 41. For information on Henry Highland Garnet see Earl Ofari, Let Your Motto Be Resistance: The Life and Thought of Henry Highland Garnet (Boston: Bea­ con Press, 1972); Lerone Bennett Jr., Pioneers in Black Protest (Chicago: Johnson Publishing, 1968), 149–60; and Joel Schor, Henry Highland Garnet: A Voice of Black Radicalism in the Nineteenth Century (Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1977). Ma­ terials covering Delany include Victor Ullman, Martin R. Delany: The Beginnings of Black Nationalism (Boston: Beacon Press, 1971); Cyril E. Griffith, The African Dream: Martin R. Delany and the Emergence of Pan-African Thought (University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 1975); and Floyd J. Miller, The Search for a Black Nationality: Black Emigration and Colonization, 1787–1863 (Urbana: Uni­ versity of Illinois Press, 1975). 42. Lerone Bennett Jr., “Nay-Sayer of the Black Revolt: Henry Highland Garnet,” in Bennett Jr., Pioneers in Black Protest, 157. 43. Ullman, Martin R. Delany: The Beginnings of Black Nationalism, 291–92; and Dorothy Sterling, “Martin Robinson Delany,” in Rayford W. Logan and Michael R. Winston, eds., Dictionary of American Negro Biography (New York: Norton, 1982), 169–72. 44. Ullman, Martin R. Delany: The Beginnings of Black Nationalism, 293–300. Delany’s biographers are unclear as to how he managed to get an appointment with the president but usually suggest that Lincoln had some prior knowledge of Delany’s activities since several had been reported in the American and British press. After Delany’s interview, Lincoln described him as an “extraordi­ nary and intelligent Blackman.” See Ullman, Martin R. Delany, 293–94. 45. Ullman, Martin R. Delany, 303–5; and Dorothy Sterling, “Martin Robinson Delany,” 171. 46. Bruce, “Major Martin Robinson Delany,” 1–13. 47. Ibid.; Ullman, Martin R. Delany, 304 and 415.

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48. Henry Highland Garnet, Walker’s Appeal and Garnet’s Address to the Slaves of the United States (New York: J. H. Tobitt, 1848); and Lerone Bennett Jr., “Nay-Sayers of the Black Revolt: Henry Highland Garnet,” 154–55. 49. Bruce, “Address to Mid-Summer Session,” American Negro Academy, July 1919, B. 5-10 (#1805), 1–3; and Bruce, “Editorial: Martin R. Delany,” 1922?, B. 9-37 (#1978), Bruce papers, SCRBC. 50. Crowder, “The International Correspondence of John Edward Bruce,” 3–7; Crowder, “John Edward Bruce and the Triangular Trade in Pan-African Ideas,” 2–5; Crowder, “John Edward Bruce: Pioneer Black Nationalist,” 52–53; and George Shepperson, “Notes on American Negro Influences on the Emer­ gence of African Nationalism,” 299–312. For further information on interests of Delany and Garnet in Africa review Hollis R. Lynch, “Pan-Negro Nationalism in the New World, before 1862,” in August Meier and Elliott Rudwick, eds., The Making of Black American, vol. 1, The Origins of Black America (New York: Athenaeum, 1969), 42–65. 51. Bruce, “Men and Measures: To the Memory of the Heroic Black Men of 1863 and 1865 Who Gave Their Lives on the Battlefields of the Rebellion,” n.d., Bruce papers, B. 5-1 (#2129), SCRBC; also published in the Cleveland Gazette, February 12, 1887; George Washington Williams, History of the Negro Troops in the War of Rebellion, 1861–1865 (New York: Harper and Brothers, 1887); Joseph T. Wilson, The Black Phalanx: A History of the Negro Soldier of the United States in the Wars of 1775–1812, 1861–65 (Hartford, CT: American Publishing Company, 1887); and John Hope Franklin, George Washington Williams: A Biography (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1987), 131. Examples of Bruce’s interest in Black soldiers during his later years include John Edward Bruce, A Tribute for the Negro Soldier (New York: J. E. Bruce; Kansas City: C. A. Franklin, 1918), the text of which was inserted in the Congressional Record, vol. 56, pt. 12 (Washington, DC: Government Printing Office, 1918), 417–22, by Honorable Walter M. Chandler of New York; editorial, “The Negro Soldier,” n.d., B. 9-85 (#2134); “The Colored Soldier in the Wars of Republic,” 1919?, B. 5-2 (#1816), Bruce pa­ pers, SCRBC; and Defense of Colored Soldiers Who Fought in the War of the Rebellion: Their Critics Answered by Ex-Union and Ex-Confederate Soldiers and by John Edward Bruce (Yonkers, New York: n.p., 1906?). 52. George Washington Williams, History of the Negro Race from 1619 to 1880: Negroes as Slaves, Soldiers, and as Citizens, vols. 1–2 (New York: Putman, 1882); and Washington Bee, February 24, 1883; quoted in Franklin, George Washington Williams, 121; R. H. Terrell to Bruce, March 29, 1896, Bruce papers, Bruce T. 5 (#1211), SCRBC; and Bruce, Short Biographical Sketches of Eminent Negro Men and Women (Yonkers, NY: Gazette Press, 1910). 53. August Meier, Negro Thought in America, 1880–1924 (Ann Arbor: Uni­ versity of Michigan Press, 1966), 262. 54. Ibid., 261; John S. Durham, To Teach the Negro History (Philadelphia,

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175

1897); Booker T. Washington, “Negro Homes,” The Century Magazine, vol. 76, no. 1 (May 1908), 73. In this article Washington declared, “If it were possible, I should like to describe in detail some of the homes that I have visited, and to tell of some of the histories that I have heard, because most that has been written about the Negro race in recent years has been written by those who have looked upon them from the out-side . . . and have seen them merely through the dull, gray light of social statistics.” Bruce, untitled address, September 18, 1892, Bruce papers, B. 7 (#1102), SCRBC; and Sutton E. Griggs, Overshadowed (Nashville: Orion, 1901), 63–64. 55. Robert M. Adger, Address, January 25, 1904, quoted in Tony Martin, “Afro-America’s First Historical Society: The American Negro Society of Philadelphia, 1897 to ca. 1923,” paper presented to American Historical Associ­ ation, December 28, 1979, 5. 56. Tony Martin, “Bibliophiles, Activists, and Race Men,” in Elinor Des Ver­ ney Sinnette, W. Paul Coates, and Thomas C. Battle, eds., Black Bibliophiles and Collectors: Preservers of Black History (Washington, DC: Howard University Press, 1990), 33–34; and I. Garland Penn, The Afro-American Press, 346. 57. August Meier, Negro Thought in America, 263. Members of Bruce’s inner circle of self-trained scholars included Arthur A. Schomburg, David Bryant Ful­ ton (aka Jack Throne), and York Russell. Elinor Des Verney Sinnette, Arthur Al­ fonso Schomburg: Black Bibliophile and Collector (Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 1989), 39–48. 58. Tony Martin, “History,” in Martin, Race First: The Ideological and Organi­ zational Struggles of Marcus Garvey and the Universal Negro Improvement Associa­ tion (Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1976), 81–87; and Bruce, “An Intellectual Battle” and “The Importance of Thinking Black,” in Gilbert, ed., The Selected Writings of John Edward Bruce, 121–24 and 131–33. 59. Ernest Kaiser, “John Edward Bruce (Bruce Grit),” in Logan and Win­ ston, eds., Dictionary of American Biography, 76; and Calendar of the Manuscripts, 166. 60. George D. Ruffin to Grace Dyson, September 22, 1890, Bruce papers, B. Misc. 13-30 (#1028), SCRBC. 61. Kaiser, “John Edward Bruce (Bruce Grit),” 76; and Alexander Crummell to Bruce, November 26, 1895, Bruce papers, Bruce C. 16 (#1190), SCRBC. 62. John E. Bruce to “Kiddo” (Mrs. Florence A. Bruce), January 1, 1924, B.L. 4a-36; Bruce to “Florence,” July 8, 1923, B.L. 4-29 (#2003); Bruce to “Flo­ rence,” September 4, 1923, B.L. 4-32 (#2008); Bruce to “Flossie” (Mrs. Bruce), July 1, 1922, B.L. 4-34 (#1961); Bruce to “Florence,” January 2, 1924, B.L. 4-33 (#2020); Mrs. F. A. Bruce to Miss Grant, February 25, 1925, Mrs. B. (#2029); Bruce to “Flor” (Mrs. Bruce), October 24, 1923, B.L. 4-35 (#2012); Bruce, Address to Woman’s Home and Foreign Missionary Society, Messiah Baptist Church, Yonkers, New York, July 9, 1906, B. 8-107 (#1488) (This address was

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read by Florence Bruce to the Missionary Society. A typed notation on the man­ uscript, to Florence, hopes she makes a “hit,” suggests she read slowly and dis­ tinctly, and is signed “your Brucey.”), and Bruce to “Wife” (Mrs. Bruce), June 23, 1922, B.L. 4-30 (#1956), all in Bruce papers, SCRBC. James S. Clarkson, former member of the Republican National Committee, sought to help Bruce to secure “some little position where” he “could earn bread for [himself] and family.” Clarkson to Bruce, February 4, 1897, Bruce pa­ pers, MS. 130, SCRBC. This situation was a potential source of domestic strain for Bruce’s new marriage. Through Clarkson’s assistance, Bruce was endorsed for the position of head porter of the New York State Capitol in recognition of his “sterling work for [the] Republican organization of 13th ward,” Albany, New York. A. R. Miller, Charles Christian, Jos. A. Kretchmer, Verplanck Coleri, and Nathan Munger to Bruce, December 16, 1898, Bruce papers, B.L. 4a-40 (#1310), SCRBC. 63. Shepperson, “Notes on American Negro Influences on the Emergence of African Nationalism,” 299–312; Crowder, “John Edward Bruce and the Tri­ angular Trade in Pan-African Ideas,” 2–4; and Crowder, “The International Cor­ respondence of John Edward Bruce, 1880–1924,” 1–3. NOTES TO CHAPTER 2

1. This story is based upon Bruce’s recollection of his introduction to Edward Wilmot Blyden and Hollis Lynch’s description of Blyden’s trip to Amer­ ica in 1880. According to Lynch, William Coppinger and John H. B. Latrobe were the “two most devoted white advocates of American Negro colonization.” Bruce knew both of these men and briefly worked with them during the early 1880s. Blyden “had long been on terms of friendship with both men, and was particularly close to Coppinger.” Coppinger was “sympathetic to Blyden’s views on race, [and] while reluctant to endorse them publicly, had in practice been largely guided by them.” In a twenty-five year period, Coppinger and the American Colonization Society (ACS) had financed the relocation of 1,256 Blacks to Africa. Latrobe was the first president of the Maryland Colonization Society, and from 1853 to his death in September 1891, president of the ACS. Coppinger served as secretary of the Pennsylvania Colonization Society and then, from 1864 to his death in February 1892, as secretary and treasurer of the ACS. The death of Coppinger and Latrobe “finally confirmed what had long been evident . . . that the Society was moribund . . . and would never be an ef­ fective instrument for carrying out a Negro exodus from America to Africa.” Through Bruce’s association with Coppinger, Blyden’s ideas may have taken root in his thinking long before he had the opportunity to meet Blyden. Coppinger encouraged Blyden “to take [Bruce] to Africa” and reinforced the importance of establishing close ties with Africans. See Bruce, untitled article,

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177

n.d., Bruce papers, B. 5-21 (#2058), SCRBC; and Hollis R. Lynch, Edward Wilmot Blyden, Pan-Negro Patriot, 1832–1912 (New York: Oxford University Press, 1967), 111–14 and 131–32. 2. Lynch, Edward Wilmot Blyden, 111–113. 3. Bruce began publishing the Sunday Item, the first Sunday paper pub­ lished in America by a Black editor, in 1880. He probably acquired this position through assistance from his cousin, Busie Patterson, and Henry Highland Garnet, an important mentor during his youth. See chapter 1 and Peter Gilbert, ed., The Selected Writings of John Edward Bruce: Militant Black Journalist (New York: Arno Press and the New York Times, 1971), 7. 4. John Edward Bruce, untitled article, n.d., Bruce papers, B. 5-21 (#2058), SCRBC. 5. George Shepperson, “Edward Wilmot Blyden,” in Rayford W. Logan and Michael R. Winston, eds., Dictionary of American Negro Biography (New York: Norton, 1982), 49; and Lynch, Edward Wilmot Blyden, 105–39. 6. Edward Blyden accepted passage to Liberia through the assistance of the American Colonization Society (ACS) on January 26, 1851. Although he re­ ceived his only formal education at Alexander High School, Blyden became a recognized scholar. In 1858, he became principal of this school, an ordained Presbyterian minister, and editor of the Liberia Herald. From 1862 to 1871, he served as professor of classics, Liberia College, as president of Liberia College from 1880 to 1884; as secretary of state from 1864 to 1866; and as minister of in­ terior from 1880 to 1882. Blyden was minister of Britain (1877–78 and 1892) and minister plenipotentiary to London and Paris (1905) over Liberia’s disputed northern boundary. From 1896 to 1897, Blyden served as the agent for native af­ fairs, Lagos, Nigeria; and from 1901 to 1905, as director of Mohammedan edu­ cation in Sierra Leone. See Shepperson, “Edward Wilmot Blyden,” 49. Blyden found out about the stranded Kansas refugees during a chance meeting with a Times reporter in London. He conveyed his concerns about the Black migrants, according to Hollis Lynch, in a letter to William Coppinger, May 11, 1880. The story of the one hundred Kansas refugees is covered in cor­ respondence between Blyden and the ACS dated May 11 and June 14, 1880. See Lynch, Edward Wilmot Blyden, 109–10; and the papers of the American Colo­ nization Society, Library of Congress, Washington, D.C. Blyden considered Henry Highland Garnet a “Prince among his people” and maintained a friendship and correspondence with him. It is also quite probable that he stayed in Garnet’s home during his visit to New York City in May 1880. Garnet was appointed to the post of U.S. resident minister and con­ sul-general to Liberia in late 1881. Blyden hosted a “gala dinner” to honor his old friend and associate in January 1882. Garnet took ill and died in Liberia on February 12, 1882. See Lynch, Edward Wilmot Blyden, 109–10; Earl Ofari, “Henry Highland Garnet,” in Rayford W. Logan and Michael R. Winston, eds.,

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Dictionary of American Negro Biography (New York: Norton, 1982), 252–53. Bly­ den’s name was mistakenly linked to another group of three hundred Blacks stranded in New York City seeking passage to Liberia in February 1892. See Edwin S. Redkey, Black Exodus: Black Nationalist and Back-to-Africa Movements, 1890–1910 (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1969), 105–24. The full text of Blyden’s speech, “Africa’s Service to the World,” can be found in Blyden, Christianity, Islam, and the Negro Race (London, 1887; reprint, Edinburgh, Scotland: Edinburgh University Press, 1967), 113–29. 7. Delany was the secretary of the Liberian Exodus Company in 1878. The operation was considered the most important of the new organizations leading the revival in emigration interest among African Americans following the col­ lapse of Reconstruction. Delany’s company purchased a ship, the Azor, and set sail for Liberia on April 21, 1878, with 206 emigrants. Twenty-three died at sea and the company collapsed in 1879. When this news reached Blyden, he remarked that this was “a blessing for Liberia; the Republic wanted no rubbish.” This comment reflected Blyden’s desire for African American migration to be directed by the ACS and his fear of potential mulatto emigrants who would join Delany’s company. Edward Blyden to William Coppinger, November 20, 1879, quoted in Lynch, Edward Wilmot Blyden, 108, also review 16–17; and Victor Ull­ man, Martin R. Delany: The Beginnings of Black Nationalism (Boston: Beacon Press, 1971), 230–32. Blyden had great admiration for Alexander Crummell and worked closely with him throughout Crummell’s twenty-year residence in Liberia (1853–73). They made three trips to the United States during the Civil War to promote Black emigration to Liberia and to stimulate philanthropic interest in Liberian education. See Otey M. Scruggs, “Alexander Crummell, 1819–1898,” in Rayford W. Logan and Michael R. Winston, eds., Dictionary of American Negro Biography (New York: Norton, 1982), 145–46; and Lynch, Edward Wilmot Blyden, 26–27. 8. The first document in the Bruce collection related to Henry Highland Garnet was a benefit program from Shiloh Presbyterian Church, New York City, January 17,1872. Shiloh was the congregation that Garnet assumed after he left Fifteenth Street Presbyterian in Washington, D.C. See Henry Highland Garnet to John E. Bruce, January 17, 1872, Bruce papers, B. Misc., 13–64 (#906), SCRBC. The story of Blyden’s 1881 graduation speech to Hampton Institute, Hamp­ ton, Virginia, is discussed in Kenneth James King, Pan-Africanism and Education: A Study of Race Philanthropy and Education in the Southern States of America and East Africa (London: Oxford University Press, 1971), 5–8. Blyden’s formulation of his theory of race and his views on African American emigration are best summarized in Lynch, Edward Wilmot Blyden, 105–39. 9. Lynch, Edward Wilmot Blyden, 124; and John E. Bruce, “O’Hara after Of­ fice,” Cleveland Gazette, May 4, 1889. Two excellent sources on the declining quality of Black life and the rise in anti-Black violence in the late nineteenth cen-

NOTES TO CHAPTER 2

179

tury are William Cohen, At Freedom’s Edge: Black Mobility and the Southern White Quest for Racial Control, 1861–1915 (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1991); and Rayford W. Logan, The Betrayal of the Negro: From Rutherford B. Hayes to Woodrow Wilson (New York: Collier Books, 1965). Informative discus­ sions on the increased interest in African emigration can be found in Redkey, Black Exodus, 1–24; and Cohen, At Freedom’s Edge, 138–67. Information on the rise of lynchings and other facts of anti-Black violence are addressed in Cohen, At Freedom’s Edge, 201–47; Robert L. Zangrando, The NAACP Crusade against Lynching, 1909–1950 (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1980); Robert Shapiro, White Violence and Black Response: From Reconstruction to Montgomery (Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press, 1988), 30–63; and Ralph Ginzburg, One Hundred Years of Lynching (New York: Lancer Books, 1962). 10. Bruce, “O’Hara after Office,” Cleveland Gazette, May 4, 1889; Bruce, “We’ve Got the Best,” Cleveland Gazette, June 1, 1889; and Bruce, unpublished editorial, December (?), 1889, Bruce papers, B. 9-2 (#1006), SCRBC. Disfran­ chisement and lynching was an outgrowth of the events in the 1880s. “Mob murder is mainly associated with the years after 1890,” according to William Cohen. “It was part of southern life by the early 1880s. The second half of the decade witnessed a massive increase from 1885 to 1889, the number of lynch­ ings of blacks increased by 63.5 percent over what it had been in the previous five-year period. Never again did the rate rise quite so steeply, not even in the early 1890s.” See Cohen, At Freedom’s Edge, 210–11. This type of violence en­ couraged African emigration, northern migration, and a peasant exodus to Kansas. A. R. Miller, Charles Christian, Jos. A. Kretchmen, C. H. Gans, Newton W. Thompson, J. W. Palurck (?), Verplanck Color, and Nathan Munger to Bruce, December 16, 1898, Bruce papers, B.L. 4a-40 (#1310), SCRBC. 11. James Richardson, ed., Messages and Papers of the Presidents, vol. 9 (New York, 1917), quoted in Redkey, Black Exodus, 58. 12. Lynch, Edward Wilmot Blyden, 125; Redkey, Black Exodus, 59; and Rayford W. Logan, The Betrayal of the Negro, 62–87 and 142–43. 13. Logan, The Betrayal of the Negro, 65–66 and 142; and Redkey, Black Exo­ dus, 59–60. The Butler Bill never came to a vote in the Senate and eventually died in committee. Redkey speculates that “its sponsors might have agreed with the Republicans to drop the emigration proposal in order to allow the Blair education bill to be debated and voted down.” The primary importance of this legislation was the broad public debate that it generated among African Amer­ icans on emigration and the role of Edward Blyden in domestic politics. See Redkey, Black Exodus, 65–67. 14. Bruce, “Dr. Blyden in Charleston,” December 1889, Bruce papers, B. Misc. 13-20 (#1004), SCRBC; and Lynch, Edward Wilmot Blyden, 127–28. 15. For samples of the Black press’s opposition to Blyden and emigration see the Savannah Tribune, December 21, 1889; Topeka Capitol, January 10, 1889;

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Christian Recorder, January 23 and February 6, 1890; New York Age, January 25, 1890; and the Indianapolis Freemen, February 8 and February 15, 1890, all quoted in Redkey, Black Exodus, 66–68; Cohen, At Freedom’s Edge, 235–39, details con­ servative support of southern Black deportation; and Redkey, Black Exodus, 66–67. 16. Cohen, At Freedom’s Edge, 235–36. Hinton Rowan Helper was a bitter enemy of the planter class who felt that the Negro represented a “weak and worthless race” that would be exterminated by providence. See Helper, No­ joque: A Question for a Continent (New York, 1867) and Helper, ed., The Negroes in Negroland, the Negroes in Marica; and Negroes Generally (New York, 1868); the Pro­ gressive Farmer (North Carolina, 1889), quoted in Cohen, At Freedom’s Edge, 237; and Frenise A. Logan, The Negro in North Carolina, 1876–1894 (Chapel Hill: Uni­ versity of North Carolina Press, 1964), 129. 17. Bruce, letter to the editor, January 9, 1890, Bruce papers, B.L. 4-26 (#1008), SCRBC; Gilbert, ed., The Selected Writings of John Edward Bruce, 44; Bruce, “Address,” B. 6-51 (#1049), February 7, 1891; and Meier, Negro Thought in America, 1880–1915 (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1963), 128–30. 18. Bruce, “Address,” B. 6-51 (#1049), February 7, 1891; and Meier, Negro Thought in America, 130. 19. Lynch, Edward Wilmot Blyden, 139. 20. Joseph E. Smith of W. B. Whittingham and Company, London, England, to John E. Bruce, April 21, 1893, Bruce papers, B.L. 4a-57 (#1127), SCRBC; and Lynch, Edward Wilmot Blyden, 76–77. 21. Edward W. Blyden to John E. Bruce, August 8, 1895, Bruce B. 3 (#1178); Emmett J. Scott to John E. Bruce, August 28, 1895, Bruce S. 2 (#1181); Emmett J. Scott to John E. Bruce, September 23, 1895, Bruce S. 3 (#1182); Emmett J. Scott to John E. Bruce, October 31, 1895, Bruce S. 4 (#1185), all in Bruce papers, SCRBC. 22. Edward Wilmot Blyden to John E. Bruce, September 20, 1896, Scrapbook B. 1 (#1221); September 26, 1896, Bruce 4 (Private); July 4, 1910, Scrapbook B. 1 (#1562); March 7, 1910, Bruce B. 8 (#1544–#1545); July 4, 1910, Scrapbook B. 1 (#1562); July 25, 1910, Bruce B. 9 (#1563), all in Bruce papers, SCRBC. 23. Edward Wilmot Blyden to Arthur Alfonso Schomburg, August 19, 1905, Bruce B. 5 (#1469) and Scrapbook B. 1 (#1470), Bruce papers, SCRBC. Blyden’s biographer, Hollis R. Lynch, did not develop the relationship between Blyden and Bruce. He does identify Bruce as “a friend” and “distinguished American Negro journalist.” The Bruce papers contain at least thirty-four letters that ei­ ther are direct correspondence between Blyden and Bruce or mention Blyden’s name. These documents are dated from December 1889 to January 1917. In per­ sonal conversations held in August 1978, Lynch acknowledged this shortcom­ ing in his publication but argued that his intention was to concentrate upon Bly­ den’s life in Africa. See Lynch, Edward Wilmot Blyden, 138; Ralph L. Crowder,

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181

“John Edward Bruce: Pioneer Black Nationalist,” Afro-Americans in New York Life and History, vol. 2, no. 2 (July 1978), 47–66. 24. Joseph Ephraim Casely Hayford (1866–1930) was considered one of the leading African political figures of his day. Hayford was born in Cape Coast, Gold Coast (Ghana) and educated at Fourah Bay College in Sierra Leone. He studied for the bar in London and returned to the Gold Coast to become a prominent lawyer. Hayford is described by Hollis R. Lynch as a “life-long fol­ lower” of Edward Blyden and “probably his most devoted disciple.” Similar to Blyden, Hayford was “especially critical of the ‘de-Africanizing influence’ of European missionaries.” Hayford was also a significant participant in the exchange of Pan-African ideas between Black intellectuals in the Caribbean, the United States, and Africa. He fought to protect the rights of native peoples in British West Africa and published several important works on African social and cultural traditions, the best known of which were Gold Coast Native Institu­ tions (London, 1903) and Ethiopia Unbound: Studies in Race Emancipation (London: Hillips Company, 1911). Through his friendship with Blyden, Bruce even­ tually became close associates with Hayford. From 1902 until his death he pub­ lished the Gold Coast Leader, the leading journal of West African nationalism during this period. See Lynch, Edward Wilmot Blyden, 240–41; J. Ayodele Lang­ ley, Pan-Africanism and Nationalism in West Africa, 1900–1945 (London: Oxford University Press, 1973), Imanuel Geiss, The Pan-African Movement (New York: Africana Publishing Company, 1974), 283–93; and Robert A. Hill, ed., The Mar­ cus Garvey and Universal Negro Improvement Association Papers, vol. 1 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1983), 350. Shepperson, “Edward Wilmot Blyden, 1832–1912,” 49; J. E. Robinson to Bruce, March 22, 1912, M.S. 51 (#1612); Casely Hayford to Bruce, April 7, 1915, Bruce 321 (#1690); and Fleming H. Revell Company to Bruce, January 12, 1917, Bruce 283 (#1761), Bruce papers, SCRBC. 25. Blyden, “The Aims and Methods of a Liberal Education for Africans,” in Blyden, Christianity, Islam, and the Negro Race, 71–73, inaugural address as president of Liberia College, Monrovia, January 5, 1881. This speech was also published as chapter 4 in Blyden’s Christianity, Islam and the Negro Race. The best discussion of Blyden’s influence upon African American educational ideas can be found in Kenneth James King, “Africa and American Negro Education: The Beginnings,” chapter 1 of King, Pan-Africanism and Education, 1–20. 26. John Edward Bruce, Short Biographical Sketches of Eminent Negro Men and Women (Yonkers, NY: Gazette Press, 1910). In the preface of this book, Bruce stated that he hoped that the moral portraits which are here offered will . . . call for the thoughtful attention of the younger generation of the Negro race here and abroad, and that the accounts of these lives may beget a

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desire of imitation, in order to secure a like measure of merited honor. An attempt to awaken race pride has also been made, and . . . the edi­ tor earnestly hopes the people of his race will treasure . . . a great legacy bequeathed to them. 27. I. Garland Penn, The Afro-American Press and Its Editors (Springfield, MA: Wiley, 1891; reprint, New York: Arno Press and the New York Times, 1969), 447. 28. Lynch, Edward Wilmot Blyden, 131; and Ralph L. Crowder, “The International Correspondence of John Edward Bruce, 1880–1924: A Neglected Cata­ lyst in the Commerce of Pan-African Ideas,” paper presented at the annual con­ ference of the Association for the Study of Afro-American Life and History, New York, New York, April, 1981; and Ralph L. Crowder, “John Edward Bruce and the Triangular Trade in Pan-African Ideas,” paper presented at the Tribute to the First Pan-African Conference, Hunter College, New York, New York, Oc­ tober 1988; and George Shepperson, “Notes on American Negro Influences on the Emergence of African Nationalism,” Journal of African History, vols. 1–2 (1960), 299–305. 29. Crowder, “The International Correspondence of John Edward Bruce, 1880–1924.” 30. Lynch, Edward Wilmot Blyden, 238, 239–41; Shepperson, “Notes on American Negro Influences on the Emergence of African Nationalism,” 309 and 310; Majola Agbebi, An Account of Dr. Majola Agbebi’s Work in West Africa (London: n.p., n.d.), quoted in Shepperson, “Notes on American Negro Influences,” 311; and Akinola Akiwowo, “The Place of Jojola Agbebi in the African Nation­ alist Movements, 1890–1917,” Phylon, vol. 26 (Summer 1965). 31. Shepperson, “Notes on American Negro Influences,” 309; J. E. K. Ag­ grey to Bruce, June 28, 1922, MS. 45 (#1960), Bruce papers, SCRBC; Langley, PanAfricanism and Nationalism in West Africa, 1900–1945, 35; Edward W. Blyden to Bruce, April 2, 1908, Bruce papers, Bruce B. 6. (#1509), SCRBC. In the aforemen­ tioned correspondence, Blyden drafted a letter of introduction for James J. Dossen, vice-president of Liberia. He informed Bruce, “I know you will take special interest in Mr. Dossen both on account of his being a friend of mine and of his great interests which he represents.” 32. Akinbami Agbebi Sr. to Bruce, November 15, 1919, MS. 190 (#1812); E. M. E. Agbebi to Mr. and Mrs. John E. Bruce, MS. 238 (#1851), Bruce papers, SCRBC. George Shepperson, “Notes on American Negro Influences,” 304; Ken­ neth James King, “African Students in the United States: A Phelps-Stokes Fund Concern,” in chapter 8, King, Pan-Africanism and Education, 212–51; Richard D. Ralson, “A Second Middle Passage: African Student Sojourns in the United States during the Colonial Period and Their Influence upon the Character of African Leadership” (Ph.D. diss., University of California, Los Angeles, 1972);

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183

and George Shepperson, “The African Abroad or the African Diaspora,” in T. O. Ranger, ed., Emerging Themes of African History (London: Heinemann Educa­ tional Books, 1968). 33. Kathleen O’Mara Wahle, “Alexander Crummell: Black Evangelist and Pan-Negro Nationalist,” Phylon (Winter 1968), 388–95; Otley M. Scruggs, “Alexander Crummell (1819–1898),” in Logan and Winston, eds., Dictionary of American Negro Biography, 145–47; and Alfred A. Moss Jr., The American Negro Academy: Voice of the Talented Tenth (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1981). 34. Alexander Crummell to William Coppinger, July 4, 1866, American Col­ onization Society Papers, vol. 13, Library of Congress, quoted in Kathleen O’Mara Wahle, “Alexander Crummell: Black Evangelist and Pan-African Nation­ alist,” 394. Additional information on Crummell’s association with William Coppinger and the ACS can be found in Monday Benson Akpan, “Alexander Crummell and His African ‘Race-Work’: An Assessment of His Contributions in Liberia to Africa’s ‘Redemption,’ 1853–1873,” Historical Magazine of the Protes­ tant Episcopal Church: A Study of Civilization and Discontent, vol. 46 (June 1977), 177–99; Wilson J. Moses, Alexander Crummell: A Study of Civilization and Discon­ tent (New York: Oxford University Press, 1989); Wilson J. Moses, “Civilizing Missionary: A Study of Alexander Crummell,” Journal of Negro History, vol. 60 (April 1975), 229–51; and Otey M. Scruggs, We Want the Children of Africa in This Land: Alexander Crummell (Washington, DC: Department of History, Howard University, 1972). 35. Kathleen O’Mara Wahle, “Alexander Crummell: Black Evangelist and Pan-African Nationalist,” 392 and 394; John E. Bruce, “Washington’s Colored Society,” 1877, M.S. B.F. 10-21 (#913); and Alexander Crummell to John E. Bruce, April 7, 1894, Bruce C. 13 (#1160), Bruce papers, SCRBC. 36. Willard B. Gatewood, Aristocrats of Color: The Black Elite, 1880–1920 (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1990), 281; Alfred A. Moss Jr., The American Negro Academy, 19 and 76; and Otley M. Scruggs, “Alexander Crum­ mell (1819–1898),” 146; see note 26 above; and review chapter 1, 15–16. 37. Alexander Crummell attended the New York African Free School lo­ cated on Mulberry Street in Manhattan. Prominent alumni from this institution included James McCune Smith, Ira Aldridge, Samuel Ringgold Ward, and Henry Highland Garnet. From 1831 to 1835, he was a student at the Canal Street High School. Peter Williams and Theordore S. Wright, two of the lead­ ing Black clergymen of this period, directed the Canal Street school. In the fall of 1835, Crummell and Garnet enrolled in Noyes Academy, Canaan, New Hampshire. After both participated in local abolitionist meetings, angry white farmers attacked the academy and forced all Black students to leave. Crummell and Garnet transferred to Oneida Institute, Whitesboro, New York, and grad­ uated in 1839. Crummell moved to England and enrolled in Queen’s College,

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Cambridge. He was supported during this period by English antislavery liber­ als. In 1853, he graduated and settled in Liberia. “When Crummell left Eng­ land,” according to Otey M. Scruggs, “he had received more formal schooling— with one or two exceptions—than any American Negro in the mid-nineteenth century.” See Scruggs, “Alexander Crummell (1819–1898),” 146. Alexander Crummell to Bruce, December 24, 1896, Bruce papers, SCRBC. (This letter was not listed in the Calendar of Manuscripts.) 38. Alexander Crummell, “The Social Principle among People,” in Crum­ mell, The Greatness of Christ (New York, 1882), 303, quoted in Kathleen Wahle, “Alexander Crummell: Black Evangelist and Pan-African Nationalist,” 394; and Bruce, “The Negro and His Future,” “White Christianity,” “Concentration of Energy,” and “Practical Questions,” in Gilbert, ed., The Selected Writings of John Edward Bruce, 59–62, 44–46, 53–58, and 16–18. 39. Alexander Crummell to Bruce, December 15, 1897, MS. 8 (#1271); Crum­ mell to Bruce, April 7, 1896, C. 13; January 21, 1898, MS. 15 (#1280), Bruce pa­ pers, SCRBC; Alfred A. Moss Jr., The American Negro Academy, 22, 54–57; Willard B. Gatewood, Aristocrats of Color, 169; and Bruce, “‘Negro,’ ‘Colored,’ or ‘AfroAmerican,’” in Gilbert, ed., The Selected Writings of John Edward Bruce, 50–52. 40. Probably the best expression of Crummell’s views on the mulatto ques­ tion and the respective influence upon Bruce involved their reaction to T. Thomas Fortune’s attack upon the American Negro Academy (ANA) published in the New York Sun on May 16, 1897. Fortune argued that by stressing a “Negro identity” the ANA would encourage a color tension between Blacks and mulatto members of the race. He also accused Crummell of being an unmixed Negro with a “mulatto wife.” Crummell was privately furious and called the column a “lying Jesuitical article.” Fortune was considered a “white Negro” who exploited “private and domestic affairs of individuals.” Crummell stated that his wife as not a mulatto and “the fellow knows she is not.” Bruce drafted his own response to Fortune in the Star of Zion, December 2, 1897. He charged that mulattoes had created the color line and were prejudiced against darker members of the race. Alfred A. Moss Jr. points out that this argument played quite well in West Africa. The Lagos Weekly Record reprinted Fortune’s article in full and the paper issued an editorial in support of the ANA. According to the Weekly Record, the academy was a demonstration that African Americans were willing to “halt . . . amalgamation.” See Alexander Crummell to John E. Bruce, December 9, 1897, MS. 7 (#1270); December 15, 1897, MS. 8 (#1271), Bruce pa­ pers, SCRBC; and John Edward Bruce, “The Importance of Thinking Black,” in Gilbert, ed., The Selected Writings of John Edward Bruce, 131–33. Crummell also campaigned against Richard T. Greener, the first Black dean of the Howard University Law School, becoming a member of the American Negro Academy. Greener was a light-complected mulatto who had previously lived in upstate New York prior to moving to Washington, D.C. According to

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185

Crummell, Greener had “for years . . . been a white man in New York and turned his back upon all his colored acquaintances. I have no objection to his being a white man; but I do object to his coming back to our ranks and then get­ ting upon my Negro shoulders to hoist himself, as a Negro, into some profitable office.” Alexander to John E. Bruce, January 21, 1898, MS. 15 (#1280), Bruce pa­ pers, SCRBC. 41. Alexander Crummell to Bruce, April (?), 1898, MS. 17 (#1286), Bruce pa­ pers, SCRBC; and Bruce, “An Intellectual Battle,” in Gilbert, ed., The Selected Writings of John Edward Bruce, 121–24. 42. Bruce, “An Intellectual Battle,” 121. 43. Bruce, “The Importance of Thinking Black,” in Gilbert, ed., The Selected Writings of John Edward Bruce, 132. 44. Bruce, “A Sketch of My Life,” May 1, 1876, Bruce B. 12 (#911); Alexan­ der Crummell to Bruce, January 17, 1894, Bruce C. 14 (#1156); November 26, 1896, Bruce C. 16 (#1190); and February 6, 1897, MS. 10 (#1294), Bruce papers, SCRBC. 45. Alexander Crummell to John E. Bruce, January 17, 1894, Bruce C. 14 (#1156); Otely M. Scruggs, “Alexander Crummell (1819–1898)”; and Ernest Kaiser, “John Edward Bruce (Bruce Grit),” in Logan and Winston, eds., Dictio­ nary of American Negro Biography, 76–77. 46. Alexander Crummell, “The Black Woman of the South: Her Neglects and Her Needs,” Africa and America: Addresses and Discourses (Springfield, MA: Wiley and Company, 1891), 59–82; quoted in Wilson Jeremiah Moses, ed., Destiny and Race: Selected Writings, 1840–1898 (Amherst: University of Massachu­ setts Press, 1992), 221–22. 47. Bruce, “People Talked About,” 1891 (?), Bruce papers, B. 9-36 (#1093), SCRBC. 48. Crummell, Africa and America; Linda Gordon, “Black and White Visions of Welfare: Women’s Welfare Activism, 1890–1945,” Journal of American History, vol. 78, no. 2 (September 1991), 559–90; and Bruce, “Noted Race Women I have Known and Met,” Women’s Day Address, (?) Baptist Church, Cambridge, Massachusetts, September 1, 1923, B. 5-39 (#2007), Bruce papers, SCRBC. 49. Alexander Crummell to Bruce, August 1897, MS. 13 (#1257); December 9, 1897, MS. 7 (#1270); November 26, 1895, Bruce C. 16 (#1190); Bruce to Crum­ mell, January 17, 1894, B.L. 4-62 (#1157); and T. Thomas Fortune to Bruce, March 23, 1893, Bruce F. 2 (#1123), all in Bruce papers, SCRBC. 50. In addition to Crummell, other examples of leading late-nineteenthcentury Black ministers with upper-class congregations included Francis Grimké, Fifteenth Street Presbyterian, Washington, D.C.; Hutchins C. Bishop, St. Philip’s Episcopal, New York; and Henry G. Proctor, First Congregational, Atlanta. For additional information see Willard B. Gatewood, “Churches of the Aristocracy,” in Gatewood, Aristocrats of Color, 272–99; and Monroe N. Work,

186

NOTES TO CHAPTER 2

“The Negro Church in the Negro Community,” Southern Workman, vol. 37 (August 1908), 428–33. 51. Alexander Crummell to Bruce, November 5, 1897, Bruce C. 18 (#1265), Bruce papers, SCRBC. 52. Moss Jr., American Negro Academy, 1–2, 8, and 35–36. 53. Bruce, “Somewhat Reminiscent,” 1900?, and “An Intellectual Battle,” quoted in Gilbert, ed., The Selected Writing of John Edward Bruce, 6 and 123. 54. Robert A. Hill, ed., The Marcus Garvey Papers, vol. 1 (Berkeley: Univer­ sity of California Press, 1983), 532–35; and Love told Bruce, “Bishop Turner knows me well. We were very intimate in Georgia about twenty years ago.” See J. Robert Love to Bruce, June 6, 1893, Bruce L. 4 (#1132), Bruce papers, SCRBC. 55. Frederick Douglass, newly appointed U.S. consul-general to the Republic of Haiti, tried to intervene on Love’s behalf without success. Apparently, Florville Hyppolite, the Haitian president, was determined for Love to leave his country. It appears that Love was caught in a dispute between Hyppolite and the former president, Lysius Solomon. See Hill, ed., The Marcus Garvey Papers, 1:533–34. 56. Tony Martin, Race First: The Ideological and Organizational Struggles of Marcus Garvey and the Universal Negro Improvement Association (Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1976), 92, 102, and 111; and Hill, ed., The Marcus Garvey Pa­ pers, 1:cxii and 1:533. 57. Bruce, Frederick Douglass editorial, 1891?, B. 5-49 (#1091), Bruce pa­ pers, SCRBC. 58. J. Robert Love, The Indictment, the Testimony and the Verdict; or, Proofs That Romanism Is Not Christianity (Boston: American Citizen Company, 1882); Love to Bruce, April 6, 1893, B.L. 4 (#1132); and July 4, 1894, Bruce L. 5 (#1164), Bruce papers, SCRBC. Love did not provide a specific name for the Baptist minister mentioned in his letter of July 4, 1894, to Bruce. Mary Edmonia Lewis (1845–?) was the daugh­ ter of a Chippewa Indian and a Black father. She attended Oberlin College from 1860 to 1862 and then settled in Boston. Lewis began a career as a sculptor and continued this pursuit in Europe, especially in Italy. She gradually gained recognition as one of the leading sculptors of her time. Little seems to be known about her life after 1885. Some researchers have speculated that she spent he final days living and working in Rome. See Dorothy B. Porter, “(Mary) Edmo­ nia Lewis (1845–?),” and James A. Porter, “Edmonia Lewis,” in Rayford W. Logan and Michael R. Winston, eds., Dictionary of American Negro Biography, 393–95. 59. J. Robert Love to Bruce, April 25, 1894, MS. 159 (#1162); May 21, 1896, MS. 156 (#1216); August 11, 1896, MS. 158 (#1218); July 30, 1897, MS. 157 (#1252); March 5, 1899, Bruce L. 7 (#1330); April 12, 1899, Bruce L. 8 (#1340), all in Bruce papers, SCRBC.

NOTES TO CHAPTER 3

187

60. Jamaica Advocate, April 20, 1901, quoted in Martin, Race First, 111. 61. Edward Blyden, Casely Hayford, and Majola Agbebi were Bruce’s pri­ mary sources of information on nationalist activities in West Africa; Alexander Crummell to John E. Bruce, November 16, 1893, Bruce 412 (#1144), Bruce pa­ pers, SCRBC. 62. J. Robert Love to Bruce, July 30, 1897, MS. 157 (#1252), Bruce papers, SCRBC. 63. Bruce, “The Negro Exodus from the South,” “Negro Militancy and the Race Riots of 1919,” “Anglo-Saxon Concepts of Justice,” and “The Meaning of White Democracy,” in Gilbert, ed., The Selected Writings of John Edward Bruce, 118, 154–55, 147–48, 159–60; Martin, Race First, 8; and Crowder, “John Edward Bruce: Pioneer Black Nationalist,” 56. NOTES TO CHAPTER 3

1. John Edward Bruce, “Prospectus,” the Weekly Argus, September 8, 1879, Bruce papers, B. 8-126 (#923), SCRBC; Peter Gilbert, ed., The Selected Writings of John Edward Bruce: Militant Black Journalist (New York: Arno Press and the New York Times, 1971), 7; and Bess Beatty, A Revolution Gone Backward: The Black Re­ sponse to National Politics, 1876–1896 (Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1987), 36. 2. Bess Beatty, A Revolution Gone Backward, 46–47. 3. William Cohen, At Freedom’s Edge: Black Mobility and the Southern White Quest for Racial Control, 1861–1915 (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1991), 210–13; Herbert Shapiro, White Violence and Black Response: From Reconstruction to Montgomery (Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press, 1988), 5–29 and 30–63; and George Brown Tindall and David E. Shi, America: A Narra­ tive History, vol. 2 (New York: Norton, 1992), 774–80. 4. Beatty, A Revolution Gone Backward, 53–59. 5. Ibid., 174. 6. Bruce, “Public Men I Have Met,” n.d., Bruce papers, B. 5-26 (#2130), SCRBC; I. Garland Penn, The Afro-American Press and Its Editors (Springfield, MA: Wiley, 1891; reprint, New York: Arno Press and the New York Times, 1969), 111. 7. Bruce, “Prospectus”; and the Topeka Tribune, June 24 and September 9 and 16, 1880, quoted in Beatty, A Revolution Gone Backward, 37. 8. Bruce to Garfield, October 4, 1880, and March 17, 1881, James A. Garfield Papers, Library of Congress, Washington, D.C. 9. Bruce, “To Fellow Citizens,” 1880, B. 6-43 (#925); “The Cowardice of Dis­ franchisement,” 1880, B. 9-106 (#928); “The Federal Elections Bill,” 1880, B. 6-44 (#926), all in Bruce papers, SCRBC; and Richard E. Welch Jr., “The Federal Elec­ tions Bill of 1890: Postcripts and Prelude,” Journal of American History, vol. 52 (December 1965), 511–26.

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NOTES TO CHAPTER 3

10. Bruce, article, 1880, B. 9-131 (#927); “People Talked About,” 1895?, B. 9128 (#1200); and Bruce, “The Man Revealed,” 1881?, B. Misc. 13-40 (#933), Bruce papers, SCRBC. “The Man Revealed” column was probably written in 1889 rather than the suggested date of 1881 since Blanche Kelso Bruce served as recorder of the deeds, District of Columbia, during the administration of Presi­ dent Harrison (1889–93). Bruce collected $1.50 per transaction, employed as many clerks as he deemed necessary, paid them as little as possible, and pock­ eted the surplus funds. This was a well-established tradition that made the po­ sition of recorder of deeds a desired political appointment for Black and white politicians. See Samuel L. Shapiro, “Blanche Kelso Bruce (1841–1898),” in Rayford W. Logan and Michael R. Winston, eds., Dictionary of American Negro Biog­ raphy (New York: Norton, 1982), 74–76. 11. Willard B. Gatewood, Aristocrats of Color: The Black Elite, 1880–1920 (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1990), 35; and Bruce Grit, “Character of B. K. Bruce,” Washington Colored American, March 26, 1898. 12. Shapiro, “Blanche Kelso Bruce (1841–1898),” 75–76. 13. Nell Irvin Painter, Exodusters: Black Migration to Kansas after Reconstruc­ tion (Lawrence: University of Kansas Press, 1978), 14–16; Shapiro, “Blanche Kelso Bruce (1841–1898),” 74–76; Gatewood, Aristocrats of Color, 33–38; and Bruce Grit, “Character of B. K. Bruce.” 14. Beatty, A Revolution Gone Backward, 49. 15. Bruce, New York Globe, April 21, 1883. 16. Proceedings of the State Convention of Colored Men of South Carolina, pamphlet, John M. Langston Papers, Fisk University Library, Nashville, Ten­ nessee, quoted in Beatty, A Revolution Gone Backward, 53–55. 17. Bruce, “The Sixth Resolution,” 1883, B. 9-60 (#942), Bruce papers, SCRBC. Bruce re-endorsed this document with the notations “My sentiments still” in 1886, 1887, and 1909. Bruce was scheduled to attend the Louisville con­ vention, according to a letter from Joseph Horn. He did not file a postconven­ tion report among his papers. See Joseph Horn to Bruce, September 17, 1883, MS. 176 (#939), Bruce papers, SCRBC; and Beatty, A Revolution Gone Backward, 55. 18. Beatty, A Revolution Gone Backward, 56–57 19. Bruce, “Reflections on the Decision in the Civil Rights Cases,” Novem­ ber 1, 1883, B. 6-47 (#940), Bruce papers, SCRBC. 20. Bruce, “Is This Our Country,” November 7, 1883, B. 7-99 (#941), Bruce papers, SCRBC. 21. Ibid. 22. Bruce, editorial, Washington Grit, January 26, 1884, 4; and Beatty, A Rev­ olution Gone Backward, 64–65. 23. Bruce, editorial, Washington Grit, May 5, June 7, and August 30, 1884; Beatty, A Revolution Gone Backward, 64; H. C. Lodge to Bruce, August 1, 1883,

NOTES TO CHAPTER 3

189

Bruce 396 (#946); and B. J. Jones, Republican National Committee, to Bruce, August 22, 1883, Bruce 417 (#948), both in Bruce papers, SCRBC. 24. Bruce, untitled article, n.d., B. 6-84 (#2132); “Reflections on the Decision in the Civil Rights Cases”; and “Public Men I Have Met and Known,” n.d., B. 526 (#2130), all in Bruce papers, SCRBC. 25. Bruce, “The Democratic Party and the Negro,” September 4, 1884, Bruce papers, B.L. 4-10 (#949), SCRBC; Hubert Gutman, “Pioneer Negro Specialist,” Journal of Negro Education (Fall 1965); Paul McStallworth, “Peter Humphries Clark (1829–1925),” in Logan and Winston, eds., Dictionary of American Biogra­ phy, 114–16; and Frederick Douglass quoted in Beatty, A Revolution Gone Backward, 73–74. 26. Grover Cleveland quoted in Beatty, A Revolution Gone Backward, 74; and Daniel Lamont, private secretary to President Grover Cleveland, to Bruce, April 23, 1885, Bruce L. 1 (#956), Bruce papers, SCRBC. 27. Bruce, “Public Men I Have Met and Known.” 28. Beatty, A Revolution Gone Backward, 85; and Bruce, untitled article, 1885, B. 7-101 (#963), Bruce papers, SCRBC. 29. Bruce, New York Age, November 12 and 26, 1887; editorial, May 21, 1888, B. 6-66 (#985), Bruce papers, SCRBC. 30. Beatty, A Revolution Gone Backward, 90–91; T. Thomas Fortune, the New York Freeman, May 28, 1887, and New York Age, September 8, and October 5 and 9, 1887; Emma Lou Thornbrough, “The National Afro-American League, 1887–1908,” Journal of Southern History, vol. 27 (1961), 494–99; Michael L. Goldstein, “Preface to the Rise of Booker T. Washington: A View from New York City of the Demise of Independent Black Politics,” Journal of Negro History, vol. 62 (January 1977), 84–86; August Meier, Negro Thought in America, 1880–1915 (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1988), 129; Bruce to Timothy T. Fortune, July 24, 1891, Bruce V. 14 (#1072); Alexander Crummell to Bruce, November 6, 1897, B.L. 4-42 (#1266), Bruce papers, SCRBC; this letter refers to Fortune’s prob­ lems with alcohol well before 1907; Emma Lou Thornbrough, “T[imothy] Thomas Fortune, 1856–1927,” in Logan and Winston, eds., Dictionary of Ameri­ can Negro Biography, 236–38; and Penn, The Afro-American Press and Its Editors, 344. Fortune was best known for his articulate defense of political independ­ ence in his publications, which included Black and White: Land, Labor and Politics in the South (New York: Fards, Howard, and Hulbert, 1884; reprint, New York: Arno Press and the New York Times, 1968); and the pamphlet The Negro in Pol­ itics (New York, 1886). 31. Fortune, New York Freeman, May 28, 1887. 32. Meier, Negro Thought in America, 1880–1915, 129; Thornbrough, “T[imothy] Thomas Fortune, 1856–1927,” 236: and Beatty, A Revolution Gone Backward, 90–91 and 130. 33. Bruce, The Blot on the Escutcheon (Washington, DC: R. L. Pendleton,

190

NOTES TO CHAPTER 3

1890), 18. The Washington, D.C., chapter was designated Branch No. 1. Peter Gilbert contends that the Washington convention was the largest of the league’s meetings. Bruce was introduced by Rev. James Matthew Townsend, a leader of the Black Republicans in Indiana and a one-term state legislator. See Gilbert, ed., The Selected Writings of John Edward Bruce, 33. 34. Meier, Negro Thought in America, 1880–1915, 172–74; and Emma Lou Thornbrough, “T[imothy] Thomas Fortune, 1856–1927,” 236–37. 35. J. Morgan Kousser, The Shaping of Southern Politics: Suffrage Restriction and the Establishment of the One-Party South, 1880–1910 (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1974), 238–39; William Cohen, At Freedom’s Edge, 208–9; and Bruce, “The Application of Force,” October 5, 1889, Bruce papers, B. 7-82 (#1003), SCRBC. 36. Cohen, At Freedom’s Edge, 210–11; and Robert L. Zangrando, The NAACP and Crusade against Lynching, 1909–1950 (Philadelphia: Temple Univer­ sity Press, 1980). Zangrando reports that the overwhelming majority of lynch­ ings took place in the South. From 1880 to 1968, the former Confederate states accounted for 3,099. See Zangrando, table 2, 6-7; and Cohen, table 9, 211. 37. Bruce, “The Application of Force,” 1. 38. Ibid., 4–5. 39. Ibid., 5. 40. Bruce, “White Christianity,” March 1891, Bruce papers, B. 9-73 (#1057), SCRBC. 41. Ibid., 2. 42. Ibid. 43. Bruce, “The Blot on the Escutcheon,” 5. 44. Ibid. 45. Bruce, The Red Blood Record: A Review of the Horrible Lynchings and Burn­ ing of Negroes by Civilized White Men in the United States (Albany, NY : Argus, 1901), 3 and 7. 46. Ibid., 25. 47. Ibid., 26. 48. Bruce, editorial, 1919, B.L. 4-4 (#1834); Senator William M. Calder to Bruce, September 10, 1922, B. Misc. 13-57 (#1966): “Not Reported by the Associ­ ated Press,” n.d., B. 9-77 (#2136); and “Senator William M. Calder and the Negro,” August 8, 1923, Bruce C. 12 (#2005), all in Bruce papers, SCRBC. 49. Beatty, A Revolution Gone Backward, 171–72; and Alexander Crummell to Bruce, December 5, 1896, Bruce papers, SCRBC. 50. Logan, Betrayal of the Negro, 93; Bruce, “The Negro and His Future,” 1899, Bruce papers, B. 9-71 (#1373), SCRBC; Gilbert, ed., The Selected Writings of John Edward Bruce, 59–60; and Bruce “Gotham Notes,” Colored American, August 4, 1900.

NOTES TO CHAPTER 3

191

51. Bruce, “The Call of a Nation,” 1912, Bruce MS. F. 10-5 (not listed on the Calendar), Bruce papers, SCRBC. 52. William M. Tuttle Jr., Race Riot: Chicago in the Red Summer of 1919 (New York: Atheneum, 1980), 208–41; Bruce, “Negro Militancy and the Race Riots of 1919,” and “Bruce Grit’s Column,” 1919, quoted in Gilbert, ed., The Selected Writings of John E. Bruce, 7–8 and 154. 53. Calvin Coolidge to Bruce, August 20, 1923, Bruce C. 12 (#2005); Warren G. Harding to Bruce, June 30, 1920, MS. 46 (#1859); Bruce, “Washington,” 1916?, B. 9-130 (#1754); and “The Issues and the Negro,” B. 9-4 (#1743), all in Bruce pa­ pers, SCRBC. 54. Philip Foner, ed., The Life and Writings of Frederick Douglass (New York: International Publishers, 1945), 477. 55. Nell Irvin Painter, Exodusters, 17–35; and Edwin S. Redkey, Black Exodus: Black Nationalist and Back-to-Africa Movements, 1890–1910 (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1969), 1–23. 56. Henry Lewis Suggs, The Black Press in the South, 1865–1879 (Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1983), 7; also review Suggs, P. B. Young, Newspaperman: Race, Politics, and Journalism in the New South, 1910–1962 (Charlottesville: Uni­ versity of Virginia Press, 1988). 57. Robert A. Hill, ed., The Marcus Garvey and Universal Negro Improvement Association Papers (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1983–89), 1:200; James S. Clarkson to Bruce, April 1, 1903, B.L. 4a-12 (#1433), Bruce papers, SCRBC; Clarkson was appointed by President Theodore Roosevelt and served as surveyor of New York Customs from 1902 to 1910. He was described in the Calendar of Manuscripts, Bruce papers, 422, as the “life-long and truest white friend of John Edward Bruce.” For additional information on Clarkson and Bruce see Louis R. Harlan and Raymond W. Smock, eds., The Booker T. Washington Papers (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1974), 4:114 and 7:219. 58. P. B. S. Pinchback (1837–1921) was appointed surveyor of customs, port of New Orleans, by President Chester Arthur. He served from 1882 to 1885. Douglass was appointed marshal of the District of Columbia in March 1877 by President Hayes. He served as recorder of deeds under Presidents Garfield, Arthur, and Cleveland, from 1881 to 1886. He was appointed minister-resident and consul-general to Haiti by President Harrison and served from 1890 to 1891. Robert Smalls (1839–1915) was elected to Congress from South Carolina in 1874, 1876, 1880, and 1884. He was appointed collector of customs, port of Beaufort, South Carolina, in April 1889 by President Harrison. Smalls served in this position until 1912. Blanche Kelso Bruce (1841–98) served as the U.S. senator from Mississippi from 1875 to 1881. He was the register of the treasury (1881–85) under Presidents Garfield and Arthur; was recorder of deeds, District

192

NOTES TO CHAPTER 3

of Columbia, during the Harrison administration (1889–93); and was appointed register of the treasury again by President McKinley in 1897. John Langston (1829–97) served as dean of Howard University Law School (1870–73), and vice-president and acting president of Howard (1873–75). He was appointed resident-minister and consul-general to Haiti by President Hayes and served from 1877 to 1885. In 1890, he was elected to Congress from Virginia. John R. Lynch (1847–1939) was elected to Congress in 1872, 1874, and 1880. He was appointed by President Harrison as the fourth auditor of the treas­ ury for the Navy Department (1889–93). In 1898, President McKinley selected him as paymaster of volunteers in the Spanish-American War with a rank of major in the Army. Norris Wright Cuney (1846–96) served as collector of customs, Galveston, Texas, from 1889 to 1893 in the Harrison administration. Harrison also ap­ pointed Dr. James Townsend (1841–1905) recorder of the general land office at Washington; John Francis Patty was named naval officer at New Orleans, and Charles B. Wilson served as surveyor general of Louisiana. It is interesting to note that all of these men, excluding Townsend, Patty, and Wilson, had white fa­ thers and were former slaves. See Beatty, A Revolution Gone Backward, 109; Emma Lou Thornbrough, “P[inckney] B[enton] S[tewart] Pinchback (1837–1921)”; Benjamin Quarles, “Frederick Douglass (1817–1895)”; Philip Ster­ ling, “Robert Smalls (1839–1925)”; Samuel L. Shapiro, “Blanche Kelso Bruce (1842–1898)”; Frank R. Levstik, “John Mercer Langston (1829–1897)”; Rayford W. Logan, “Norris Wright Cuney (1846–1896),” in Logan and Winston, eds., Dictionary of American Negro Biography, 493–94; 181–86; 560–61; 74–76; 382–84; and 151–52. Anonymous (John E. Bruce), “The Man Revealed,” 1881?, B. Misc. 13-40 (#933); Robert E. Smalls to Bruce, April 7, 1910, Bruce S. 8 (#1557); John E. Bruce to Gentlemen of the Committee to Honor P. B. S. Pinchback on his 80th Birthday, 1917?, B. 5-29 (#1778); and Senator W. E. Chandler to J. M. Townsend, April 1, 1890, B-14 (#1012), Bruce papers, SCRBC. 59. Harlan, ed., The Booker T. Washington Papers, 4:114; Calendar of Manu­ scripts, 422, Bruce papers, SCRBC; and Beatty, A Revolution Gone Backward, 101–2. 60. Harlan, ed., The Booker T. Washington Papers, 4:114. 61. In 1884, Bruce reported that Blacks in Ohio had planned to join the De­ mocratic Party in large numbers. This was an alliance between disillusioned northern Black Democrats, White Mugwumps, and Republican reformers who were recruited by Cleveland Democrats in Cleveland, Ohio. John. E. Bruce, “The Democratic Party and the Negro,” September 4, 1884, Bruce papers, B.L. 4-10 (#949), SCRBC; and Bruce, Cleveland Gazette, July 12, 1884; Beatty, A Revo­ lution Gone Backward, 69; and James S. Clarkson to Bruce, March 21, 1891, Bruce papers, B.L. 4a 61 (#1054), SCRBC.

NOTES TO CHAPTER 3

193

62. Bruce to James S. Clarkson, February 6, 1893, Bruce C. 8 (#1119); Clarkson to Bruce, February 8, 1893, Bruce C. 8 (#1120); Clarkson to Bruce, November 30, 1891, Bruce C. 19 (#1090), all in Bruce papers, SCRBC. 63. James S. Clarkson to John E. Bruce, July 13, 1892, B.L. 4a-39 (#1101). Clarkson enclosed a copy of his letter to John W. Noble, secretary, Department of the Interior. He informed Bruce that he requested Noble to “give you the place you desire.” John E. Bruce to editor, the Government Official, August 6, 1891, B.L. 4-5 (no journal entry), Bruce papers, SCRBC. 64. Thomas S. Lovett, John Edward Bruce, J. A. Roston, G. William Cole, Henry Green, Easan Williams, J. C. Smith, and Thomas L. Jones, Washington, D.C., Agreement to Form Debating Society among Employees of Patent Office and Land Office, Interior Department, 1892–1893?, B. 8-120 (#1117); Mrs. John A. Logan to Bruce, September 30, 1892, B.L. 4a-60 (#1103), and 1893, Bruce L. 2 (1118), Bruce papers, SCRBC. 65. Hoke Smith, secretary of the interior, to John E. Bruce, May 10, 1893, Bruce 418 (#1130), Bruce papers, SCRBC. 66. James S. Clarkson to Edward Bruce, February 25, 1899, MS. 253 (#1325); Bruce initially requested Clarkson’s assistance on July 18, 1898, and Clarkson indicated that his response was “delayed due to illness”; Clarkson to Bruce, June 30, 1899, Bruce 309 (#1350); February 5, 1900, B.L. 4a-44 (#1380); April 1, 1903, B. 4-12 (#1433); December 12, 1904, B. 4-3 (not listed in the Calendar), Bruce papers, SCRBC. 67. Beatty, A Revolution Gone Backward, 46–47. 68. Senator William E. Chandler to Dr. James M. Townsend, April 1, 1890, B.L. 4a-14 (#1012); Chandler to Bruce, April 8, 1890, MS. 108 (#1013); Bruce pa­ pers, SCRBC; and Calendar of Manuscripts, 455. 69. Chandler to Bruce, December 20, 1899, B.L. 4a-1 (1369), Bruce papers, SCRBC. 70. Bruce to Chandler, April 30, 1909, B.L. 4-70 (#1520); and Chandler to Bruce, March 7, 1910, B.L. 9-10 (#1546), both in Bruce papers, SCRBC. 71. Gilbert Osofsky, Harlem, the Making of a Ghetto: A History of Negro New York, 1890–1930 (New York: Harper & Row, 1966), 163; 166–68; and Barry A. Crouch, “Charles William Anderson (1866–1938),” in Logan and Winston, eds., Dictionary of American Negro Biography, 14–15. Anderson served as collector of the Internal Revenue’s second district until 1915; he was removed by President Woodrow Wilson along with most Black federal office holders. 72. Charles William Anderson to John E. Bruce, 1886?, Bruce 333 (#954), Bruce papers, SCRBC. This correspondence was estimated to have been drafted in 1884 by the Calendar of Manuscripts. The more probable date would be 1886, Anderson’s first year in New York. Anderson to Bruce, June 21, 1909, MS. 271 (#1524); June 17, 1916, B.L. 4-61 (#1734); Anderson to Bruce, June 22, 1917, MS. 254 (#1771), Bruce papers, SCRBC.

194

NOTES TO CHAPTER 3

73. William Glenn Cornell, “The Life and Thought of John Edward Bruce” (M.A. thesis, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, 1970), 59–60; and John E. Bruce, “Anglo-Saxon Concepts of Justice,” 1918, B. 9-13 (#1798), Bruce pa­ pers, SCRBC. NOTES TO CHAPTER 4

1. John Edward Bruce contended that he was only sixteen when Douglass noticed one of his columns published under the pen name “Rising Sun,” prob­ ably in the Richmond (Virginia) Star. Bruce was only forty-nine when he reflected upon this period, so it is unlikely that his memory was failing. Nonetheless, ac­ cording to the Bruce papers it appears that he may have been writing for the Richmond Star in 1877, making him closer to twenty-one. Bruce, “Notable Col­ ored Men and Women,” Address to the New York Prince Hall Masons, April 26, 1905, B. 5-19 (#1467), Bruce papers, SCRBC; the New Era was first published in February 1869; Frederick Douglass was one of nine owners. On September 1, 1870, Douglass purchased 50 percent of the paper and changed the name to the New National Era. The paper closed in October 1884; see William S. McFeely, Frederick Douglass (New York: Norton, 1991), 279–73 and 286. 2. Benjamin Quarles, ed., Frederick Douglass (Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Pren­ tice-Hall, 1968), 118; and McFeely, Frederick Douglass, 312 and 320. 3. Bruce, “The Mistake of His Life,” Grit, January 26, 1884; and editorial, Grit, February 16, 1884, quoted in William Glenn Cornell, “The Life and Thought of John Edward Bruce” (M.A. thesis, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, 1970), 33. 4. Bruce, “Washington’s Colored Society,” 1877, Bruce papers, MS. B.F. 1021 (#913), SCRBC; Pittsburgh Weekly News, February 14, 1884, quoted in McFeely, Frederick Douglass, 320; Bruce, editorials, Grit, February 16, 1884, July 19, 1884; quoted in Cornell, “The Life and Thought of John Edward Bruce,” 23; and Bruce, “Negro Journalism in the North and the South,” October 19, 1891, B. 7-83 (#1082), Bruce papers, SCRBC. 5. August Meier, Negro Thought in America, 1880–1915 (Ann Arbor: Univer­ sity of Michigan Press, 1963), 76. 6. Frederick Douglass, “The Nation’s Problem,” in Howard Brotz, ed., Negro Social and Political Thought, 1850–1920 (New York: Basic Books, 1966), 316. 7. Bruce, “Scores Douglass,” Cleveland Gazette, May 11, 1889, 1, quoted in Cornell, “The Life and Thought of John Edward Bruce,” 35; Henry A. Spencer to Bruce, March 10, 1910, MS. 210 (#1551); and Bruce to Hon. Jesse S. Phillips, March 23, 1910, Bruce B.L. 4-38 (#1553), both in Bruce papers, SCRBC. 8. Mrs. Frederick Douglass to John E. Bruce, October 9, 1981, D. 9; Rosetta Sprague Douglass to Bruce, November 22, 1898, MS. 94 (#1305); letter from Rosetta Sprague Douglass to Bruce, September 21, 1898, MS. 243 (#1298); and

NOTES TO CHAPTER 4

195

Lewis H. Douglass to Bruce, February 21, 1906, MS. 394 (#1477); and Bruce, Major Address: Frederick Douglass, American Negro Academy, December 27, 1916, B.P. 10-11 (#1745), all in Bruce papers, SCRBC. Bruce was also a member of the Frederick Douglass Monument Committee of Rochester, New York. Participants in this event included New York Gov­ ernor Frank S. Black, Susan B. Anthony, P. B. S. Pinchback, T. Thomas Fortune, New York City Mayor George E. Warner, Mrs. Booker T. Washington, and Bishop Alexander Walters; Frederick Douglass Monument Committee, Rochester, New York, September 14, 1898, Bruce papers, Bruce 428 (#1296), SCRBC. 9. Bruce, editorial, 1891, B. 5-49 (#1091), Bruce papers, SCRBC; Douglass detailed his interpretation of these events in “Haiti and the United States: Inside History of the Negotiations for the Mole St. Nicholas,” North American Review, vol. 153 (July–December 1891); Rear Admiral Bancroft Gherardi was the son of Jane Bancroft, historian George Bancroft’s sister. See McFeely, Frederick Dou­ glass, 346–58. 10. Bruce to Frederick Douglass, October 22, 1891, Bruce papers, B.L. 4-64 (#1083), SCRBC. 11. See chapter 2, TK. 12. See chapter 3, TK. 13. Bruce, Short Biographical Sketches of Eminent Negro Men and Women (Yonkers, NY: Gazette Press, 1910). 14. W. E. B. Du Bois quoted in Louis R. Harlan, Booker T. Washington: The Making of a Black Leader, 1856–1901 (New York: Oxford University Press, 1972), 254. 15. Ibid., 254–56. 16. Louis R. Harlan and Raymond W. Smock, eds., The Booker T. Washington Papers (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1972–74), 4:56. 17. Emma Lou Thornbrough, “Booker T[aliafero] Washington, 1856–1915,” in Rayford W. Logan and Michael R. Winston, eds., Dictionary of American Negro Biography (New York: Norton, 1982), 634; and Bess Beatty, A Revolution Gone Backward: The Black Response to National Politics, 1876–1896 (Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1987), 90–91. 18. Bruce to Washington, October 14, 1895, in Harlan and Smock, eds., The Booker T. Washington Papers, 4:55–56; Edward Wilmot Blyden quoted in Harlan and Smock, eds., Booker T. Washington Papers, 70; Ralph L. Crowder, “John Edward Bruce: Pioneer Black Nationalist,” Afro-Americans in New York Life and History, vol. 2, no. 2 (July 1978), 61–62; and Peter Gilbert, ed., The Selected Writings of John E. Bruce: Militant Black Journalist (New York: Arno Press and the New York Times, 1971), 3–4. 19. Thornbrough, “Booker T[aliafero] Washington, 1856–1915,” 635; Meier, Negro Thought in America, 1880–1915, 172–74; and Thornbrough, “T[imothy]

196

NOTES TO CHAPTER 4

Thomas Fortune, 1856–1928,” in Logan and Winston, eds., Dictionary of Ameri­ can Negro Biography, 237. 20. Washington to Bruce, April 21, 1896, Bruce W. 4 (#1215), Bruce papers, SCRBC. 21. Emmett J. Scott to Washington, July 16, 1898, in Harlan and Smock, eds., The Booker T. Washington Papers, 4:448. 22. Washington to Bruce, June 27, 1898, Bruce W. 5 (#1290); and Washington to Bruce, June 30, 1898, Bruce W. 6 (#1291), both in Bruce papers, SCRBC. 23. John E. Fleming, “Alexander Walter (1858–1917),” in Logan and Win­ ston, eds., Dictionary of American Negro Biography, 630; and Meier, Negro Thought in America, 1880–1915, 172 and 181. 24. Fortune to Washington, August 25, 1899, in Harlan and Smock, eds., The Booker T. Washington Papers, 5:182. 25. Bruce, Springfield Republican, September 11, 1899, 4, quoted in ibid., 183. 26. Bruce, New York Press, September 10, 1899, 6, quoted in ibid., 183; and Thornbrough, “T[imothy] Thomas Fortune (1856–1928),” 237. 27. Bruce, Independent, vol. 51 (August 24, 1899), 2312, quoted in Harlan and Smock, eds., The Booker T. Washington Papers, 5:183. 28. Fortune to Washington, August 31 and September 7, 1899, in Harlan and Smock, eds., The Booker T. Washington Papers, 5:193 and 5:197; and Bruce, The Concentration of Energy (Albany, NY: Argus, 1899), quoted in Gilbert, ed., The Se­ lected Writings of John E. Bruce, 53–58. 29. Bruce, “White Opposition to the Negro,” Richmond Planet (1900), quoted in Gilbert, ed., The Selected Writings of John E. Bruce, 61–62. 30. Washington to Bruce, March 20, 1901, Bruce papers, Bruce W. 7 (#1406), SCRBC; and William Hannibal Thomas, The American Negro: What He Is and What He May Become (New York, 1901), xii–xvii. 31. Bruce, untitled article, April 17, 1903, Bruce papers, B. MS. 11-31, SCRBC; R. C. Black (Emmett Jay Scott) to J. C. May (Wilford H. Smith), July 23, 1903; Melvin Jack Chisum to Scott, July 29, 1903, both in Harlan and Smock, eds., The Booker T. Washington Papers, 7:219–20 and 7:222–23. In an interesting historical twist, Smith joined the Garvey movement along with T. Thomas Fortune in the 1920s; see Stephen R. Fox, The Guardian of Boston (New York: Atheneum, 1971), 251; and Fox, “[William] Monroe Trotter (1872–1934),” in Logan and Winston, eds., Dictionary of American Negro Biography, 603–5. 32. Chisum to Scott, July 23, 1903, in Harlan and Smock, eds., The Booker T. Washington Papers, 7:222–23. 33. Ibid.; and Fox, The Guardian of Boston, 49. 34. Scott to Smith, July 23, 1903, in Harlan and Smock, eds., The Booker T. Washington Papers, 7:219. 35. Smith to Scott, July 30, 1903, in ibid., 7:220; Tony Martin, Race First: The

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Ideological and Organizational Struggles of Marcus Garvey and the Universal Negro Improvement Association (Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1976), 303–4 and 311–15; Fox, The Guardian of Boston, 49–65 and 67; for the account of the Boston riot published in the Boston Globe, July 31, 1903, review Harlan and Smock, eds., The Booker T. Washington Papers, 7:229–43. 36. William Pickens and William Monroe Trotter, quoted in Fox, The Guardian of Boston, 68–69. 37. Ibid., 69. 38. Charles William Anderson to Washington, February 17, 1904, in Harlan and Smock, eds., The Booker T. Washington Papers, 7:441–42. 39. Ibid., 219; and Fox, The Guardian of Boston. 40. Trotter to Bruce, May 18, 1905, Bruce papers, Bruce T. 9. (#1468), SCRBC. NOTES TO CHAPTER 5

1. This story is based upon the information found in William H. Ferris, The African Abroad; or, His Evolution in Western Civilization: Tracing His Development under Caucasian Milieu (New Haven, CT: Tuttle, Moorehouse, and Taylor Press, 1913), 861–67; Elinor Des Verney Sinnette, Arthur Alfonso Schomburg: Black Bib­ liophile and Collector (Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 1989), 62–63; and Schomburg to Bruce, June 13, 1916, MS. 23 (omitted from the Calendar of Manu­ scripts), Bruce papers, SCRBC. Schomburg’s concerns about Woodson using his materials without proper recognition are also expressed in his review of Woodson’s The Negro in Our History (Washington, DC: Associated Publishers, 1922). In his preface, Woodson failed to acknowledge Schomburg’s assistance in the preparation of this text. See Schomburg, “Schomburg Tears Woodson to Pieces for Historical Narrowness,” Negro World, November 4, 1922. 2. Schomburg to Bruce, June 13, 1916, MS. 23 (omitted from the calendar), Bruce papers, SCRBC. 3. Joseph T. Wilson, Emancipation: Its Course and Progress, from 1418 B.C. to A.D. 1875, with a Review of President Lincoln’s Proclamation, the XIII Amendment, and the Progress of the Freed People since Emancipation; with a History of the Emancipation Movement (Hampton, VA: 1882); The Black Phalanx: A History of the Negro Soldiers of the United States in the Wars of 1775–1812, 1861–65 (Hartford, CT: American Publishing Company, 1887): Benjamin Tucker Tanner, An Outline of Our History and Government (Philadelphia: Grant, Faires, and Rodgers Printers, 1884); Henry A. Wallace, Carpetbag Rule in Florida (Jacksonville, FL: De Costa Printing Company, 1888); and R. R. Downs, “Leaders of Thought,” A.M.E. Review, vol. 10 (October 1892), 241–42, quoted in August Meier, Negro Thought in America, 1880–1915 (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1966), 50. 4. George Washington Williams, A History of the Negro Race in America from 1619 to 1880: Negroes as Slaves, as Soldiers, and as Citizens, vols. 1–2 (New York: G.

198

NOTES TO CHAPTER 5

P. Putnam and Sons, 1883); and Earl E. Thorpe, Black Historians: A Critique (New York: William Morrow and Company, 1971), 52. 5. Washington Bee, February 24, 1883; New York Globe, March 3 and 10, 1883; quoted in John Hope Franklin, George Washington Williams: A Biography (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1987), 121. 6. John Hope Franklin, “George Washington Williams (1849–1891),” in Rayford W. Logan and Michael R. Winston, eds., Dictionary of American Negro Biography (New York: Norton, 1982), 657–59; Thorpe, Black Historians, 52; and George W. Williams to John Sherman, February 22, 1881, quoted in Bess Beatty, A Revolution Gone Backward: The Black Response to National Politics, 1876–1896 (Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1987), 42. 7. George Washington Williams, History of the Negro Troops in the War of Re­ bellion, 1861–1865 (New York: Harper and Brothers, 1887); Joseph T. Wilson, “The Black Phalanx,” the Nation, vol. 46 (March 1, 1888), quoted in Thorpe, Black Historians, 54; and Franklin, “George Washington Williams (1849–1891),” 658. 8. Bruce, “Major Martin Robinson Delany and other Prominent Race Men Personally Encountered in the Course of Journalistic Work,” 1922?, Bruce pa­ pers, B. 9-25 (#1977), SCRBC; Victor Ullman, Martin R. Delany: The Beginnings of Black Nationalism (Boston: Beacon Press, 1971), 304 and 415; Henry Highland Garnet, Walker’s Appeal and Garnet’s Address to the Slaves of the United States (New York: J. H. Tobbitt, 1848); and Lerone Bennett Jr., “Nay-Sayer of the Black Revolt: Henry Highland Garnet,” in Bennett Jr., Pioneers in Black Protest (Chicago: Johnson Publishing, 1968), 147–58. 9. I Garland Penn, The Afro-American Press and Its Editors (Springfield, MA: Wiley, 1891; reprint, New York: Arno Press and the New York Times, 1969), 280–83; and Kenneth L. Kusmer, “Harry C[lay] Smith (1863–1941),” in Logan and Winston, eds., Dictionary of American Negro Biography, 564–65. 10. John Edward Bruce, A Tribute for the Negro Soldier (New York and Kansas City: J. E. Bruce and C. A. Franklin, 1918) and Defense of Colored Soldiers Who Fought in the War of the Rebellion: Their Critics Answered by Ex-Union and Ex-Confederate Soldiers and by John Edward Bruce (Yonkers, NY: n.p., 1906?). 11. William Still, The Underground Railroad: A Record of Facts, Authentic Nar­ ratives, Letters, etc., Narrating the Hardships, Hairbreadth Escapes and Death Strug­ gles of the Slaves in Their Efforts for Freedom, as Related by Themselves and Others, or Witnessed by the Author; Together with Sketches of Some of the Largest Stockholders, and Most Liberal Orders and Advisers of the Road (Philadelphia: Porter and Coates, 1872); Still also published A Brief Narrative of the Struggle for the Rights of the Col­ ored People of Philadelphia in the City Railway Cars (Philadelphia, 1867), a narra­ tive of the Black community’s successful campaign to end racial discrimination on Philadelphia’s railroad system; and An Address on Voting and Laboring (Philadelphia, 1874), a repudiation of the Republican candidate and support of

NOTES TO CHAPTER 5

199

a reform candidate for mayor of Philadelphia; Larry Gara, “William Still (1821–1902),” in Logan and Winston, eds., Dictionary of American Negro Biogra­ phy, 573–74; and Thorpe, Black Historians, 43. 12. Williams Still to Bruce, July 1889?, Bruce 371 (#1005), Bruce papers, SCRBC; Gara, “William Still (1821–1902),” 573; and Alberta S. Norwood, “Negro Welfare Work in Philadelphia, Especially as Illustrated by the Career of William Still, 1775–1930” (M.A. thesis, University of Pennsylvania, Philadel­ phia, 1931). 13. Bruce, Address, Second Baptist Church, Washington, D.C., September 18, 1892, Bruce papers, B. 7-84 (31102), SCRBC; New York Age, December 21, 1905; and Bruce, “Bruce Grit Defends His Claims,” Voice of the Negro, vol. 3, no. 2 (1906), 128–29, quoted in Tony Martin and Wendy Ball, Rare Afro-Americana: A Reconstruction of the Adger Library (Boston: G. K. Hall, 1981), 31–32. 14. Alice M. Dunbar to Arthur Alfonso Schomburg, October 19, 1913, Schomburg Papers, SCRBC. 15. Bruce, “The Odious Comparison,” 1893?, B. 8-140 (#1150); article con­ demning white clergy, March, 1891, B. 9-73 (#1057), both in Bruce papers, SCRBC; Edward Wilmot Blyden, “Mohammedanism and the Negro Race,” Fraser’s Magazine (November 1875); “Christian Missions in West Africa,” Fraser’s Magazine (October 1876); and “Christianity and the Negro Race,” Fraser’s Magazine (May 1876), all reprinted in Blyden, Christianity, Islam, and the Negro Race (London, 1887; reprint, Edinburgh, Scotland: Edinburgh University Press, 1967), 1–24, 25–45, and 46–70. 16. Bruce, Poems, “Dare to Do Right,” “The Rose,” “To Roberts and Penny Lunch Fame,” and “Dedicated to a Young Lady,” July 1878, B.P. 10-8 (#921); “Frederick Douglass,” 1917?, B.P. 10-5 (#1779); “Tulsa Field of Blood,” 1821?, B.P. 10-1 (#1932); “Tribute to Marcus Garvey,” B.P. 10-14 (#1906); “When Africa Awakes,” 1895?, B.P. 10-6 (#2115), all in Bruce papers, SCRBC. 17. Bruce, “Who Was the Thief?” 1892?, B. Ms. F. 10-7 (#1114) (This fortypage story was written expressly for the Petersburg (Virginia) Herald); “Toussaint L’Ouverture,” 1899?, B.D. 0-D. 8 (#1374), both in Bruce papers, SCRBC; and Peter Gilbert, ed., The Selected Writings of John Edward Bruce: Militant Black Jour­ nalist (New York: Arno Press and the New York Times, 1971), 1 and 121. 18. Edward A. Johnson quoted in Thorpe, Black Historians, 149–50 and Meier, Negro Thought in America, 1880–1915, 53; Clarence G. Contee Sr., “Edward A[ustin] Johnson (1860–1944),” in Logan and Winston, eds., Dictionary of Amer­ ican Negro Biography, 349–50; and Helen Boardman, “The Rise of the Negro His­ torian,” The Negro History Bulletin, vol. 8, no. 7 (April 1945), 152–53. 19. William Hooper Councill, Lamp of Wisdom; or, Race History Illuminated (Nashville: J. T. Hayley, 1898); Laura Eliza Wilkes, Story of Frederick Douglass (Washington, DC: L. E. Wilkes, 1898); John S. Durham, To Teach the Negro History (Philadelphia, 1897); John Wesley Cromwell, History of the Bethel Literary and

200

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Historical Association (Washington, DC: R. L. Pendleton Press, 1896); William H. Crogman and Henry F. Kletzing, Progress of a Race; or, The Remarkable Advance­ ment of the American Negro from Bondage of Slavery and Poverty to Freedom and Cit­ izenship, Intelligence, Affluence, Honor and Trust (Atlanta, 1897; reprint, New York: Negro Universities Press, 1969); David A. Straker, The New South Investigated (Detroit, 1888), 207, quoted in Meier, Negro Thought in America, 1880–1915, 53; and Dorothy Drinkard-Hawkshawe, “David Augustus Straker (1842–1908),” in Logan and Winston, eds., Dictionary of American Negro Biography, 574–76. 20. Meier, Negro Thought in America, 1880–1915, 44–45. Carter G. Woodson considered Benjamin Tucker Tanner “one of the most scholarly Negroes of his time”; see Woodson, The History of the Negro Church (Washington, DC: Associ­ ated Publishers, 1921), 239–40. Tanner’s most widely circulated book was An Apology for African Methodism (Philadelphia, 1867), a history of the African American Methodist Church; other publications included The Negro’s Origin: Is the Negro Cursed? (Philadelphia, 1869) and The Colored of Solomon, What? (Philadelphia, 1895); Reverdy Cassius Ransom gained considerable notoriety among the anti-Washington camp when he gave an exciting speech at the sec­ ond meeting of the Niagara Movement, in Harper’s Ferry, Virginia, August 1906. Ransom argued, There are two views of the Negro question. One is that the Negro should stoop to conquer; that he should accept in silence the denial of his political rights; that he should not brave the displeasure of white men by protesting when he is segregated in humiliating ways. . . . There are others who believe that the Negro owes this nation no apol­ ogy for his presence . . . ; that being black he is still no less a man; that he should refuse to be assigned to an inferior place by his fellow coun­ trymen. Ransom quoted in Mary M. Fisher, “Reverdy Cassius Ransom (1861–1959),” in Logan and Winston, eds., Dictionary of American Negro Biography, 512–14. 21. Bruce, “Prospectus for a Negro Reader,” 1893, Bruce papers, B. 8-121 (#1152), SCRBC. 22. Ibid., 62–63; and Bruce, “Noted Race Women I Have Known and Met,” Woman’s Day Address, (?) Baptist Church, Cambridge, Massachusetts, Sep­ tember 1, 1923, Bruce papers, B. 5-39 (#2007), SCRBC. 23. Bruce, “Prospectus for a Negro Reader,” 3–4. 24. R. H. Terrell to Bruce, March 29, 1896, Bruce papers, Bruce T. 5 (#1211), SCRBC; Terrell and his wife, Mary Church Terrell, were caught between the ideas of a “Talented Tenth” and the influence of Booker T. Washington. Mary Terrell assisted Washington in successfully blocking W. E. B. Du Bois from becoming the assistant superintendent of the District’s colored school system. However, she criticized Washington for accommodationist policies and actively

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participated in the NAACP. Robert Terrell owed his appointments as justice of the peace and municipal court judge to Washington’s influence with Presidents Roosevelt and Taft. Nonetheless, Terrell was highly critical of Washington for supporting Roosevelt’s discharge without honor of Black soldiers from the Twenty-Fifth Infantry after the Brownsville, Texas, riot in August 1906. See Aubrey Robinson Jr., “Robert Herberton Terrell (1857–1925),” and Evelyn Brooks Barnett, “Mary Church Terrell (1863–1954),” in Logan and Winston, eds., Dictionary of American Negro Biography, 583–86. 25. Bruce, Short Biographical Sketches of Eminent Negro Men and Women (Yonkers, NY: Gazette Press, 1910), 4; and Robert Smalls to Bruce, April 7, 1910, Bruce papers, Bruce S. 8. (#1557), SCRBC. 26. Bruce, “Judas, Benedict Arnold, and Their Modern Imitators,” 1890?, B. 9-127 (#1043); and “The History of Negro Journalism,” October 19, 1891, B. 7-83 (#1082), both in Bruce papers, SCRBC. 27. Bruce, “Toussaint L’Ouverture,” 1897?, B. 5-12 (#1275); “Alexander Pushkin,” 1899?, B. 5-43 (#1372), both in Bruce papers, SCRBC; Moscow Deutsche Zeitung to Bruce, June 7 and 8, 1899, B. Misc. 13-61 (#1344) and B. Misc. 13-62 (#1345), Bruce papers, SCRBC. 28. Henry C. Mercer to Bruce, July 19, 1897, Bruce papers, MS. 157 (#1252), SCRBC; Meier, Negro Thought in America, 1880–1915, 266–68; E. J. Blackshear, “Lines of Negro Education,” A.M.E. Church Review, vol. 13 (January 1897), 309–11; W. E. B. Du Bois, The Conservation of Races, American Negro Academy Occasional Paper No. 2 (Washington, DC, 1897), 7–13; Bruce, “An Intellectual Battle,” in Gilbert, ed., The Selected Writings of John Edward Bruce, 121–24. The So­ ciety for the Collection of Negro Folk Lore was founded in Boston in 1890 and Hampton Institute sponsored the Hampton Conference of 1899, which trig­ gered an energetic debate on the value of Negro spirituals and folk music; see Meier, Negro Thought, 264–65; Paul Laurence Dunbar (1872–1906), Charles W. Chesnutt (1858–1932); Sutton E. Griggs (1872–1933); and Pauline Elizabeth Hopkins (1856–1930) all represent very diverse Black literary figures who emerged in the 1890s; and Du Bois, “Strivings of the Negro People,” Atlantic Monthly, vol. 80 (August 1897), 194. 29. August Meier and Elliot Rudwick, Black History and the Historical Profes­ sion, 1915–1980 (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1896), 4–10; Earl Thorpe, Black Historians, 14–15; and Harry W. Greene, Holders of Doctorates among Amer­ ican Negroes (Boston: Meador, 1946), 26. 30. W. E. B. Du Bois, The Suppression of the African Slave Trade to the United States of America, 1638–1870 (New York: Longmans and Green, 1896); “Recon­ struction and Its Benefits,” American Historical Review, vol. 15 (July 1910); The Negro (New York: Henry Holt, 1915); Meier and Rudwick, Black History and the Historical Profession, 1915–1980, 5–6; and Meier, Negro Thought in America, 1880–1915, 261.

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NOTES TO CHAPTER 5

31. Logan and Winston, “William Edward Burghardt Du Bois, 1868–1966,” in Logan and Winston, eds., Dictionary of American Negro Biography, 193–99; Du Bois, The Philadelphia Negro (Philadelphia: University of Philadelphia Press, 1899); Black Reconstruction in America: An Essay toward a History of the Part Which Black Folk Played in the Attempt to Reconstruct Democracy in America, 1860–1880 (New York: Harcourt, Brace, 1935); Du Bois’s first novel is considered his best effort by scholars; see The Quest for the Silver Fleece (Chicago: A. C. McClurg, 1911); Dusk of Dawn (New York: Harcourt, Brace, 1940), 58; and Du Bois, quoted in Rayford Logan, ed., What the Negro Wants (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1944), 49. 32. Lawrence D. Reddick, “Carter G. Woodson as a Scholar,” Journal of Negro History, vol. 36 (1951), 12 and 14; Du Bois, “A Portrait of Carter G. Woodson,” Masses and Mainstream, vol. 3 (June 1950), 19; Jacqueline Goggin, Carter G. Woodson: A Life in Black History (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1993), 1–33; Thorpe, Black Historians, 108–15; Meier and Rudwick, Black History and the Historical Profession, 1915–1980, 1–2 and 71; Woodson, The Education of the Negro prior to 1861 (New York: G. P. Putnam and Sons, 1915); A Century of Negro Migration (Washington, DC: Association for the Study of Negro Life and History, 1918); The History of the Negro Church (Washington, DC: Associated Pub­ lishers, 1921); The Negro in Our History (Washington, DC: Association for the Study of Negro Life and History, 1922); the seven Black scholars Woodson in­ fluenced most during the first dozen years of the Association for the Study of Negro Life and History included Alrutheus A. Taylor (1893–1954), Charles H. Wesley (1891–1989); Lorenzo J. Greene (1899–1988), William Sherman Savage (1890–1981), James Hugo Johnston (1891–1970), Luther Porter Jackson (1892–1950), and Rayford W. Logan (1897–1982). 33. Thorpe, Black History, 108–15; and Goggin, Carter G. Woodson, 110–11. 34. Meier and Rudwick, Black History and the Historical Profession, 1915–1980, 9–10; John Hope Franklin, “The Place of Carter G. Woodson in American Historiography,” Negro History Bulletin, vol. 13 (May 1950), 175; and Woodson, “Ten Years Collecting and Publishing the Records of the Negro,” Journal of Negro History, vol. 10 (October 1925), 598. 35. David Brion Davis, “Slavery and the Post–World War II Historians,” Daedalus, vol. 103 (Spring 1974), 1–16; Carter G. Woodson, “Director’s Report ASNLH, 1923,” Journal of Negro History, vol. 8 (July 1923), 354, and “The Cele­ bration of Negro History Week, 1927,” Journal of Negro History, vol. 12 (April 1927), 105. 36. Bruce, “The Negro in the Republic of Letters,” January 23, 1921, Bruce papers, B. 5-3 (#1912), SCRBC. 37. Bruce, “The Importance of Thinking Black,” in Gilbert, ed., The Selected Writings of John Edward Bruce, 132. 38. Meier and Rudwick, Black History and the Historical Profession,

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1915–1980, 44; and Kelly Miller to Bruce, January 23, 1899, Bruce papers, Bruce M. 2. (#1323), SCRBC. 39. Meier and Rudwick, Black History, 8; Elinor Des Verney Sinnette, Arthur Alfonso Schomburg, 47. 40. Alfred A. Moss Jr., The American Negro Academy (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1981), 11–18; and Robert H. Wiebe, The Search for Order: 1877–1920 (New York: Hill and Wang, 1967), 111–14. For information on the history of Black historical societies see Charles H. Wesley, “Racial Historical Soci­ eties and the American Heritage,” Journal of Negro History, vol. 37 (January 1952), 15–27; Dorothy Porter, “The Organized Educational Activities of Negro Literary Societies, 1818–1846,” Journal of Negro Education, vol. 5 (October 1936), 556–76; and James Spady, “The Afro-American Historical Society: The Nucleus of Black Bibliophiles, 1897–1923,” Negro History Bulletin (June–July 1974), 255–56. 41. Crummell quoted in Moss, The American Negro Academy, 20 and 24. For additional information on Crummell see chapter 2, 76–97. 42. Ibid., 56–57; also review Crummell to Bruce, December 24, 1896; De­ cember 15, 1897, MS. 8. (31271); January 21, 1898, MS. 15 (#1280); and Novem­ ber 16, 1893, Bruce 414 (#1144); Bruce to Crummell, November 6, 1897, B.L. 4-42 (#1266), all in Bruce papers, SCRBC. 43. Bruce to John W. Cromwell, January 11, 1897, quoted in Moss, The Amer­ ican Negro Academy, 37. 44. Ibid., 97; Kelly Miller, A Review of Hoffman’s Race Traits and Tendencies of the American Negro (Washington, DC: American Negro Academy, 1897); W. E. B. Du Bois, The Conservation of Races (Washington, DC: American Negro Academy, 1897); Alexander Crummell, “Civilization, the Primal Need of the Race,” and “The Attitude of the American Mind toward the Negro Intellect” (Washington, DC: American Negro Academy, 1898); and Bruce, Boston Transcript, December 1899. 45. Moss, The American Negro Academy, 113, 127–28, and 275; Casley Hayford to Bruce, August 7, 1915, November 24, 1923, Bruce N. 5 (#2013); Sarah J. Ware to Bruce, November 30, 1911, MS. 125 (#1594), both in Bruce papers, SCRBC; Hayford, Gold Coast Native Institutions (London, 1903); Ethiopia Un­ bound: Studies in Race Emancipation (London, 1911); and Hollis Lynch, Edward Wilmot Blyden: Pan-Negro Patriot, 1832–1912 (New York: Oxford University Press, 1970), 240–41. 46. Robert A. Hill, ed., The Marcus Garvey and Universal Negro Iimprovemnt Association Papers (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1983–89), 1:519–21; Robert A. Hill, “The First England Years and After, 1912–1916,” in John Henrik Clarke, ed., Marcus Garvey and the Vision of Africa (New York: Vintage Books, 1974), 41–44; Duse Mohamed Ali, In the Land of the Pharaohs (London, 1911) (For additional information on Ali see the Gold Coast Leader, August 31, 1912);

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NOTES TO CHAPTER 5

Michael D. Biddis, “The Universal Races Congress of 1911,” Race, vol. 13 (1971), 37–46; and Ian Duffield, “Duse Mohamed Ali: His Purposes and His Public,” in Alistair Niven, ed., The Commonwealth Writer Overseas (Brussels: Libraire Marcel Didier, 1976); and Ian Duffield, “The Business Activities of Duse Mohamed Ali: An Example of the Economic Dimension of Pan-Africanism, 1912–1945,” Jour­ nal of the Historical Society of Nigeria, vol. 4 (June 1969), 571–600. The African Times and the Orient Review (ATOR) was subtitled “A Weekly Review of African and Oriental Politics, Literature, Finance, and Commerce.” It was published July 1912 to December 1913 as a monthly; March 1914 to August 1914 as a weekly; and January 1917 to October 1918 as a monthly. The notoriety of Ali’s In the Land of the Pharaohs generated an invitation to organize the entertainment for the First Universal Races Congress held in London during 1911. Apparently, he was still perceived as principally an actor; nonetheless, this was an opportunity for an ambitious man. Ali emerged from this event as the publisher of the ATOR. For samples of Bruce’s contributions to the African Times and Orient Review, see Bruce Grit, “The Microbe of Race Prejudice,” November–December 1913, and “James Emman Kwegyir Aggrey,” December 1917. 47. Arthur Schomburg quoted in Elinor Des Verney Sinnette, Arthur Alfonso Schomburg, 52–53; Moss, The American Negro Academy, 221; and Schomburg to Bruce, May 26, 1914, Bruce papers, Bruce 326C (#1657), SCRBC. 48. Bruce, “Frederick Douglass,” American Negro Academy, December 27, 1916, Bruce papers, B.P. 10–11 (#1745), SCRBC; Randolph quoted in Moss, The American Negro Academy, 143–44; and Theodore Kornweibel, Jr., “Chandler Owen (1889–1967),” in Logan and Winston, eds., Dictionary of American Biogra­ phy, 476–77. 49. Washington Bee, January 10, 1920, 6; also review comments on this speech in the Messenger, vol. 4 (March 1920), 13; and Moss, The American Negro Academy, 145–46. 50. Washington Bee, January 10, 1920; and Bruce, “A. Phillip Randolph,” in Gilbert, ed., The Selected Writings of John Edward Bruce, 156. 51. Bruce, “A. Philip Randolph,” 156; Hubert Henry Harrison, The Negro and the Nation (New York: Cosmo Advocate Publishing Company, 1917), 3; J. A. Rogers, “Hubert Henry Harrison: Intellectual Giant and Free-Lance Educator,” in Rogers, World’s Great Men of Color, vol. 2 (New York: J. A. Rogers, 1947; reprint, New York: Macmillan, 1972), 436; also review Jeffrey B. Perry, “Dissat­ isfaction with the Party: Southernism or Socialism,” in Perry, “Hubert Henry Harrison, ‘The Father of Harlem Radicalism’: The Early Years—1883 through the Founding of the Liberty League and ‘The Voice’” (Ph.D. diss., Columbia University, New York, New York, 1986), 303–15. 52. Arthur Schomburg to John W. Cromwell, August 6, 1913, quoted in Moss, The American Negro Academy, 192. 53. Sinnette, Arthur Alfonso Schomburg, 38 and 41. The Men’s Sunday Club

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205

is mentioned several times in Bruce’s papers but no specific dates are recorded to determine its founding or termination. 54. Some information is provided about W. Wesley Weeks and William Ernest Braxton in James Porter, Modern Negro Art (New York: Dryden Press, 1943), 157–59. 55. William L. Andrews, “Jack Thorne [David Bryant Fulton] (1861?–1941),” in Logan and Winston, eds., Dictionary of American Negro Biogra­ phy, 589–90; and Eures Hunter, “David B. Fulton—Jack Thorne—Has Interest­ ing Career as a Writer,” Cape Fear Journal, February 10, 1934. 56. Andrews, “Jack Thorne [David Bryant Fulton],” 589; Jack Thorne, Rec­ ollections of a Sleeping Car Porter (Jersey City, NJ: Doan and Pilson Printers, 1892), 15–16; Hanover; or, The Persecution of the Lowly (Philadelphia: M. C. Hill, 1900); Eagle Clippings (Brooklyn: D. B. Fulton, 1907); and Thorne, quoted in Andrews, “Jack Thorne,” 590. 57. Sinnette, Arthur Alfonso Schomburg, 37; and Bernardo Vega, Memoirs of Bernardo Vega: A Contribution to the History of the Puerto Rican Community in New York, ed. Cesar Andreu Iglesias (New York: Monthly Review Press, 1984), 195–96. 58. Alexander Crummel to Bruce, January 21, 1898, Bruce papers, MS. 15 (#1280), SCRBC; “Color Prejudice among Negroes” and “The Importance of Thinking Black,” in Gilbert, ed., The Selected Writings of John Edward Bruce, 125–28 and 131–33; and Sinnette, Arthur Alfonso Schomburg, 30. 59. Bruce, “The Mission and Opportunity of the Negro Mason: Notes on Solomon’s Temple,” Address before the Craftsmen’s Club, New York, March 6, 1910; “Prince Hall: The Pioneer of Negro Masonry,” June 5, 1921, B. 6-83 (#1916), both in Bruce papers, SCRBC; Arthur Alfonso Schomburg, Masonic Truths: A Letter and a Document (New York: Masonic Historical Society of Brooklyn, 1922?); and Sinnette, Arthur Alfonso Schomburg, 27. 60. Arthur Alfonso Schomburg, “Is Hayti Decadent?” Unique Advertiser, vol. 4 (December 25, 1909), 8–11; “Placido, a Cuban Martyr,” New Century, De­ cember 25, 1909; “The Fight for Liberty in St. Lucia,” Crisis, vol. 2 (May 1911), 33–34; “Sebastian Gomez,” Crisis, vol. 2 (January 1916), 136–37; Bibliographical Checklist of American Negro Poetry (New York: C. F. Heartman, 1916); and Schom­ burg quoted in Sinnette, Arthur Alfonso Schomburg, 32. 61. Schomburg, “The Negro Digs Up His Past,” in Alain Locke, ed., The New Negro (New York: Albert and Charles Boni, 1925; reprint, New York: Atheneum, 1969), 231. 62. Schomburg, “The Negro Digs Up His Past,” 236–37. 63. Sinnette, Arthur Alfonso Schomburg, 26–27; William L. Andrews, “A Pro­ posal to the University of North Carolina Press for an Edition of the Works of David Bryand Fulton,” n.d., 1–2; and Hunter, “David B. Fulton—Jack Thorne— Has Interesting Career as a Writer.”

206

NOTES TO CHAPTER 5

64. Hunter, “David B. Fulton.” 65. William H. Ferris, The African Abroad; or, His Evolution in Western Civi­ lization: Tracing His Development under Caucasian Milieu (New Haven, CT: Tuttle, Moorehouse, and Taylor Press, 1913), 2:863. 66. Ibid., 863–64; Sinnette, Arthur Alfonso Schomburg, 42–43; Letterhead and Constitution, Negro Society for Historical Research, 1911–1912, Bruce papers, B. Misc. 13-55 (#1598), SCRBC. 67. Schomburg to “Morgan,” June 9, 1911, Schomburg Papers, SCRBC, quoted in Sinnette, Arthur Alfonso Schomburg, 43; Bruce to Mr. Perault, 1911? (#B.L. 4-65), Bruce papers, SCRBC. 68. Bruce, Address Accepting Presidency of the Negro Society for Histori­ cal Research, 1912?, B. 6-66 (#1622); Schomburg to Bruce, May 28, 1913, Bruce 379 (#1634) and January 13, 1915, MS. 22 (2) (#1680), all in Bruce papers, SCRBC; Ferris, The African Abroad, 864; and Sinnette, Arthur Alfonso Schomburg, 41–44. 69. York Russell, Historical Research, Negro Society for Historical Research, Occasional Paper No. 1 (Yonkers, NY, 1912); David Bryant Fulton, A Plea for So­ cial Justice for the Negro Woman, Negro Society for Historical Research, Occa­ sional Paper No. 2 (New York: Lincoln Press, 1912); Arthur A. Schomburg, Racial Integrity: A Plea for the Establishment of a Chair of Negro History in Our Schools and Colleges, Negro Society for Historical Research, Occasional Paper No. 3 (New York: A. V. Bernier, 1913); Schomburg to Bruce; and Bruce to Locke, November 11, 1911, quoted in Sinnette, Arthur Alfonso Schomburg, 44–45; Bruce to J. B. Sullivan, October 1, 1911, Bruce papers, MS. 128 (#1581), SCRBC; and Michael R. Winston, “Alain Leroy Locke (1885–1954),” in Logan and Winston, eds., Dictionary of American Negro Biography, 398–404. 70. Alain Locke, “The Question of Race Tradition,” Alain Locke Papers, Manuscript Division, Moorland-Springarn Research Center, Howard Univer­ sity (hereafter MSRC). 71. Schomburg to Bruce, December 15, 1911, Bruce papers, Bruce 377 (#1596), SCRBC; Schomburg to Locke, December 15, 1911, Locke Papers, MSRC; and Sinnette, Arthur Alfonso Schomburg, 46–47. 72. Russell, Historical Research, 5. 73. Ibid., 11. 74. Schomburg, Racial Integrity, 5–19; and Nancy Cunard, ed., Negro: An Anthology (London: Wishart Company, 1934; reprint, New York: Frederick Ungar Company, 1970), 77–78, all quoted in Sinnette, Arthur Alfonso Schomburg, 48–49. 75. Schomburg quoted in Sinnette, Arthur Alfonso Schomburg, 49. 76. Schomburg, Racial Integrity; and Sinnette, Arthur Alfonso Schomburg, 48. 77. Sinnette, Arthur Alfonso Schomburg, 41. 78. Schomburg, “Schomburg Tears Carter Woodson to Pieces for Historical Narrowness,” Negro World, November 4, 1922, reprinted in Theodore G. Vin-

NOTES TO CHAPTER 5

207

cent, ed., Voices of a Black Nation (San Francisco: Ramparts Press, 1973), 340–42; and Tony Martin, Literary Garveyism: Garvey, Black Arts and the Harlem Renais­ sance (Dover, MA: Majority Press, 1983), 103–4. 79. Schomburg, “Schomburg Tears Carter Woodson,” 3. 80. Woodson to Bruce, 1918?, B. Misc. 13-76 (#1759), and January 15, 1923, Bruce 403 (#1988), both in Bruce papers, SCRBC. 81. Bruce, “The Negroes in Seville (Spain),” n.d., B. 9-102 (#2105); Address to Alumni, Virginia Theological Seminary, October 27, 1914, B. 6-58 (#1672); and “Ancient Glory of the Negro Race,” B. 7-13 (#1318), all in Bruce papers, SCRBC. 82. J. W. E. Bowen to Bruce, November 23, 1893, Bruce B. 10 (#1145); “The Negro in the Republic of Letters,” January 23, 1921, B. 5-3 (#1912); “The Devel­ opment of an Idea,” n.d., B. 9-61 (#2061); “Negro Literature,” 1913?, B. 9-94 (#1646); “Negro Need for Education,” n.d., B. 9-7 (#2143); “Negro Youth and Ed­ ucation,” n.d., B. 11-10 (#2154); Address to the Phalanx Club, November 21, 1915, B. 6-67 (#1712); Schomburg to Bruce, January 1, 1912, Bruce 380 (#1599); March 21, 1912, Bruce 334 (#1610); and Schomburg to “Pop,” 1910, Bruce 378 (#1569); all in Bruce papers, SCRBC; and Bruce, “An Intellectual Battle,” in Gilbert, ed., The Selected Writing of John E. Bruce, 121–24. J. E. E. Bowen published a column entitled “The Negro in Art and Literature” that appeared in religious and Black secular newspapers. He was raised in New Orleans and completed a Ph.D. in 1886 at Boston University. He was a professor of Gammon Technolog­ ical Seminary from 1893 to 1905 and president from 1906 to 1912; see Meier, Negro Thought in America, 1880–1915, 211. 83. Charles Alexander to Bruce, April 11, 1896, Bruce A. 2 (#1213), Bruce papers, SCRBC. 84. Bruce, “Frederick Douglass,” Address, American Negro Academy, De­ cember 27, 1916, B. P. 10-11 (#1745), Bruce papers, SCRBC; Moss, The American Negro Academy, 141–42; “Book Collectors Exchange Organized at Washington,” December 28, 1916, John Wesley Cromwell Papers, MSRC, quoted in Sinnette, Arthur Alfonso Schomburg, 73; and Sinnette, W. Paul Coates, and Thomas C. Bat­ tle, eds., Black Bibliophiles and Collectors: Preserves of Black History (Washington, DC: Howard University Press, 1990), 10–11. 85. Sinnette, Arthur Alfonso Schomburg, 73–74. 86. Ibid., 73–75. 87. Sinnette, Coates, and Battle, eds., Black Bibliophiles and Collectors, 207–11. 88. Ibid., 209; and Dorothy B. Porter, “Henry Proctor Slaughter (1871–1958),” in Logan and Winston, eds., Dictionary of American Negro Biogra­ phy, 558–59. 89. Ibid., 206; and Robert L. Harris Jr., “Daniel [Alexander Payne] Murray (1852–1925),” in Logan and Winston, eds., Dictionary of American Negro Biogra­ phy, 463–65. 90. Sinnette, Arthur Alfonso Schomburg, 85–86.

208

NOTES TO CHAPTER 5

91. Sinnette, Coates, and Battle, eds., Black Bibliophiles and Collectors, 7–8; and Spady,”William Carl Bolivar (1849–1914),” in Logan and Winston, eds., Dic­ tionary of American Negro Biography, 50. 92. Sinnette, Coates, and Battle, eds., Black Bibliophiles and Collectors, 8–10; James E. Haney, “John Wesley Cromwell (1846–1927),” in Logan and Winston, eds., Dictionary of American Negro Biography, 141–42; Cromwell to Bruce, Febru­ ary 3, 1912, MS. 227 (#1603); August 3, 1911, MS. 217 (#1578); October 6, 1911, Bruce 359 (#1582); and January 6, 1923, Bruce 400 (#1985); Bruce to Cromwell, January 19, 1923, B.L. 4-43 (#1989); and Negro Society for Historical Research to Principal, Banneker School, Washington, D.C., December 3, 1912, B.L. 4-45 (#1620), all in Bruce papers, SCRBC. 93. Sinnette, Arthur Alfonso Schomburg, 68 and 99–100; Sinnette, Coates, and Battle, eds., Black Bibliophiles and Collectors; Schomburg to Bruce, March 23, 1915, Bruce 285 (#1687); July 27, 1915, Bruce 375 (#1707); June 20, 1916, Bruce MS. 21 and 27 (#1735), all in Bruce papers, SCRBC. 94. Sinnette, Arthur Alfonso Schomburg, 99–101; Schomburg to Bruce, June 2, 1913, MS. 19 (#1635); March 21, 1912, Bruce 334 (#1610); June 20, 1916, Bruce MS. 21 (#1735); January 1, 1912, Bruce 380 (#1599); January 13, 1915, MS. 22(2) (#1680); n.d., Bruce 288 (#2187); and n.d., Bruce 316 (#2196), all in Bruce papers, SCRBC. 95. Bruce, Tracts for the People, nos. 1–15 (Yonkers, NY: J. E. Bruce, 1904), compiler’s notice. These pamphlets may have been published by Bruce’s friend, J. B. Sullivan, business manager of the Junto Book Company, Yonkers, New York. 96. Bruce, “Self Valuation,” “Business Engagements,” “Self Reliance,” and “Jealousy,” Tracts for the People, nos. 4, 6, 10, and 12; Bruce, “The Cities of Ethiopia-Babylon,” “The Generations of Ham,” “The People of Ethiopia,” and “Cities Founded by the Ethiopians,” Tracts for the People, nos. 11, 1, 3, 7, 8, and 9; and Bruce, “Philiss Wheatley,” and “Talks on Negro History,” Tracts for the Peo­ ple, nos. 13, 14, and 15. 97. Letters to Bruce from Orion Publishing Company, Nashville, Tennessee, April 20, 1901, B.L. 4a-53 (#1414); B. E. H. Helman-Taylor Company, Cleveland, Ohio, February 1, 1898, B.L. 4a-54 (#1281), both in Bruce papers, SCRBC; Daniel Webster Davis, Weh Down Souf (Cleveland, OH: Helman-Taylor, 1898); Sutton E. Griggs, Overshadowed (Nashville, TN: Orion, 1901); Arnold Rampersad, “Sutton E[lbert] Griggs,” in Logan and Winston, eds., Dictionary of American Negro Biog­ raphy, 271; and Robert E. Fleming, “Sutton E. Griggs: Militant Black Novelist,” Phylon (March 1973), 73–77. 98. Moses Da Rocha, Edinburgh University, to Bruce, October 30, 1902, at­ tached notation by Bruce, “Couldn’t make it go” Misc. 13-7 (#1426); also review additional Da Rocha letters dated October 11, 1911, M.S. 211 (#1585), October 16, 1911, M.S. 213 (#1588), February 5, 1912, M.S. 212 (#1605), and March 18, 1914,

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209

M.S. 220 (#1655); Alice M. Dunbar to Bruce, March 23, 1914, B.L. 4-81 (#1654); C. A. Johnson and Bruce, Prospectus, 1893, B. 8-119 (#1154), all in Bruce papers, SCRBC. On January 28, 1914, James Wilson, London, England, requested Bruce’s support to solicit funds for John R. Archer during old age. See Wilson to Bruce, Bruce papers, M.S. 67 (#1651), SCRBC. 99. Bruce, “The Stronger Races vs. the Weaker Nations,” Voice of the Negro (April 1905), 256. 100. Bruce, “Bruce Grit’s Melange,” Colored American, August 11, 1900; Bruce, Address, St. Mark’s Lyceum, New York City, March 15, 1906, B. 6-50 (#1481); “Delays in Negro Equality,” 1915?, B. MS. 11-14 (#1717), both in Bruce papers, SCRBC; Bruce, “Some Famous Negroes,” Voice of the Negro (December 1905), 876. 101. Bruce, “Some Serious Phases of the Problem of Race,” in Gilbert, ed., The Selected Writings of John Edward Bruce, 92–96. 102. Bruce, Address, Virginia Theological Seminary and College, Yonkers, New York, October 27, 1914, Bruce papers, B. 6-62 (#1673), SCRBC; and Bruce, “The Importance of Thinking Black,” in Gilbert, ed., The Selected Writings of John E. Bruce, 132. 103. Bruce, “The Importance of Thinking Black,” 132. 104. John W. Cromwell quoted in Bruce, The Awakening of Hezekiah Jones: A Story Dealing with Some of the Problems Affecting the Political Rewards Due the Negro (Hopkinsville, KY: Phil H. Brown, 1916), i; Bruce, Ibid., 62. 105. Emmett J. Scott quoted in Bruce, A Tribute for the Negro Soldier (Wash­ ington, DC: Government Printing Office, 1918), 1; and Bruce, A Tribute, 1 and 16. 106. Ibid., 1 and 16. 107. Murray to Bruce, May 15, 1918, Bruce papers, Bruce M. 9 (#1782), SCRBC; Meier and Rudwick, Black History and the Historical Profession, 1915–1980, 26; and Emmett J. Scott, Scott’s Official History of the American Negro in the World War (Washington, DC: Government Printing Office, 1919). 108. Bruce, The Making of a Race (New York: J. E. Bruce, 1922), 3–4, and 9. 109. Ibid., 6. NOTES TO CHAPTER 6

1. This description is based upon a gravesite photograph of John E. Bruce’s funeral located in the SCRBC and also published in Tony Martin, Literary Gar­ veyism: Garvey, Black Arts and the Harlem Renaissance (Dover, MA: Majority Press, 1983), vi; Elinor Des Verney Sinnette, Arthur Alfonso Schomburg: Black Bibliophile and Collector (Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 1989), 124; and Robert A. Hill, ed., The Marcus Garvey and Universal Negro Improvement Association Papers (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1986), vol. 5, plate 14 between 456 and 457; “‘Duke of Uganda’ Laid to Rest with Honors,” New York Age, August 16,

210

NOTES TO CHAPTER 6

1924; Peter Gilbert, ed., The Selected Writings of John E. Bruce: Militant Black Jour­ nalist (New York: Arno Press and the New York Times, 1971), 3; Robert A. Hill, ed., The Marcus Garvey and UNIA Papers, 5:688; William H. Wilkes to Mrs. J. E. Bruce, March 20, 1924, Mrs. B. (#2022); and Schomburg to Florence Bruce, August 20, 1924, Mrs. B. (#2026), both in Bruce papers, SCRBC. 2. New York Age, August 16, 1924; and Gilbert, ed., The Selected Writings of John E. Bruce, 3. In a letter to the Amsterdam News dated August 16, 1924, Olive Bruce Millar complained, Allow me to state that in the report of the funeral and the biography of Sir John Edward Bruce, a very important fact was omitted which is not only a grave injustice to me, but it is a serious reflection on the mem­ ory of a man with such pronounced moral ideals. You fail to state that he was survived also by an only daughter . . . and three grandchildren. It was sad enough not even to be notified of his death, but to be ab­ solutely ignored even in the fact of his paternity actuates me in my sole desire to ask you to give this letter the necessary publicity to correct such a misleading and erroneous statement. This letter indicates that Bruce’s daughter may have been alienated from her family or simply that the funeral arrangements were taken over by UNIA offi­ cials who failed to contact her. This sill does not explain why Mrs. Florence Bruce, who played a prominent role in the funeral party, did not take the initia­ tive to contact her daughter. Olive Bruce Millar died on January 20, 1943. There is no mention of this matter in the Bruce papers. 3. Bruce, “Impressions of Marcus Garvey,” 1922?, Bruce papers, B. 5-14 (#1885), SCRBC; “Marcus Garvey and the U.N.I.A.,” in Gilbert, ed., The Selected Writings of John Edward Bruce, 167; and Marcus Garvey Jr., “West Indies in the Mirror of Truth,” Champion Magazine (January 1917), quoted in Hill, ed., The Marcus Garvey and UNIA Papers, 1:198–99. 4. Garvey, “A Journey of Self-Discovery,” Current History Magazine, Sep­ tember 1923, quoted in John Henrik Clark, ed., Marcus Garvey and the Vision of Africa (New York: Vintage Books, 1974), 71. 5. An unnamed St. Ann’s Bay resident quoted in E. David Cronon, Black Moses: The Story of Marcus Garvey and The Universal Negro Improvement Associa­ tion (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1969), 5–7; and Tony Martin, Race First: The Ideological and Organizational Struggles of Marcus Garvey and the Univer­ sal Negro Improvement Association (Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1976), x1 and 4. 6. Garvey, “A Journey of Self-Discovery,” 72–73. 7. Ibid., 72; Lawrence W. Levine, “Marcus Garvey and the Politics of Revi­ talization,” in Levine, The Unpredictable Past: Explorations in American Cultural

NOTES TO CHAPTER 6

211

History (New York: Oxford University Press, 1993), 109; and Hill, ed., The Mar­ cus Garvey and UNIA Papers, 1:36. 8. Hill, ed., The Marcus Garvey and UNIA Papers, 1:20; and Amy Jacques Gar­ vey, Garvey and Garveyism (New York: Collier Books, 1968), 4. 9. Garvey, “A Journey of Self-Discovery,” 73; Levine, “Marcus Garvey and the Politics of Revitalization,” 110–11; Martin, Race First, 4; and Cronon, Black Moses, 12. 10. Garvey, “A Journey of Self-Discovery,” 73; Martin, Race First, 4; and Hill, ed., The Marcus Garvey and UNIA Papers, 1:36. 11. See chapter 2, TK, for Bruce’s relationship with J. Robert Love; and “Joseph Robert Love,” in Hill, ed., The Marcus Garvey and UNIA Papers, 1:533–35. 12. “Joseph Robert Love,” in Hill, ed., The Marcus Garvey and UNIA Papers, 1:533–35; and Amy Jacques Garvey, “The Early Years of Marcus Garvey,” in Clarke, ed., Marcus Garvey and the Vision of Africa, 32. 13. J. Robert Love, Jamaica Advocate, quoted in Hill, ed., The Marcus Garvey and UNIA Papers, 1:534–35; quoted in Amy Jacques Garvey, “The Early Years of Marcus Garvey,” 32. 14. “Joseph Robert Love,” and Garvey, Kingston, Jamaica, Gleaner, Febru­ ary 17, 1930, both quoted in Hill, ed., The Marcus Garvey and UNIA Papers, 1:533–35. 15. J. Robert Love to Bruce, July 30, 1897, Bruce papers, MS. 157 (#1252), SCRBC; also quoted in Hill, ed., The Marcus Garvey and UNIA Papers, 1:533. 16. Hill, ed., The Marcus Garvey and UNIA Papers, 1:20–21 and 36; and Martin, Race First, 91. 17. Levine, “Marcus Garvey and the Politics of Revitalization,” 110–11; and Martin, Race First, 4–5 and 91–92. 18. Amy Jacques Garvey, “The Early Years of Marcus Garvey,” 35, and Gar­ vey and Garveyism, 8–9; “Duse Mohamed Ali,” in Hill, ed., The Marcus Garvey and UNIA Papers, 1:36. 19. Duse Mohamed Ali’s In the Land of the Pharaohs was financed by Alfred Richard Orage (1873–1934), editor of New Age, an “influential Fabanist weekly and leading socialist literary journal.” The initial success of Duse Mohamed’s book in England quickly faded when it was determined that portions of the text were “cribbed” from the writings of Wilfred Scawen Blunt, Theodore Rothstein, and the Earl of Cromer. These charges ended Duse Mohamed’s association with Orage but it did not undermine the book’s influence with Black intellectuals of the period. See Hill, “The First England Years and After, 1912–1916,” in Clarke, Marcus Garvey and the Vision of Africa, 41 and 455–56; and Hill, ed., The Marcus Garvey and UNIA Papers, 1:520. 20. African Times and Orient Review (July 1912), iii, quoted in Hill, “The First England Years,” 42.

212

NOTES TO CHAPTER 6

21. Robert Russa Moton (1867–1940) graduated from Hampton Institute, Booker T. Washington’s alma mater, in 1890. After completing his junior year in 1887, he left school to teach in Cumberland County, Virginia. During this same year he read for the law exam and received a license to practice. Moton returned to finish his senior year at Hampton in the fall of 1889. He was also appointed assistant commandant and served as commandant of Hampton from 1891 to 1915. In 1900 he was elected president of the National Negro Business League. From 1908 through 1915, he also participated in several tours throughout southern and northern speaking engagements to promote the Hampton-Tuskegee idea of industrial education and biracial cooperation as a means to advance the race. When Washington died on November 14, 1915, Moton was appointed principal of Tuskegee Institute and held this position until his retirement in 1935. Moton was perceived by the anti-Washington camp as simply a continu­ ation of the Bookerite philosophy on issues related to education and racial progress. He credited Washington and Samuel Chapman Armstrong for draw­ ing his attention to the significance of Black history and the role of Negro spiri­ tuals as a tool to encourage Black students “to respect their race, its history and its traditions.” Moton was also an important financial supporter of Carter G. Woodson and the Association for the Study of Negro Life and History (ASNLH) during its early years. Bruce and Moton were linked through their friendship with Emmett J. Scott, Washington’s former private secretary. They were not friends but Bruce respected his support of the Negro history movement and may have solicited his financial assistance for the Negro Society for Historical Research (NSHR). Garvey solicited Moton’s assistance after Washington’s death but received little encouragement for his Jamaican “Industrial Farm and Institute.” See Earle H. West, “Robert Russa Moton (1867–1940),” in Rayford W. Logan and Michael R. Winston, eds., Dictionary of American Negro Biography (New York: Norton, 1982), 459–61; August Meier, Negro Thought in America, 1880–1915 (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1963), 265; August Meier and Elliot Rudwick, Black History and the Historical Profession, 1915–1980 (Ur­ bana: University of Illinois Press, 1986), 12–13; Garvey to R. R. Moton, February 29, 1916; Emmett J. Scott to Garvey, February 4 and March 2, 1916; and Scott to Major Wrisley Brown, Military Intelligence Division, December 11, 1918, in Hill, ed., The Marcus Garvey and UNIA Papers, 1:173, 1:177–83, 1:322–26. 22. Felix E. M. Hercules (1888–1943) was born in Venezuela and raised in Trinidad. While a student at Queen’s Royal College he founded the Young Men’s Coloured Association and in 1907 he established the Port-of-Spain. After his graduation from college he worked briefly for the Trinidad civil service and then became a teacher at Maparima College. Shortly before the First World War, Hercules relocated to England to attend London University and completed an intermediate B.A. degree. He became a leader of London’s Black community and an articulate spokesman against English racism. Hercules became a close

NOTES TO CHAPTER 6

213

associate of John Eldred Taylor, chairman of the London-based Society of Peo­ ples of African Origin (SPAO), and the society’s secretary. He also edited African Telegraph and became an active member of the African Progress Union (APU). Similar to Sylvester Williams in 1901 and Garvey in 1937, Hercules toured the West Indies on a lecture tour in July 1919. When race riots hit Liverpool and Cardiff in June 1919, British colonial authorities charged that his nationalistic speeches in Jamaica were inciting Black unrest and antiwhite violence. He was denied entry into Trinidad and briefly resided in Grenada. Hercules was even­ tually allowed to enter the United States after assuring immigration officials that he did not support Marcus Garvey’s UNIA. He founded the African League in New York but this effort was short lived. Hercules later became a Baptist minister and led congregations in Illinois, Tennessee, and Arkansas. He died in Chicago during the Second World War. See Tony Martin, The Pan-African Connection: From Slavery to Garvey and Beyond (Cambridge, MA: Schenkman Publishing, 1983), 12–13; and Hill, ed., The Marcus Garvey and UNIA Papers, 1:212. 23. Bruce to Major Walter H. Loving, January 13, 1919, in Hill, ed., The Mar­ cus Garvey and UNIA Papers, 1:349–51, 4:203; and Amanda Ira Aldridge to Bruce, March 7, 1921, Bruce papers, MS. 79 (#1994), SCRBC. The Société Internationale de Philologie et Beaux was founded in Paris in 1873; its official journal, the Philomath, was published in London from 1895 to 1934. 24. Hill, ed., The Marcus Garvey and UNIA Papers, 4:3; and Hill, “The First England Years and After, 1912–1914,” 43–44; and chapter 5, TK. 25. Garvey, “The British West Indies in the Mirror of Civilization: History Making by Colonial Negroes,” African Times and Orient Review (October 1913), 159–60. 26. Garvey, “A Journey of Self-Discovery,” 73. 27. J. Ayodele Langley, Pan-Africanism and Nationalism in West Africa, 1900–1945 (London: Oxford University Press, 1973), 32–33; Kenneth James King, Pan-Africanism and Education: A Study of Race Philanthropy and Education in the Southern States of America and East Africa (London: Oxford University Press, 1971), 16–17; and Bruce to Washington, October 14, 1895, in Louis R. Harlan and Raymond W. Smock, eds., The Booker T. Washington Papers (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1972–74), 4:55–56. 28. Langley, Pan-Africanism and Nationalism in West Africa, 33; George Shep­ person, “Notes on American Negro Influences on the Emergence of African Na­ tionalism,” Journal of African History, vols. 1–2 (1960), 311; and J. E. Casely Hayford quoted in King, Pan-Africanism and Education, 17. 29. Hill, ed., The Marcus Garvey and UNIA Papers, 1:351; Hill, “The First Eng­ land Years and After, 1912–1914,” 50–51; Hayford’s publications included Ethiopia Unbound: Studies in Race Emancipation (London: Phillips, 1911); Gold Coast Land Tenure and the Forest Bill (London: Phillips, 1912); The Truth about the

214

NOTES TO CHAPTER 6

West African Land Questions (London: Phillips, 1913); United West Africa (London: Phillips, 1919); and The Disabilities of Black Folk and Their Treatment with an Appeal to the Labour Party (London, 1929); and Hayford to Bruce, August 7, 1915, Bruce papers (omitted from the Calendar), SCRBC. 30. Garvey, “A Journey of Self-Discovery,” 74. 31. Hill, ed., “The First England Years and After, 1912–1914,” 60. 32. Ibid., 65; and Levine, “Marcus Garvey and the Politics of Revitaliza­ tion,” 111. 33. Garvey to R. R. Moton, February 29, 1916, in Hill, ed., The Marcus Gar­ vey and UNIA Papers, 1:177. 34. Garvey, “A Journey of Self-Discovery,” 74–75. 35. Ibid., 74–75; and Bruce, “Washington’s Colored Society,” 1877, Bruce papers, MS. B.F. 10-21 (#915), SCRBC. 36. Garvey to Washington, September 8, 1914, in Hill, ed., The Marcus Gar­ vey and UNIA Papers, 1:66–69. 37. Washington to Garvey, September 17, 1914 and April 27, 1915; Garvey to Washington, April 12, 1915; Garvey to Emmett J. Scott, February 4, 1916; Scott to Garvey, March 2, 1916; and Scott to Major Wrisley Brown, December 11, 1918, in Hill, ed., The Marcus Garvey and UNIA Papers, vol. 1, 71, 116, 118, 173, 185–86, and 322–23. 38. Garvey, A Talk with Afro-West Indians (Kingston, Jamaica: UNIA, July–August 1914), in Hill, ed., The Marcus Garvey and UNIA Papers, 1:56–57. 39. Ibid., 57. 40. William M. Tuttle Jr., Race Riot: Chicago in the Red Summer of 1919 (New York: Athenaeum, 1980), 210–17. 41. Ibid., 215–17; and Garvey, quoted in Levine, “Marcus Garvey and the Politics of Revitalization,” 119. 42. Garvey, “West Indies in the Mirror of Truth,” 198–99; and Bruce, “Im­ pressions of Marcus Garvey.” 43. Tony Martin, Race First, 8–9; and Garvey, “West Indies in the Mirror of Truth,” 198–201. 44. Ida Wells, Crusade for Justice: The Autobiography of Ida B. Wells (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1970), 380–81; Tony Martin, Race First, 285–90; and Bruce, “Impressions of Marcus Garvey.” 45. Isaac B. Allen (1884–?) was born in Barbados and served as president of the UNIA between November 27, 1917, and January 13, 1918. In June 1918, Allen was one of the first incorporators of the American branch of the UNIA after being accused by Marcus Garvey of trying to split the organization. Allen worked as a longshoreman in New Jersey and as a real estate agent in Harlem. Louis A. Leavelle (1877–?) became a member of the Kentucky bar in 1901 and opened a law office in Harlem in 1904. Leavelle was also president and gen­ eral manager of the Thunderer Printer-Publishing Company. In 1914 he ran un-

NOTES TO CHAPTER 6

215

successfully on the Progressive ticket for a seat in Harlem’s Twenty-first As­ sembly District. During 1922 and 1924, the Democratic Party nominated Leavelle for the Third Congressional District in Bronx, New York. Samuel A. Duncan was born in 1880 on the island of Hamilton, Bermuda. He migrated to America in May 1900 and became a naturalized citizen in 1908. Duncan was employed as a porter and briefly edited the Harlem Pilot-Gazette. In November 1917, Duncan was elected third vice-president of the UNIA. After a power struggle he was expelled from the UNIA in 1918. Wilfred Adolphus Domingo (1889–1968) was Garvey’s boyhood friend in Kingston, Jamaica. He and Garvey were active in S. A. G. Cox’s National Club. In 1910 they jointly authored The Struggling Mass, a pamphlet that supported Cox’s struggle against the governor of Jamaica. In 1910 he relocated to Boston and then moved to Harlem in 1912. Domingo organized the Boston Jamaica Club and helped establish the British Jamaicans Benevolent Association, a sim­ ilar New York–based effort. He was active in a network of Blacks, such as A. Philip Randolph, Chandler Owen, and Richard B. Moore, and was also active within a network of Black intellectuals in the Socialist Party and the Rand School of Social Science. Domingo served as the editor of the Negro World from the summer of 1918 to July 1919, when he resigned. After leaving the UNIA, Domingo became a contributing editor of the Messenger, published by Chandler Owen and A. Philip Randolph. In the spring of 1920 Domingo and Richard B. Moore published the short-lived Emancipator. After late May 1920, he began writing for Cyril Brigg’s Crusader and joined the African Blood Brotherhood (ABB), an organization committed to Garvey’s removal from America. Edgar M. Grey was born in Sierra Leone in 1890. He came to America in 1911 and worked as a postal clerk and a bookkeeper for the Daily Lunch Cor­ poration. Grey met Garvey in May 1917 and became general secretary of the UNIA, secretary of the New York division, advertising and business manager of the Negro World, and director/assistant secretary of the Black Star Line, Inc. He was expelled from the UNIA on August 2, 1919. Charles C. Seifert (1880–1949) was born in the Barbados. In September 1910 he moved to the United States and ran a boarding house in New York City. From 1914 until his death, he devoted his life to studying and distributing informa­ tion on the ancient African civilizations in Egypt and Ethiopia. Seifert became recognized as an expert on African history and a serious bibliophile. His inter­ est in book collecting and Black history provided the basis for an association with Arthur Schomburg and John Edward Bruce. Seifert’s collection became the basis for his Ethiopian Historical Research Association, a research society that facilitated communication between self-trained historians and such universitytrained scholars as William Leo Hasberry, Franz Boas, and Alexander A. Gold­ enweiser. He served as the second vice-president of the UNIA in 1917. Alexander Rahming and August V. Bernier were the first members of the

216

NOTES TO CHAPTER 6

Liberty League to attend Garvey’s organizational meetings of the UNIA between 1917 and 1918. Both were instrumental in the formation of the New Branch of the UNIA. Irena Moorman-Blackston was president of the New York UNIA Ladies Division and a member of the Socialist Party. She was also the president of the Harlem branch of the Women’s National Fraternal Business As­ sociation and later led the Colored Women’s Organization of the State of New York. Anselmo Jackson was born in 1896 in St. Croix, Danish West Indies. He sued Garvey for back wages earned while working for the Negro World in 1918. In November 1918, he became an associate editor of the Emancipator. Jackson also edited his own publication, Our Boys and Girls. Arthur Reid was the former treasurer of the Liberty League and active with UNIA’s youth. He teamed with Ira Kemp to lead the African Pioneer League in the 1930s and played a promi­ nent role in Harlem’s “Don’t Buy Where You Can’t Work” movement. Orlando M. Thompson was the former publisher of the Voice, a publication sponsored by Harrison’s league. See Hill, ed., The Marcus Garvey and UNIA Papers, vol. 1, 226–27, 233–34, 224, 521–27, 211–12, 282; Ralph L . Crowder, “‘Don’t Buy Where You Can’t Work’: An Investigation of the Political Forces and Social Conflict within the Harlem Boycott of 1934,” Afro-Americans in New York Life and History, vol. 15, no. 2 (July 1991), 21–24; and Jeffrey B. Perry, “Hubert Henry Harrison, ‘The Father of Harlem Radicalism’: The Early Years—1883 through the Found­ ing of the Liberty League and ‘The Voice’ in 1917” (Ph.D. diss., Columbia Uni­ versity, New York, New York), 565–71. 46. Tony Martin, Race First, 10; Garvey, “The Conspiracy of the East St. Louis Riots,” July 8, 1917; and Garvey to Nicholas Murray Butler, November 27, 1917, both in Hill, ed., The Marcus Garvey and UNIA Papers, 1:212–24, 1:225–28. 47. Perry, “Hubert Henry Harrison, ‘The Father of Harlem Radicalism,’” 570–71; Hill, ed., The Marcus Garvey and UNIA Papers, vol. 1, 224, 226, 282, 527–30; and Martin, Race First, 10–11. 48. Bruce to Major Walter H. Loving, January 13, 1919; Argus [Bruce], “An­ swer, ‘Professor Garvey,’ Answer,” New Negro World, January 1918?; both reprinted as “What John E. Bruce Thought of Marcus Garvey in 1918,” Crusader, vol. 5 (December 1921); also reprinted in Hill, ed., The Marcus Garvey and UNIA Papers, 1:349–51, 1:234–35. Bruce used the pen name Argus for this editorial. This name was taken from the Weekly Argus, a newspaper Bruce and Charles N. Otely established on September 8, 1879, in Washington, D.C. 49. Bruce, “Mr. Marcus Garvey,” in Gilbert, ed., The Selected Writings of John Edward Bruce, 146. 50. Bruce to Loving, January 13, 1919, in Hill, ed., The Marcus Garvey and UNIA Papers, 1:349–50. 51. Bruce, “Mr. Marcus Garvey” and “The Sons of Africa,” in Gilbert, ed., The Selected Writings of John Edward Bruce, 146 and 101–3; “Sons of Africa,”

NOTES TO THE CONCLUSION

217

1913?, Bruce papers, B-63 (#2068), SCRBC; and Hill, ed., The Marcus Garvey and UNIA Papers, 2:280. 52. Ibid. 53. J. Ayodele Langley, Pan-Africanism and Nationalism, 1900–1945: A Study in Ideology and Social Classes (London: Oxford University Press, 1973), 41–58; for information on Chief Sam and his back-to-Africa movement, see William E. Bit­ tle and Gilbert Geis, The Longest Way Home: Chief Alfred Sam’s Back-to-Africa Movement (Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 1964); “Chief Alfred Sam,” in Hill, ed., The Marcus Garvey and UNIA Papers, 1:536–47; The Marcus Garvey and UNIA Papers, 2:280; and J. Ayodele Langley, “Chief Sam’s African Movement and Race Consciousness in West Africa,” Phylon, vol. 32 (Summer 1971), 164–78; Bruce was first attracted to Faduma’s ideas during his early days in the ANA. He was especially fond of two papers that generated a spirited debate among ANA members; these included Faduma, Defects of the Negro Church, ANA Occa­ sional Papers, No. 10 (Washington, DC, 1904) and “Social Problems in West Africa from the Standpoint of an African,” paper presented at the Twelfth An­ nual Meeting, American Negro Academy, Washington, D.C., December 1908; and Moss Jr., The American Negro Academy: Voice of the Talented Tenth (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1981), 150–52 and 159–62. 54. Ibid., 50–58; and Hill, ed., The Marcus Garvey and UNIA Papers, 1:536–46 and 2:280; and Moss, The American Negro Academy, 150–52 and 159–62. 55. Bruce, “Marcus Garvey and the UNIA,” in Gilbert, ed., The Selected Writing of John Edward Bruce, 167–70. 56. Ibid., 167. 57. Martin, Race First, 122; and Stein, The World of Marcus Garvey, 83. 58. See chapter 2, TK. 59. Perry, “Hubert Henry Harrison, ‘The Father of Harlem Radicalism,’” 576; Martin, Literary Garveyism, 91–105; and Martin, Race First, 89–111. 60. Stein, The World of Marcus Garvey: Race and Class in Modern Society (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1986), 83; and Moss, The American Negro Academy, 276–77. 61. Hill, ed., The Marcus Garvey and UNIA Papers, 1:521 and 4:520; and Stein, The World of Marcus Garvey, 82. 62. Martin, Race First, 81–88. 63. Bruce to Garvey, August 17, 1920, quoted in Gilbert, ed., The Selected Writing of John Edward Bruce, 159. NOTES TO THE CONCLUSION

1. This story is based upon the following documents: Mrs. John Edward Bruce, Address, Boston Division, UNIA, 1924, B 6-69 (#2027); and Mrs. Bruce to Miss Grant, February 25, 1925, Mrs. B (#2029), both in Bruce papers, SCRBC.

218

NOTES TO THE CONCLUSION

2. Bruce, The Making of a Race (New York: J. E. Bruce, 1922), 15.

3. Ibid., 15–16.

4. Elinor Des Verney Sinnette, Arthur Alfonso Schomburg: Black Bibliophile

and Collector (Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 1989), 49.

5. See chapter 4, TK.

6. See chapter 4, TK.

7. See chapter 2, TK and TK.

8. See chapter 4, TK.

9. See chapter 1, TK.

10. See chapter 5, TK.

11. Antonio Gramsci, Selections from the Prison Notebooks, ed. and trans.

Quintin Hoare and Geoffrey Nowell Smith (New York: International Publish­

ers, 1971), 1–3 and 9–10; and George Lipsitz, A Life in the Struggle: Ivory Perry and

the Culture of Opposition (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1988), 9–12.

Selected Bibliography

BOOKS AND ARTICLES

American Negro Academy Occasional Papers, nos. 1–22. New York: Arno Press, 1969. Anderson, Jervis. A. Philip Randolph. New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1972. Aptheker, Herbert, ed. The Correspondence of W. E. B. Du Bois. Vol. 1. Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press, 1973. Ball, Wendy, and Tony Martin, Rare Afro-Americana: A Reconstruction of the Adger Library. Boston: G. K. Hall, 1981. Barnes, Roma. “Harlem Street Speakers in the 1930s.” In Christopher Mulvey and John Simons, eds., New York: City as Text. Hampshire, England: Macmillan, 1990. Beatty, Bess. A Revolution Gone Backward: The Black Response to National Politics, 1876–1896. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1987. Bennett, Lerone, Jr. Pioneers in Black Protest. Chicago: Johnson Publishing, 1968. Bittle, William E., and Gilbert Geis. The Longest Way Home: Chief Alfred Sam’s Back-to-Africa Movement. Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 1964. Blyden, Edward Wilmot. Christianity, Islam, and the Negro Race. London: W. B. Whittingham, 1887. Reprint Edinburgh: Edingburgh University Press, 1967. Clarke, John Henrik, ed. Marcus Garvey and the Vision of Africa. New York: Vin­ tage Books, 1974. Cohen, William. At Freedom’s Edge: Black Mobility and the Southern White Quest for Racial Control, 1861–1915. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1991. Coles, John B., ed. Masters and Slaves in the House of the Lord: Race and Religion in the American South. Lexington: University of Kentucky Press, 1988. Cronon, E. David. Black Moses: The Story of Marcus Garvey and the Universal Negro Improvement Association. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1969. Crowder, Ralph L. “A Critical Assessment of Black Education.” Insight, Ethnic Heritage Series, no. 1 (March 1979): 8–11.

219

220

BIBLIOGRAPHY

———. “‘Don’t Buy Where You Can’t Work’: An Investigation of the Political Forces and Social Conflict within the Harlem Boycott of 1934.” Afro-Amer­ icans in New York Life and History, vol. 15, no. 2 (July 1991): 7–44. ———. “Fidel Castro and Harlem: Political, Diplomatic, and Social Influences of the 1960 Visit to the Hotel Theresa.” Afro-Americans in New York Life and History, vol. 24, no. 1 (January 2000): 74–92. ———. “Frederick Douglass, Booker T. Washington, and John Edward Bruce: The Relationship of a Militant Black Journalist with the ‘Father of the Civil Rights Movement’ and the ‘Wizard of Tuskegee.’” Afro-Americans in New York Life and History, vol. 20, no. 2 (July 1996): 56–91. ———. “From Slavery to Freedom: John Edward Bruce’s Childhood and Ado­ lescence.” Afro-Americans in New York Life and History, vol. 26, no. 1 (Janu­ ary 2002): 39–74. ———. “‘Grand Old Man of the Movement’: John Edward Bruce, Marcus Gar­ vey, and the UNIA.” Afro-Americans in New York Life and History, vol. 27, no. 1 (January 2003): 75–113. ———. Introduction. “Laura Eliza Wilkes: A Memorial Address on the Life and Death of a Neglected Pioneer Black Female Historian Presented by John Edward Bruce, 1922.” Afro-Americans in New York Life and History, vol. 24, no. 2 (July 2000): 71–79. ———. “John Edward Bruce: Pioneer Black Nationalist.” Afro-Americans in New York Life and History, vol. 2, no. 2 (July 1978): 47–66. ———. “Key Questions in the Black Experience: A Historical Survey.” The Black Collegian (January/February 1985): 216–28. ———. “Pillars: Laura Eliza Wilkes, Trailblazing Scholar for Black Women.” The American Philosophical Association Newsletter, vol. 92, no. 1 (Spring 1993): 33–34. ———. “Pioneer Patriarch of Black History: Carter G. Woodson, 1875–1950.” Nommo, vol. 24, no. 1 (1994): 9–10 ———. “Race, Politics, and Patronage: John Edward Bruce and the Republican Party.” Afro-Americans in New York Life and History, vol. 26, no. 1 (January 2002): 75–111. ———. “Street Scholars and the Harlem Experience.” Afro-Americans in New York Life and History, special issue edited by Ralph L. Crowder, forthcom­ ing. ———. “Street Scholars: Self-Trained Black Historians.” The Black Collegian (Jan­ uary/February 1979): 8–22 and 80. Cruden, Robert. The Negro in Reconstruction. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: PrenticeHall, 1969. Cunard, Nancy, ed. Negro: An Anthology. London: Wishart Company, 1934. Reprint, New York: Frederick Ungar, 1970.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

221

Davis, David Brion. “Slavery and the Post–World War II Historians.” Daedalus, vol. 103 (Spring 1974): 1–16. Douglass, Frederick. Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass. New York: Signet, 1968. Du Bois, W. E. B. The Negro. New York: Henry Holt, 1915. ———. “A Portrait of Carter G. Woodson.” Masses and Mainstream, vol. 3, no. 6 (June 1950): 19–25. Duffield, Ian. “The Business Activities of Duse Mohamed Ali: An Example of the Economic Dimension of Pan-Africanism, 1912–1945.” Journal of the His­ torical Society of Nigeria, vol. 4, no. 4 (June 1969): 571–600. Feierman, Steven. Peasant Intellectuals: Anthropology and History in Tanzania. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1990. Ferris, William. The African Abroad; or, His Evolution in Western Civilization: Trac­ ing His Development under Caucasian Milieu, vols. 1–2. New Haven, CT: Tut­ tle, Morehouse, and Taylor Press, 1913. Foner, Philip, ed. The Life and Writings of Frederick Douglass. New York: Interna­ tional Publishers, 1945. Fortune, T. Thomas. Black and White: Land, Labor and Politics in the South. New York: Fards, Howard and Hulbert, 1884. Reprint, New York: Arno Press and the New York Times, 1968. Fox, Stephen R. The Guardian of Boston. New York: Atheneum, 1971. Franklin, John Hope. George Washington Williams: A Biography. Chicago: Uni­ versity of Chicago Press, 1987. Gatewood, Willard B. Aristocrats of Color: The Black Elite, 1880–1920. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1990. Gilbert, Peter, ed. The Selected Writings of John Edward Bruce: Militant Black Jour­ nalist. New York: Arno Press and the New York Times, 1971. Goldstein, Michael L. “Preface to the Rise of Booker T. Washington: A View from New York City to the Demise of Independent Black Politics.” Journal of Negro History, vol. 62, no. 1 (January 1977): 81–99. Gree, Harry W. Holders of Doctorates among American Negroes. Boston: Meador Publishing, 1946. Greenberg, Cheryl Lynn. “Or Does It Explode?” Black Harlem in the Great Depres­ sion. New York: Oxford University Press, 1991. Griffith, Cyril E. The African Dream: Martin R. Delany and the Emergence of PanAfrican Thought. University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 1975. Gutman, Herbert. “Peter Clarke: Pioneer Negro Socialist.” Journal of Negro Edu­ cation, vol. 34, no. 4 (Fall 1965): 413–18. Harlan, Louis R., and Raymond W. Smock, eds. The Booker T. Washington Papers, vols. 1–7. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1972–74.

222

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Harrison, Hubert Henry. The Negro and the Nation. New York: Cosmo Advocate Publishing, 1917. Hill, Robert A., ed. The Marcus Garvey and Universal Negro Improvement Associa­ tion Papers, vols. 1–6. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1983–89. Hoare, Quintin, ed. Antonio Gramsci: Selections from Political Writings, 1921–1926. New York: International Publishers, 1978. Hoover, Dwight W., ed. Understanding Negro History. Chicago: Quadrangle Books, 1968. Houston, Drusilla Dunjee. Wonderful Ethiopians of the Ancient Cushite Empire. Oklahoma City: Universal Publishing Press, 1926. Reprint, Baltimore: Black Academic Press, 1985. Hull, Gloria T. Color, Sex and Poetry: Three Women Writers of the Harlem Renais­ sance. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1987. Hutchinson, Louise Daniel. Anna J. Cooper: A Voice from the South. Washington, DC: Smithsonian Institution Press, 1982. Jacques-Garvey, Amy J. Garvey and Garveyism. New York: Collier Books, 1970. ———. Philosophy and Opinions of Marcus Garvey. New York: Arno Press and the New York Times, 1968. Johnson, Haynes. Dust at the Mountain: The Negro, the Nation, and the Capital—A Report on Problems and Progress. Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1963. Kellner, Bruce. The Harlem Renaissance: A Historical Dictionary for the Era. New York: Methuen, 1984. King, Kenneth James. Pan-Africanism and Education: A Study of Race Philanthropy and Education in the Southern States of America and East Africa. London: Oxford University Press, 1971. Langley, J. Ayodele. Pan-Africanism and Nationalism in West Africa, 1900–1945. London: Oxford University Press, 1973. Lewis, David Levering. W. E. B. Du Bois: Biography of a Race, 1868–1919. New York: Henry Holt, 1993. Lipsitz, George. A Life in the Struggle: Ivory Perry and the Culture of Opposition. Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1988. Logan, Rayford W., and Michael R. Winston, eds. Dictionary of American Negro Biography. New York: Norton, 1982. Lynch, Hollis. Edward Wilmot Blyden: Pan-Negro Patriot, 1832–1912. New York: Oxford University Press, 1970. ———. “Pan-Negro Nationalism in the New World, before 1862.” In August Meier and Elliott Rudwick, eds., The Making of Black America, vol. 1, The Ori­ gins of Black America. New York: Atheneum, 1969. McFeely, William S. Frederick Douglass. New York: Norton, 1991. ———. Grant: A Biography. New York: Norton, 1991. Martin, Tony. Literary Garveyism: Garvey, Black Arts and the Harlem Renaissance. Dover, MA: Majority Press, 1983.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

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———. Marcus Garvey, Hero: A First Biography. Dover, MA: Majority Press, 1983. ———. The Pan-African Connection: From Slavery to Garvey and Beyond. Cambridge, MA: Schenkman Publishing, 1983. ———. Race First: The Ideological and Organizational Struggles of Marcus Garvey and the Universal Negro Improvement Association. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1976. ———, ed. African Fundamentalism: A Literary and Cultural Anthology of Garvey’s Harlem Renaissance. Dover, MA: Majority Press, 1991. ———, ed. The Poetical Works of Marcus Garvey. Dover, MA: Majority Press, 1983. Mather, Frank L. Who’s Who in Colored America, 1928–1929. Chicago: Mather, 1930. Meier, August, and Elliot Rudwick. Black History and the Historical Profession, 1915–1980. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1986. ———. Negro Thought in America, 1880–1915. Ann Arbor: University of Michi­ gan Press, 1963. Miller, Floyd J. The Search for a Black Nationality: Black Emigration and Coloniza­ tion, 1787–1863. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1975. Moses, Wilson Jeremiah. Afrotopia: The Roots of African American Popular History. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991. Moss, Alfred A., Jr. The American Negro Academy: Voice of the Talented Tenth. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1981. Niven, Alistair, ed. The Commonwealth Writer Overseas. Brussels: Library Marcel Didier, 1976. Ofari, Earl. Let Your Motto Be Resistance: The Life and Thought of Henry Highland Garnet. Boston: Beacon Press, 1972. Ovington, Mary White. Half a Man: The Status of the Negro in New York. New York, 1911. Reprint, New York: Negro Universities Press, 1969. Painter, Nell Irvin. Exoduster: Black Migration to Kansas after Reconstruction. Lawrence: University of Kansas Press, 1978. Penn, I. Garland. The Afro-American Press and Its Editors. Springfield, MA: Wiley, 1891. Reprint, New York: Arno Press and the New York Times, 1969. Perry, Jeffrey P., ed. A Hubert Harrison Reader. Middletown, CT: Wesleyan Uni­ versity Press, 2001. Plumpp, Sterling D. Black Rituals. Chicago: Third World Press, 1972. Porter, James. Modern Negro Art. New York: Dryden Press, 1943. Raboteau, Albert J. Slave Religion: The “Invisible Institution” in the Antebellum South. New York: Oxford University Press, 1978. Ranger, T. O. “Recent Developments in the Study of African Religions and Cul­ tural History and Their Relevance for the Historiography of the Diaspora.” Ufahamu, vol. 4, no. 2 (1973): 17–34. Rogers, Joel A. World’s Great Men of Color, vols. 1–2. New York: J. A. Rogers, 1947. Reprint, New York: Macmillan, 1972.

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Schor, Joel. Henry Highland Garnet: A Voice of Black Radicalism in the Nineteenth Century. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1977. Shapiro, Herbert. White Violence and Black Response: From Reconstruction to Mont­ gomery. Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press, 1988. Shepperson, George. “Abolitionism and African Political Thought.” Transition, no. 13 (March–April 1964): 22–26. ———. The Black Press in the South, 1865–1879. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1983. ———. “External Factors in the Development of African Nationalism, with Par­ ticular Reference to British Central Africa.” Phylon, vol. 32 (1961). ———. “Notes on Negro American Influences on the Emergence of African Na­ tionalism.” Journal of African History, vol. 1, no. 2 (1960). ———. “Pan-Africanism and ‘Pan-Africanism’: Some Historical Notes.” Phy­ lon, vol. 33, no. 4 (1962): 346–58. ———, and Thomas Price. Independent Africa: John Chilembwe and the Origins, Setting and Significance of the Nyasaland Revolt of 1915. Edinburgh: Univer­ sity of Edinburgh Press, 1958. Sinnette, Elinor Des Verney. Arthur Alfonso Schomburg: Black Bibliophile and Col­ lector. Detroit: New York Public Library and Wayne State University Press, 1989. Sinnette, Elinor Des Verney, W. Paul Coates, and Thomas C. Battle, eds. Black Bibliophiles and Collectors: Preservers of Black History. Washington, DC: Howard University Press, 1990. Spady, James, “The Afro-American Historical Society: The Nucleus of Black Bibliophiles, 1897–1923.” Negro History Bulletin, vol. 34, no. 4 (June–July 1974): 254–57. St. Julien, Aline. Colored Creole: Color Conflict and Confusion in New Orleans. New Orleans: Ahidinaa-Habri, 1977. Stein, Judith. The World of Marcus Garvey: Race and Class in Modern Society. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1986. Suggs, Henry Lewis. P. B. Young, Newspaperman: Race, Politics, and Journalism in the New South, 1910–1962. Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press, 1988. Thornbrough, Emma Lou. “The National Afro-American League, 1887–1908.” Journal of Southern History, vol. 27, no. 4 (1961): 484–512. Thorne, Jack. Reflections of a Sleeping Car Porter. Jersey City, NJ: Doan and Pilson Printers, 1892. Thorpe, Earl E. Black Historians: A Critique. New York: William Morrow, 1971. Turner, W. Burghardt, and Joyce Turner, eds. Richard B. Moore, Caribbean Militant in Harlem: Collected Writings, 1920–1972. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1988.

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Tuttle, William M., Jr. Race Riot: Chicago in the Red Summer of 1919. New York: Atheneum, 1980. Ullman, Victor. Martin R. Delany: The Beginnings of Black Nationalism. Boston: Beacon Press, 1971. Vincent, Theodore G. Black Power and the Garvey Movement. Berkeley, CA: Ramparts Press, 1971. ———. Voices of a Black Nation. Berkeley, CA: Ramparts Press, 1973. Washington, Joseph R. Black Religion. Boston: Beacon Press, 1964. Watkins-Owens, Irma. Blood Relations: Caribbean Immigrants and the Harlem Com­ munity, 1900–1930. Bloomington: University of Indiana Press, 1996. Welch, Richard E., Jr. “The Federal Elections Bill of 1890: Postscripts and Pre­ lude.” Journal of American History, vol. 52, no. 3 (December 1965): 511–26. Wesley, Charles H. “Carter G. Woodson as a Scholar.” Journal of Negro History, vol. 36, no. 1 (1951): 12–24. Wilkes, Laura E. Missing Pages in American History: Revealing the Services of Ne­ groes in the Early Wars in the United States of America, 1641–1815. Washington, DC: R. L. Pendleton, 1919. Reprint, New York: G. K. Hall, 1996. Williams, George Washington. History of the Negro Race from 1619 to 1880: Ne­ groes as Slaves, as Soldiers, and as Citizens, vols. 1–2. New York: G. P. Putnam, 1882. Williamson, Joel. New People: Miscegenation and Mulattoes in the United States. New York: Free Press, 1980. Wilmore, Gayraud S. Black Religion and Black Radicalism. Garden City, NY: Dou­ bleday, 1972. Woodson, Carter G. The History of the Negro Church. Washington, DC: Associated Publishers, 1921. ———. The Mis-education of the Negro. Washington, DC: Associated Publishers, 1933. ———. The Negro in Our History. Washington, DC: Associated Publishers, 1922. Zangrando, Robert L. The NAACP and Crusade against Lynching, 1909–1950. Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1980. MANUSCRIPTS, SEMINAR PAPERS, DISSERTATIONS, AND UNPUBLISHED STUDIES

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Crowder, Ralph L. “The Impact and Influence of Marcus Garvey upon Street Corner Scholarship, 1916–1927.” Paper presented at the African Heritage Studies Association, Washington, DC, April 1988. ———. “The International Correspondence of John Edward Bruce, 1880–1924: A Neglected Catalyst in the Commerce of Pan-African Ideas.” Paper pre­ sented at the Association for the Study of Afro-American Life and History, Annual Conference, New York, NY, April 1981. ———. “John Edward Bruce and the Triangular Trade in Pan-African Ideas.” Paper presented at the Tribute to the First Pan-African Conference, Hunter College, New York, NY, October 1988. Hunter, Gary Jerome. “Don’t Buy from Where You Can’t Work: Black Urban Boycott Movements during the Depression, 1929–1941.” Ph.D. disserta­ tion, University of Michigan, 1977. Locke, Alain LeRoy Papers, Manuscript Division, Moorland-Spingarn Research Center, Howard University, Washington, DC. Perry, Jeffrey Babcock. “Hubert Henry Harrison, ‘The Father of Harlem Radi­ calism’: The Early Years—1883 through the Founding of the Liberty League and ‘The Voice’ in 1917.” Ph.D. dissertation, Columbia University, New York, NY, 1986. Schomburg, Arthur A. Papers including clippings, files, and photographs. Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, New York City Public Li­ brary, New York, NY. Scott, Julius Sherrand, III. “The Common Wind: Currents of Afro-American Communication in the Era of the Haitian Revolution.” Ph.D. dissertation, Duke University, Durham, NC, 1986. Watkins-Owens, Irma. “Blood Relations: West Indian Immigrants and Urban Community in Harlem, 1920–1930.” Ph.D. dissertation, Columbia Univer­ sity, New York, NY, 1983. NEWSPAPERS

African Times and Orient Review

Baltimore Commonwealth

Cleveland Gazette

Negro World

New York Age

New York Freeman

New York Times

Raleigh Gazette

Topeka Kansas Blackman

Topeka Times-Observer

Washington Bee

BIBLIOGRAPHY

227

Washington Colored American Washington Grit BOOKS AND PAMPHLETS BY JOHN EDWARD BRUCE

The Awakening of Hezekiah Jones: A Story Dealing with Some Rewards Due the Negro. Hopkinsville, KY: Phil H. Brown, 1916. The Black Sleuth. Introduced and edited by John Cullen Gruesser. Boston: Northeastern University Press, 2002. The Blood Red Record: A Review of the Horrible Lynchings and Burning of Negroes by Civilized White Men in the United States as Taken from the Records. Albany, NY: Argus Company, 1901. The Blot on the Escutcheon. Washington, DC: R. L. Pendleton, 1890. Concentration of Energy. New York: Edgar Printers and Stationary Company, 1899. A Defense of the Colored Soldiers Who Fought in the War of the Rebellion. Yonkers, NY: J. E. Bruce, 1906. The Making of a Race. New York: J. E. Bruce, 1922. The Mission and the Opportunity of the Negro Mason. New York: Craftsmen’s Club, 1910. Prince Hall, the Pioneer of Negro Masonry: Proofs of the Legitimacy of Prince Hall Ma­ sonry. New York: J. E. Bruce, 1921. Reply to Senator Wade Hampton’s Article in the Forum for June on “What Negro Su­ premacy Means.” Washington, DC: J. E. Bruce, 1888. Short Biographical Sketches of Eminent Negro Men and Women. Yonkers, NY: Gazette Press, 1910. The Significance of Brotherhood. New York: Clarion Publishers, 1919. Tracts for the People. Nos. 1–15. Yonkers, NY: J. E. Bruce, 1904. A Tribute for the Negro Soldier. Washington, DC: United States Printing Office, 1918. Was Othello a Negro? New York: J. E. Bruce, 1920. Washington’s Colored Society. Washington, DC: J. E. Bruce, 1877. 13

Index

ABB (African Blood Brotherhood),

152

Accommodationists, 21. See also Washington, Booker T. ACL (African Communities League), 145, 152–53 ACS (American Colonization Soci­

ety), 25, 26, 28, 38, 177n. 6

Acua, Prince Gaghanga, 100

Adger, Robert M., 21 Africa and America (Crummell), 41–42 African American Episcopal Church, 17–18 African American history, preserva­

tion of, 92

African Blood Brotherhood (ABB),

152

African Communities League (ACL), 145, 152–53 African emigration plan. See Emigra­ tion to Africa African Empire vision, 142–43. See also Emigration to Africa African Fundamentalism: A Literary and

Cultural Anthology of Garvey’s

Harlem Renaissance (Martin, ed.), 3

African Methodist Episcopal Zion

Church, 5

African National Congress (ANC), 36

African Times and Orient Review

(ATOR) (periodical), 110, 118,

141–42, 162

African Union Company, 143–44 African Urban Society, 119–20 Afro-American, 58

Afro-American Council, 82, 83, 87

Afro-American League, 5, 32, 59–61,

81, 83

Agbebi, Akinbami, Sr., 37

Agbebi, Jajola, 36

Agbebi, Majola, 37, 118, 162

Aggrey, J. E. K., 36

Aldridge, Amanda Ira, 142

Aldridge, Ira, 142

Alexander, Charles, 124

“Alexander Pushkin” (Bruce), 102

Alexander’s Magazine, 124

Alger, Russell A., 59

Ali, Abdul Salem, 110

Allen, Isaac, 152, 214n. 45

Amalmagationists, 21

A.M.E. Review, 93, 100

American Colonization Society

(ACS), 25, 26, 28, 38, 177n. 6

American Historical Review, 104

American Negro Academy (ANA):

Crummell as president, 5, 38, 44,

109; Du Bois and, 107; launching

of, 108; leadership in, 84, 107,

109–11, 113, 157, 161; member-

ship, 43, 109, 113; Schomburg

and, 115

American Negro Historical Society of

Philadelphia, 21, 124, 126

American Negro, The: What He Is and What He May Become (Thomas), 86

A.M.E. Zion Church, 39, 107

ANA. See American Negro Academy

ANC (African National Congress), 36

Anderson, Charles W., 5, 69, 71–73,

82, 88

Anderson, J. C., 150–51

Andrews, G. W., 88

Anti-Bookerites, 83

Anti-Washington movement, 83, 87

Archer, John Richard, 129

229

230

INDEX

“Are We Now Influenced More by Opinion Than Fact?” (Straker), 100 Aristocracy, Black, 15. See also “Upper tens” Arnett, Ferdinand L., 151 Arthur, Chester A., 49, 51, 54, 57, 94 ASNLH (Association for the Study of Negro Life and History), 21, 91–92, 106, 117, 121–22 Assembly Bill 1171 (NY), 78 Association for the Study of Negro Life and History (ASNLH), 21, 91–92, 106, 117, 121–22 Atlanta Compromise, 75, 80, 81 Atlanta Exposition, 75, 80 Atlanta University, 126 Atlantic Monthly (periodical), 93 ATOR (African Times and Orient Review) (periodical), 110, 118, 141–42, 162 Awakening of Hezekiah Jones, The (Bruce), 131 Back-to-Africa movement, 155. See also Emigration to Africa Baltimore Commonwealth, 59 Banneker, Benjamin, 100 Beatty, Bess, 51, 57 B. E. H. Helman-Taylor Company, 129 Benjamin Banneker Schools (D.C.), 127 Benton, Thomas Hart, 10, 11, 18 Bernier, August V., 152, 214n. 45 Bibliophiles, 124, 125, 127, 133 Birbeck College, 141 Bishop, Florence A. See Bruce, Flo­ rence A. (Bishop) (second wife) Black blood, 97 Black diaspora, 1, 121, 165n. 1 Black elite, 43, 53, 68. See also Mulatto elite Black History movement. See History movement, Black Black journalism. See Journalism, Black Black nationalism, 1, 6, 21, 25, 141

Black Phalanx (Wilson), 93, 94 Black press, 18, 20, 31, 102, 113. See also names of specific publications Black Reconstruction (Du Bois), 105 Blackshear, E.J., 103 Black Sleuth, The (Gruesser, ed.), 3, 167nn. 4, 5 “Black Women of the South, The, Her Neglects and Her Needs” (Crum­ mell), 41 Blaine, James G., 57, 58

Blood Red Record, The (Bruce), 64

“Blot on the Escutcheon, The,”

(Bruce), 61, 189n. 33 Blyden, Edward Wilmot: Atlanta Compromise and, 81; on Bruce’s life, 33–34, 180n. 23; education of, 177n. 6; influence of, 98, 110, 162; on liberal education, 34–35, 181n. 24; Liberia College and, 25, 27; lit­ erary career of, 28, 32–33; mentor to Bruce, 16, 23, 25–26, 32, 34, 36–37, 95, 160; Negro Nationality advocate, 19–20, 26; proposed bi­ ography, 123; works, 28, 32, 96. See also Emigration to Africa Boardman, Helen, 99

Boas, Franz, 104

Bolivar, William Carl, 125, 126

Booth, John Wilkes, 10, 11

Boston Transcript (newspaper), 13,

102–3 Bourbon supremacy, 49 Bowen, J. W. E., 123 Brawley, Benjamin, 104, 107, 122 Braxton, William Earnest, 113, 117–18 Brigg, Cyril, 152 “British West Indies in the Mirror of Civilization, The” (Garvey), 142 Brooklyn Citizen (newspaper), 114 Brooklyn Negro Library Association, 113 Browne, Robert T., 113 Browning, Robert, 98 Bruce, Blanche Kelso, 53–54, 61, 68, 79

INDEX

Bruce, Florence A. (Bishop) (second wife), 22–23, 41, 127, 135, 159 Bruce, John Edward: ACS and, 26, 28; ANA and, 5, 44, 107, 109–10; background, 1, 2, 6–8, 7, 16; bibliophile, 127–28; Clarkson and, 69–70; Cleveland and, 58–59; Douglass and, 75–80; education, 11, 16, 171n. 22; funeral, 135–36, 158, 209n. 1, 210n. 2; hostility to “upper tens,” 15; leadership role, 2, 29, 31–32, 37; legacy of, 159–63; literary career of, 32–33, 97–99, 128–29, 142; mar­ riages of, 22, 41; patronage posi­ tions, 68–73; philosophy of, 40–41, 54, 57, 64–65, 112, 154–55, 160, 163; physical appearance, 5; religious faith, 13–14, 39; Smith, H.C. and, 95; Still and, 96–97; on Washington’s payroll, 84–85, 89; women and, 41–42, 43; word Negro and, 39–40. See also Blyden, Edward Wilmot; Republican Party Bruce, John Edward, as historian: Black history advocate, 21, 23, 129–33; Christianity and, 98; Cleve­ land Gazette series, 20, 22, 95–96, 168n. 4; definition of race, 97, 132; led self-trained historians, 6; music and folk culture, 103; publi­ cations on race history, 99–102, 128, 132; Still’s Underground Railroad, 96. See also Bibliophiles; History movement, Black Bruce, John Edward, as journalist: “Bruce Grit” byline, 4, 6, 13, 35, 68, 82, 135; career of, 11–13, 22–23; Cleveland Gazette series, 20, 22, 95, 168n. 4; editorial voice compro­ mised by, 83–85, 161–62, 171n. 26; “prince of Afro-American corre­ spondents,” 5–6. See also Bruce, John Edward, as historian; Bruce, John Edward, works of Bruce, John Edward, UNIA and: on advisory board, 152; animosity to-

231

ward program, 153–54; conversion after rift, 156–57; declines presi­ dency, 158; denounces Garvey, 153–54; at Garvey’s NYC arrival, 149; influence of, 156–58, 162–63; joins UNIA, 3, 21–22, 90; mentor to Garvey, 1, 48, 136, 139 Bruce, John Edward, works of: “Alexander Pushkin,” 102; The Awakening of Hezekiah Jones, 131; The Blood Red Record, 64; “The Blot on the Escutcheon,” 61, 189n. 33; “Bruce Grit Defends His Claims,” 97–98, 199n. 13; Cleveland Gazette series, 20, 22, 95–96, 168n. 4; “Four Errors against Christian Religion,” 13; “Greeks, Romans, and Negroid Egypt,” 123; “The History of Negro Journalism,” 102; “A History of Negro Musicians,” 102; “Is This Our Country?” 56; “Judas, Benedict Arnold, and Their Modern Imitators,” 102; “Life of Dr. Edward Wilmot Blyden” (unpub­ lished), 34; The Making of a Race , 132–33; “The Mistake of His Life,” 76; “The Negro and His Future,” 66; “The Negroes in Seville (Spain),” 123; “The Negro in the Republic of Letters,” 123; “Negro Reader” prospectus, 100, 129; “The Odious Comparison,” 98; “Old Time Religion,” 13; Short Bio­ graphical Sketches of Eminent Negro Men and Women, 20, 34, 101–2, 104, 181n. 26; “Sketch of Childhood under Slavery,” 14; “A Sketch of My Life,” 6–7, 169n. 6; “The Stronger vs. the Weaker Nations,” 129–30; “Toussaint L’Ouverture,” 102; Tracts of the People, 128, 208n. 95; A Tribute for the Negro Soldier, 131, 132; “Washington’s Colored Society,” 15, 38; “When Africa Awakes” (poem), 98–99 Bruce, Josephine Wilson, 42, 54

232

INDEX

Bruce, Lucy (Pinkwood) (first wife),

22

Bruce, Martha Allen Clark (mother),

7–8, 10

Bruce, Olive (daughter), 22, 210n. 2

Bruce, Robert (father), 7

“Bruce Grit” (pseud.), 4, 6, 13, 35, 68,

82, 135. See also Bruce, John Ed-

ward

“Bruce Grit Defends His Claims”

(Bruce), 97–98, 199n. 13

Buffalo Express (newspaper), 13

Burrowes, Alfred Ernest “Cap,” 138

Butler, Matthew, 30

Butler, Nicholas Murray, 152

Butler Bill, 30, 32, 179n. 13

“Caleb Quotem” (pseud), 76. See also Bruce, John Edward

Cameroons, 101

Campbell, Grace, 42

Carey, Mary Ann Shad, 42

Carpetbag Rule in Florida (Wallace), 93

Carter, George, 135

Century of Negro Migration, A (Wood-

son), 106

Chandler, William E., 49, 69, 71, 72,

79

Charles V of Spain (emperor), 102

Chase, Calvin, 93–94

Checklist of American Negro Poetry (Schomburg), 116

Cherokee Advocate (newspaper), 12

Chesnutt, Charles W., 86

Cheyney Institute in Pennsylvania,

121

Chicago Conservator (newspaper), 12

Chisum, Melvin J., 86, 87, 88, 89

Christian Educator (Cincinatti), 123

Christian Index (newspaper), 12

Christianity, Islam and the Negro Race

(Blyden), 28, 32, 96

Christian Recorder, 31

Christians: indictment of white,

62–63; missionaries, 98

Citizenship, restoration of, 67

Civil rights, 51, 55, 56

Civil Rights Act of 1875, 55, 56

Civil War, 7–8, 18, 20

Clark, Herbert, 58

Clark, Martha Allen. See Bruce,

Martha Allen Clark (mother)

Clark, Peter, 58

Clarkson, Charles S., 59, 69–70, 72, 73,

79

Clarkson, James S., 68, 90, 176n. 62,

191n. 57

Clergy: Black, 130; silence of white,

98

Cleveland, Grover, 58–59, 71

Cleveland Gazette (newspaper), 77

Cleveland Gazette series (Bruce), 20,

22, 95–96, 168n. 4

Colored American (newspaper), 124

Colored American from Slavery to Hon­

orable Citizenship (Crogman and Gibson), 104

Colored Citizen (newspaper), 76

Color phobia, 15, 146–47, 172n36

Commonwealth (newspaper), 13

Concepcion Valdez, Gabriel de la, 115

“Congo Valley, The: Its Redemption”

(Straker), 100

Conkling, Roscoe, 53, 79

“Conspiracy of the East St. Louis

Riots” (Garvey), 152

Constitution, 84

Contee, Clarence, 99

Coolidge, Calvin, 67

Cooper, E. E., 123–24

Coppinger, William, 25, 26, 38, 176n.

1

Corps d’Afrique, 18

Councill, William Hooper, 99, 103

Cox, S. A. G. (Sandy), 140

Craig, Arthur U., 113

Crisis (periodical), 115

Crogman, William H., 100, 104, 44

Cromwell, John Wesley: ANA and,

44, 109, 127; bibliophile, 124; on

Bruce, 131; historian, 104, 127, 131;

leadership role, 26

INDEX

Crouse, Lorenzo L., 6, 11–12, 51 Crummell, Alexander: ANA presi­ dent, 5, 38, 109, 44; of Black elite, 43, 185n. 50; Blyden and, 178n. 7; education advocate, 40, 101; for­ mal education, 39, 183n. 37; in Liberia, 37, 38, 43; mentor to Bruce, 22, 23, 26–27, 39, 43, 95, 108, 160, 162; mulatto power and, 16, 38, 40, 184n. 40; pastor of St. Luke’s, 26, 37, 38–39; women’s ad­ vocate, 41–43; works, 41–42 Crummell, Jennie M. (Simpson), 41 Crusader (newspaper), 152 Cultural uniqueness debated, 103–4 Cuney, Norris Wright, 68, 192n. 58 Daily Eagle (newspaper), 114 Daily Negro Times (newspaper), 122 Daily News (newspaper), 140 Da Rocha, Moses, 129 Davis, Daniel Webster, 129 Davis, James (aka Orishatuke Fad­ uma), 154–55, 217n. 53 Delany, Martin Robinson: background, 17–19; Blyden and, 28; mentor to Bruce, 25–27, 32, 95; Negro Nationality advocate, 19–20, 28; role model for Bruce, 6, 11, 16, 23 Democratic Party, 52, 58 Dent, F. T., 11 DesVerney, Elinor, 125 Domingo, W.A., 152, 214n. 45 Dossen, James J., 118, 157, 162 Douglass, Anna (Murray), 42, 76 Douglass, Frederick: Afro-American League opposition, 61; Bruce and, 75–80, 161; Bruce’s challenge to, 4, 75; denounced ruling on civil rights, 55; Haitian crisis, 77–78; leadership role, 2, 26, 58, 68, 75, 100; second marriage, 75–77; Williams on, 94 Douglass, Helen (Pitts), 75, 76, 77, 78 Douglass, Lewis H, 78

233

Douglass, Rosetta, 78, 195n. 8

Downs, R. R., 93

Dube, John L., 36, 162

Du Bois, W. E. B.: on B. T. Washing-

ton, 80; historian with Ph.D., 104; NAACP activist, 105; NSHR and, 107; rejects Garvey plans, 151; scholar-activist, 2, 44, 88, 104–5, 107, 109, 111, 202n. 31; on twoness of Blacks, 103; works, 104–5 Dunbar, Alice M., 98, 129

Dunbar, Paul Laurence, 98, 129

Duncan, Samuel A., 152, 214n45

Durham, John S., 100

Duse Mohamed Ali: ATOR publisher,

110, 118, 141–42, 162, 203n. 46, 211n. 19; background, 110–11; mentor to Garvey, 142; UNIA and, 157; works, 110–11, 141 Dyer Anti-Lynching Bill, 65 Eagle Clippings (Thorne), 114 Education of the Negro prior to 1861, The (Woodson), 105–6 Elite, Black, 43, 53, 68, 185n. 50 Elliott, Robert Brown, 26, 100–101 Emancipation: Its Course and Progress from 1481 B.C. to A.D. 1882 (Wil­ son), 93 Emancipation Proclamation, 17 Emancipator (newspaper), 152 Emigration to Africa: Back-to-Africa movement, 155; Black opposition to, 26, 31, 160; Blyden and, 25–32, 35–36; Bill Butler and, 30, 32, 179n. 13; Liberian Exodus Society, 28, 178n. 7; rural Blacks supported, 67; whites supported, 30–31. See also African Empire vision Enterprise (newspaper), 12 Equiano, Olaudah, 119 Ethiopia Unbound: Studies in Race Emancipation (Hayford), 110, 144 Euclid, 97 Excelsior Cornet Band, 95 Express (newspaper), 12

234

INDEX

Facts of Reconstruction (Lynch), 104–5 Faduma, Orishatuke (aka James Davis), 154–55, 217n. 53

Ferris, William, 119, 120

Fish, Hamilton, 19

Fisher, Rudolph, 3

Fitz Jubilee Singers, 52

Fleming H. Revell Company, 34

Folk culture, Black, 103

Forbes, George W, 88

Ford Theatre, 10, 11

Fortune, T. Thomas: Afro-American

Council leader, 61, 82; Afro-Amer­

ican League and, 32, 160–61;

Booker Washington and, 82–84; in

defense of Williams, 94; leading

journalist, 59–60; mental illness of,

60

“Four Errors against Christian Reli­ gion” (Bruce), 13

Fox, Stephen R., 87, 89

Franklin, John Hope, 20, 94

Freedmen’s Bureau, 18

Freeman (newspaper), 31, 60

Freeman, John, 6, 12, 51

Freeman Savings and Trust Com­

pany, 53

Freeman’s Journal (newspaper), 12

Friends of Shakespeare Society, 115

Fulton, David Bryant (aka Jack

Thorne), 113, 114, 117, 121

Fund-raising tour by Garvey, 150–51

Gara, Larry, 96, 198n. 11

Garfield, James, 51–52

Garnet, Henry Highland: Blyden

and, 177n. 6; church leader, 17;

emigration and, 27; mentor to

Bruce, 25, 32, 95; rhetorical skills

of, 19; role model for Bruce, 6, 11,

19, 23

Garvey, Amy Jacques, 139, 141

Garvey, Indiana (sister), 136

Garvey, Marcus (father), 136–37

Garvey, Marcus Mosiah: becomes

Mason, 157; at Bruce funeral,

135; call for race pride, 148–49;

childhood, 136–38; denounced

by Bruce, 153–54; first job,

138–39; fund-raising tour in U.S.,

150–51; goals in U.S., 151; lead­

ership abilities, 156; mentored

by Bruce, 1, 48, 136, 149; men­

tored by Love, 46, 48, 139; Na­

tional Club, 140; New Negro

movement and, 149–50; opinion

of Bruce, 136, 150, 153, 155–56;

oratorical skills, 141, 151–52,

153–54; physical appearance, 136;

travels of, 140; works, 142–43,

151–52

Garvey, Sarah, 136–37

Garveyism, 1–2, 3, 73, 162–63, 166n.

3. See also Bruce, John Edward, UNIA and; Garvey, Marcus Mosiah; UNIA (Universal Negro Improvement Association) Garvey’s Watchman (newspaper), 140

Gatewood, Willard B., 9–10, 15–16,

53

Gibson, J. W., 104

Gibson, R. L., 30

Gilbert, Peter, 12

Globe (newspaper), 60

Globe Democrat (newspaper), 13

Gold Coast Leader (newspaper), 110,

144, 162

Gold Coast Native Institutions (Hay-

ford), 110

Gramsci, Antonio, 163

Grant, Ulysses S., 11, 19, 51

“Greeks, Romans, and Negroid

Egypt” (Bruce), 123

Greener, Richard T., 26, 94, 184n. 40

Grey, Edgar M., 152, 214n45

Griffin, Harvey, 7–8

Griggs, Sutton E., 21, 129

Grimké, Archibald, 83, 109–10

Grimké, Francis J., 26, 44

Grit. See Washington Grit (newspaper)

Gruesser, John Cullen, 3

Guardian (newspaper), 88

INDEX

Haire, Joseph, 10

Hamilton, Alexander, 98

Hamitic League of the World (HLW),

154

Hampton Institute, 81

Hannibal, 97

Hannibal, Abraham, 100–101, 102

Hanover; or, The Persecution of the Lowly (Thorne), 114

Harlem Library, 126

Harlem People’s Educational Forum,

42

Harlem Renaissance, 2, 116

Harper, Frances Ellen Watkins, 42

Harrison, Benjamin, 29, 30, 52, 61–62

Harrison, Hubert Henry, 112, 151–52,

157

Hart, Albert Bushnell, 104

Harvard University, 104

Hayes, Rutherford B., 26

Hayford, J. E. Casely: Duse Mo­

hamed and, 142; Gold Coast na­

tionalist, 34, 36, 162, 181n. 24;

NSHR honorary member, 118;

Tuskegee African plan and, 144;

UNIA and, 157; works, 110, 162

Hayford, Mark C., 144

Haynes, George Edmund, 104, 107

Hayson, Walter B., 127

Heartman, Charles F., 116

Helman-Taylor Company, 129

Helper, Hinton Rowan, 31

Herald (newspaper), 12

Hercules, Felix E. M., 142, 212n. 22

Hill, Robert A., 110, 141

Himes, Chester, 3

Historical Research (Russell), 120

History movement, Black, 160;

Bruce’s participation in, 2–3, 21; lay historians and, 103–4; rise of, 93–97, 99–100; Woodson and, 104–7. See also American Negro Academy (ANA); Bruce, John Edward, as historian; Du Bois, W. E. B.; Schomburg, Arthur Alfonso; Woodson, Carter G.

235

“History of Negro Journalism, The”

(Bruce), 102

“History of Negro Musicians, A”

(Bruce), 102

History of Negro Soldiers in the SpanishAmerican War (Johnson, E. A.), 99 History of the Negro Race in America

from 1619 to 1880 (Williams, G.

W.), 20, 93, 94

History of the Negro Troops in the War

of Rebellion, 1861-1865 (Williams,

G. W.), 94

HLW (Hamitic League of the World), 154

Holly, James T., 45

Home Magazine, 70

Hope, John, 103

Hopkins, Pauline, 104

Howard’s American Magazine, 13

Howard University, 26, 38, 107, 108,

125, 127

Hughes, Charles Evans, 67

Hyppolite, Florville, 45–46

Impending Conflict (Chisum, ed.), 86,

88

Injun hair, 15

Interracial marriage, 126, 161

In the Land of the Pharohs (Duse Mo­

hamed), 110, 141

“Is Hayti Decadent?” (Schomburg),

115

“Is This Our Country?” (Bruce), 56

Jabavu, D. D. T., 36

Jackson, Anselmo, 152, 214n. 45

“Jack Thorne” (Fulton pseud.), 113,

114, 117, 121

Jamaica Advocate (newspaper), 27, 46,

139

“Jamaica for Jamaicans,” 140

Jemmott, W. T., 117

Johnson, Charles S., 115

Johnson, Edward A., 99

Johnson, Haynes, 9

Johnson, James, 116

236

INDEX

Joseph, Mary, 114 Journalism, Black, 1, 21. See also Bruce, John Edward, as journalist Journal of Negro History (periodical), 92, 107, 122, 127 “Judas, Benedict Arnold, and Their Modern Imitators” (Bruce), 102 Junto Book Company, 119 King, C. D. B., 37, 157, 162 King Tut’s tomb, 108, 120 Knowledge of History Is Conducive to Racial Solidarity, A (Roman), 104 Lamp of Wisdom; or, Race History Illu­ minated (Councill), 99–100 La Nacion (newspaper), 140 Langley, Ayodele, 144 Langston, John Mercer, 55, 61, 68, 192n. 58 La Prensa (newspaper), 141 Las Casas, Bishop Bartolome de, 102 Leavelle, Louis A., 152 Lexis, Edmonia, 46 Liberia, 36–37, 162 Liberia College, 25, 27, 28 Liberian Exodus Society, 28, 178n. 7 Liberty League speech (Garvey), 151–52 Library of Congress, 126, 132 “Life of Dr. Edward Wilmot Blyden” (Bruce) (unpublished), 34 Lincoln assassination, 10–11 Literary Digest (periodical), 87, 93 Literary Garveyism: Garvey, Black Arts and the Harlem Renaissance (Martin), 3 Locke, Alain, 108, 111, 115, 116, 119–20 Lodge, Henry Cabot, 57 Logan, John A., 57, 58 Logan, Mrs. John A., 70 London Times (newspaper), 27 LOSA (Loyal Order of the Sons of Africa), 115, 126, 154

Louisville convention, 87 L’Ouverture, Toussaint, 99, 100–101 Love, J. Robert: background, 45–46; Bruce and, 16, 45–48, 139, 147, 160; death of, 47–48; deportation from Haiti, 45–46, 186n. 55; Jamaica Ad­ vocate and, 46, 139; link between Garvey and Bruce, 147; mentor to Garvey, 139; Pan-African national­ ist, 25, 27, 101; philosophy of, 140 Loving, Walter H., 154

Loyal Order of the Sons of Africa

(LOSA), 115, 126, 154 Lynch, Hollis R., 30, 32 Lynch, John R., 68, 104–5 Lynching, 62, 64–65, 90, 161, 190n. 36 Madison Square Garden, 86

Magazine of American History, 93

Mail and Express (newspaper), 73

Making of a Race, The (Bruce), 132–33

Marriage, interracial, 76–77, 126, 161

Martin, Charles D., 113, 124, 126, 135

Martin, Tony, 3, 167n. 5

Marxism, 111–12

Masonic Lodge. See Prince Hall Ma-

sonic Lodge Masonic movement, 115, 117. See also Prince Hall Masonic Lodge Matthews, James C., 53, 59 Matthews, Victoria Earle, 42 McGirt’s Magazine, 3 McKinley, William, 65–66 Meier, August, 20–21, 21, 77 Men’s Sunday Club, 92, 97, 108, 113, 117, 203n. 46, 205n. 53 Mercer, Henry C., 102–3 Messenger (newspaper), 111 Migration, reverse, 67 Miller, Kelly, 107, 109, 124, 125 Missionaries, 98 “Mistake of His Life, The” (Bruce), 76 Monthly Review (newspaper), 122 Moorland, Jesse, 124, 125 Moorman-Blackston, Irena, 152

INDEX

Morgan, John T., 30

Morton, Levi P., 5, 168n. 1

Mosley, Chester, 3

Moss, Alfred A., 6, 108

Mossell, Francis, 83

Moton, Robert Russa, 142, 146, 212n.

21

Mulatto elite: of Jamaica, 146–48; of

U.S., 16–17, 38, 40, 54, 146–47,

184n. 40. See also “Upper tens”

Murray, Anna. See Douglass, Anna

(Murray)

Murray, Daniel Alexander, 118, 126,

132

Music, Black, 103, 201n. 28

NAACP (National Association for the

Advancement of Colored People),

27, 42, 105

National Capital House-Cleaning Bu­ reau, 70

National Club (Jamaica), 140

National Convention of Colored Citi­

zens (Buffalo), 19

Nationalism, Black, 1, 6, 21, 25, 141

Nationalism, Pan-African, 2–3, 25, 27,

101, 139, 141

National Negro Business League, 88

National Women’s Suffrage Associa­

tion, 42

“Necessity of a Chair of Negro History in Our Colleges, The” (Duse Mohamed), 110–11 Neely, Barbara, 3

Negro (periodical), 86

Negro, The (Du Bois), 104, 105

Negro, use of word, 39

“Negro and His Future, The” (Bruce),

66

Negro Book Collectors Exchange,

124–25

Negro Digs Up His Past, The (Schom­

burg), 116

“Negroes in Seville (Spain), The”

(Bruce), 123

237

Negro History Bulletin, 106

Negro History movement. See History movement, Black Negro History Week, 106

Negro in American History

(Cromwell), 104

Negro in Our History, The (Woodson),

106, 122

“Negro in the Profession of Law,

The,” 100

“Negro in the Republic of Letters,

The” (Bruce), 123

Negro Library Association, 115, 126

Negro Nationality advocacy, 19–20,

26, 28. See also Emigration to

Africa; Repatriation

“Negro Reader” prospectus (Bruce),

100, 129

Negro Society for Historical Research

(NSHR), 108; activities, 118–19;

ASNLH rivalry, 92, 121–22; Flo­

rence Bruce and, 22–23; Du Bois

and, 107; Duse Mohamed and,

142; founding of, 91, 113, 117–18;

lay intellectuals, 97; Schomburg

and, 91, 117–20, 121, 122

Negro women. See Women, Black Negro World (newspaper), 122, 142,

153, 157

New National Era, 76

New Negro, The (Locke), 116

New Negro movement, 111, 116,

121–22, 149

New York Age (newspaper), 12, 13, 31,

60

New York Federal Customs Office, 68

New York Freeman (newspaper), 12

New York Port Authority, 87–88, 161

New York Public Library, 127

New York Republican State Commit-

tee, 5

New York Times (newspaper), 6, 87

Niagra Movement, 95, 200n20 North Carolina Republican (newspa­

per), 12

238

INDEX

NSHR. See Negro Society for Histori­ cal Research “Odious Comparison, The” (Bruce), 98

“Old Time Religion” (Bruce), 13

“One drop rule,” 97

“On the Benefits of Reconstruction”

(Du Bois), 104

Orion Publishing Company, 129

Osofshy, Gilbert, 72

Otely, Charles N., 13, 51

Our Boys and Girls (periodical), 152

Our Own (National Club paper), 140

Outline of Our History and Govern­

ment, An (Tanner), 93

Overshadowed (Griggs), 129

Owen, Chandler, 111

Painter, Nell Irvin, 54

Pan-African Association, 139

Pan-African Conference, First, 139

Pan-African nationalism, 2–3, 25, 27,

101, 139, 141

Park, Robert E., 82

Parker, George Wells, 154

Parker, Mary E., 117

Parks, William G., 150

Patronage, white, 79–80

Patronage positions, 49, 68–73, 87–88,

90, 131

Patterson, Busie (cousin): Thomas

Hart Benton and, 10, 11–12, 18;

Delany and Garnet contacts, 11,

18, 171n. 26; male role model, 16,

17; relationship to Bruce, 8, 169n.

12; Patty, John Francis, 68

Payne, Daniel Alexander, 124

Pen and Pencil Club, 115

Penn, I. Garland, 11, 21, 35, 60, 95,

170n. 14

People’s Advocate (newspaper), 26,

44

Perrault, Mr., 119

Phalanx Club, 40, 115

Ph.D. degrees, 104

Phelps-Stokes Educational Commis­ sion to West and South Africa, 36

Philadelphia Negro, The (Du Bois), 105

Philadelphia Tribune (newspaper), 126

Pickens, William, 88

Pinchback, P. B. S., 61, 68–69, 191n. 58

Pinkwood, Lucy. See Bruce, Lucy

(Pinkwood) Pitts, Helen. See Douglass, Helen (Pitts)

Plaatje, Solomon, 36, 162

Plain Dealer (newspaper), 12

Platt, Thomas Collier, 71

Plea for Social Justice for the Negro Woman, A (Fulton), 121

Plessy v. Ferguson, 65

Poetry by Bruce, 98–99

“Political Destiny of the African

Race” (Blyden), 28

Poston, Robert, 157

Praise meeting, 14

Press, Black, 18, 20, 31, 102, 113. See

also names of specific publications Primer of Facts Pertaining to Early

Greatness of the African Race (Hop­

kins), 104

Prince Hall Masonic Lodge, 5,

114–15, 117, 126, 135–36, 157

Progressive American (newspaper), 12,

51

Progress of a Race (Crogman), 100

Prohibition Party, 59

Protest, Black, 51

Protestant Episcopal Church, racism

in, 39

Pushkin, Alexander, 102

Quarles, Benjamin, 76

“Question of a Race Tradition, The,”

(Locke), 120

Race, definition of, 97

Race pride, 97, 100, 148–49

Rahming, Alexander, 152, 214n. 45

Randolph, A. Phillip, 111, 112

Ranger, T. O., 165n. 1

INDEX

Ransom, Reverdy Cassius, 100, 200n.

20

Recollections of a Sleeping Car Porter (Thorne), 114

Reconstruction, collapse of, 13

Reddick, Lawrence D., 105, 202n. 32

Redkey, Edwin S., 30

Red Summer of 1919, 66–67

Reed City Clarion (newspaper), 12

Reflection on the Life and Times of Tous­

saint L’Ouverture (Straker), 93

Reid, Arthur, 152

Religion, new, 13–15

Repatriation, 28

Republican (newspaper), 13

Republican National Committee, 59

Republican Party: Black elite, 68;

Black exclusion, 49; Bruce’s loy­

alty to, 5, 49–52; Bruce’s struggles

with, 54, 57, 66, 68–71, 75, 131, 161;

neglect of Blacks by, 55, 65; white

patronage and, 79–80; G. W.

Williams and, 94. See also Patron-

age positions

Reverse migration, 67

“Rising Sun” (pseud.), 76, 194n. 1. See

also Bruce, John Edward

Rogers, W. K., 26

Roman, Charles V., 104

Russell, York, 120

Sable Choristers Glee Club, 95

Sam, Chief Alfred Charles, 155

Savannah Tribune (newspaper), 27, 31

Sawyer, Philetus, 52–53

Scarborough, William S., 44.

Schomburg, Arthur Alfonso: ANA

and, 111, 113; background, 114–17;

bibliophile, 124, 125, 127–28; at

Bruce funeral, 135–36; LOSA and,

154; mentored by Bruce, 98, 115,

124, 127, 160; UNIA and, 157, 158;

Woodson and, 122–23; works,

115, 116, 122. See also Negro Soci­

ety for Historical Research

(NSHR)

239

Schomburg Center for Research in

Black Culture, 167n. 4

“Schomburg Tears Carter Woodson

to Pieces” (Schomburg), 122, 197n.

1

School History of the Negro Race in America from 1619 to 1890 (Johnson, E. A.), 99 Schurz, Carl, 52

Scott, Emmett J., 82, 86, 131, 147–48,

196n. 31

Segregation, 65, 160

Seifert, Charles C., 152, 214n. 45

Sekyi, W. E. G., 36

Seligman, Edwin R. A., 27

Shapiro, Samuel L., 53

Shepperson, George, 1, 144, 165n. 1,

166n. 2

Sherrill, William, 135

Shiloh Presbyterian Church, 27

Short Biographical Sketches of Eminent

Negro Men and Women (Bruce), 20,

34, 101–2, 104, 181n. 26. See also

“Negro Reader” prospectus

(Bruce)

Simpson, Jennie M. See Crummell,

Jennie M. (Simpson)

“Sketch of Childhood under Slavery”

(Bruce), 14

“Sketch of My Life, A” (Bruce), 6–7,

169n. 6

Slaughter, Henry P., 113, 124, 125

Slavery, 42, 123

Smalls, Robert, 68, 102, 191n. 58

Smith, George C., 53

Smith, Harry C., 95–96

Smith, Hoke, 71

Smith, Wilford H., 87, 88

Smyth, John H., 25–26

Socialism, 112

Société Internationale de Philologie

et Beaux, 142, 213n. 23

Society of Sons of North Carolina,

113

Soldiers, Black, 20, 131–32

Solomon, Lysius, 45–46

240

INDEX

Sons of North Carolina, 117

South African (Native) National Con­ gress, 36. See also African National Congress (ANC) South African Spectator (newspaper),

13

South Carolina Leader (newspaper),

101

South Carolina State Convention of

Colored Men, 55

Spofford, Ainsworth R., 126

Sprague, Rosetta (Douglass). See

Douglass, Rosetta

Star of Zion (periodical), 107

Still, William, 96–97, 198n. 11

St. Mark’s Lyceum Society, 130

Story of Frederick Douglass (Wilkes),

100

Story of the Negro (Washington), 104

Straker, David Augustus, 93, 100,

101

“Stronger vs. the Weaker Nations,

The” (Bruce), 129–30

Suggs, Lewis, 68

Sullivan, J. B., 119

Sunday Item (newspaper), 13, 26,

171n. 28, 177n. 3

Sunny Slope Farm, 119

Suppression of the African Slave Trade,

The (Du Bois), 105

“Suppression of the African Slave

Trade of the United States of

America, 1638-1870, The”(disser­

tation) (Du Bois), 104

Survey Graphic (periodical), 116

Tanner, Bishop Benjamin Tucker, 93,

100, 101, 107, 200n. 20

Tarawa Springs. See Wilberforce

Terrell, Robert H., 101, 102, 111,

200n24

Thomas, William Hannibal, 86

Thompson, Orlando M., 152

Thorne, Jack (aka David Bryant Ful­

ton), 113, 114, 117, 121

Tomb of King Tutankhamen, 108, 120

Toombs, Robert Augustus, 97

Topeka Capitol (newspaper), 31

To Teach the Negro History (A Sugges­

tion) (Durham), 100

“Toussaint L’Ouverture” (Bruce), 102

Townsend, James, 68, 71, 72

Tracts of the People (Bruce), 128, 208n.

95

Transactions (periodical), 115

Tribute for the Negro Soldier, A (Bruce),

131, 132

Triley, Dr., 151

Trotter, James Monroe, 53, 59

Trotter, William Monroe, 83, 86, 87, 88

Tuskegee Conference on Africa, 143,

144

Tuskegee Institute, 81, 86, 147–48. See

also Washington, Booker T.

Tuskegee Machine, 80, 82, 86, 161–62

Ullman, Victor, 19

“Uncle Billy” (aka William Carl Boli­

var), 126

Underground Railroad, 96

Underground Railroad, The (Still), 96

UNIA (Universal Negro Improve­

ment Association): Duse Mo­

hamed and, 142, 157; Hayford

and, 157; Jamaican years, 146; new

base in NYC, 148, 152; objectives

of, 145, 147; opposition to, 146;

Schomburg and, 157, 158; spread

of Garveyism, 162–63. See also

Bruce, John Edward, UNIA and;

UNIA (Universal Negro Improve­

ment Association)

Union of Colored Ministers, 38–39

Universal Races Congress, First, 141

Up from Slavery (Washington), 143

“Upper tens,” 9–10, 15, 172n. 36,

173n. 39

Vassa, Gustavus (Olaudah Equiano), 119

Verney, Des, 102

Vesey, Denmark, 122

INDEX

Violence, anti-Black: attacked by Ran­ dolph, 111; Bruce urges self-de­ fense, 62–63; crusade against, 63–65; increase in, 29, 49, 108, 179n. 10; lynching, 62, 64–64, 90, 161, 190n. 36; Red Summer of 1919, 66–67 Virginia Theological Seminary and College, 130–31 Voice of the Negro (periodical), 97, 126 Walker, James J., 78 Wallace, Henry A., 93 Walters, Bishop Alexander, 61, 83 Washington, Booker T.: accommoda­ tion of, 4, 21, 75, 80, 161; antiWashington movement, 83, 87; At­ lanta Compromise, 75, 80, 81; Bruce as “hired gun,” 83–85; Bruce challenges, 6, 85–86; Bruce con­ gratulates, 81–82; Bruce’s precari­ ous relationship with, 161–62; death of, 147; Du Bois on, 80; Gar­ vey and, 143, 147; ghost writers for, 82; Tuskegee Machine, 80, 82, 86, 161–62; works, 104, 143 Washington, D.C., 8–10, 15, 38 Washington Bee, 93 Washington Grit (newspaper), 13, 57, 58–59 “Washington’s Colored Society” (Bruce), 15, 38 W. B. Whittingham and Company, 32 Webster, D’Macon, 117 Weekly Argus (newspaper), 13, 49 Weeks, W. Wesley, 113, 117 Weh Down Souf (Davis, D. W.), 129 Wells-Barnett, Ida B., 42, 83, 151, 160–61 Wesley, Valerie Wilson, 3 West African Record (newspaper), 13 Wheatley, Phillis, 119, 128, 129 “When Africa Awakes” (Bruce), 98–99

241

White, George H., 117

White Rose Mission, 42

Wibecan, George E., 117

Wiebe, Robert H., 108

Wilberforce, 17

Wilberforce University, 17–18, 44

Wilkes, Laura Eliza, 42, 100

Will, John N., 86

Williams, George Washington, 20, 93,

94, 95, 104 Williams, Henry Sylvester, 139 Williams, John Albert, 154 Williams, S. Laing, 82 Williamson, Henry A., 113 Wilmore, Gayaud S., 14 Wilson, Joseph T., 20, 93, 95 Wilson, Woodrow, 67 Wisconsin State Historical Society, 126 Wizard, 87. See also Washington, Booker T. Women, Black: Bruce as advocate for, 41, 42, 133; Crummell as ad­ vocate for, 41–42; exclusion of, 101; A Plea for Social Justice for the Negro Woman (Fulton), 121; Sons of North Carolina and, 117 Woodson, Carter G.: ANA and, 111; ASNLH founder, 21, 91, 106, 121–22, 197n. 1; historian with Ph.D., 104, 105–7, 202n. 32; on Randolph, 112; works, 92, 105–6, 107, 122 Work, Nathan Monroe, 82

Work Mail (newspaper), 12

World, The (newspaper), 12

Wormley, James, 26

Wright, Richard R., Jr., 15, 104, 107,

150 Wright, Richard, Sr., 44 Young Men’s Negro Republican Club of New York, 59

About the Author

Ralph L. Crowder is Associate Professor in the Department of Ethnic Studies at the University of California, Riverside.

243