Biography, Race Vindication, and African American Intellectuals

Abstract

The Special Issue published in celebration of 80th Anniversary of The Journal of Negro History (JNH) focused on what African American intellectuals do in general, and what historians and other social scientists have done best in pages of JNH. The Association for Study of Negro Life and History (ASNLH) was formed in Chicago in October 1915 by Carter G. Woodson, George Cleveland Hall, W. B. Hargrove, Alexander L. Jackson, and James E. Stamps for the collection of sociological and historical data on Negro, study, of peoples of African blood, publishing of books in this field, and promotion of harmony between races. The first issue of JNH appeared shortly thereafter in January 1916, and Carter G. Woodson, editor, made it clear this was to be quarterly scientific magazine committed to publishing scholarly research and documents on history and cultures of Africa and peoples of African descent around (1) From beginning Carter G. Woodson knew JNH would be important for When public saw a well-printed scientific magazine, presenting scholarly current articles and valuable documents giving facts scarcely known, Woodson recalled in 1925, the students of history and correlated fields highly praised effort and warmly welcomed publication. Woodson understood publishing these articles and collecting these materials was only way that Negro [could] escape awful fate of becoming a negligible factor in thought of world. The activities pursued by members of ASNLH would enable scientifically trained men [and women] to produce treatises based on whole truth. (2) In Living Our Stories, Telling Our Truths: Autobiography and Making of African American Intellectual Tradition, V. P. Franklin used life-writings of African American literary artists and political leaders to demonstrate vindication was a major activity for black intellectuals from early nineteenth century. African American preachers, professors, publishers, and other highly educated professionals put their intellect and training in service to the to deconstruct discursive structures erected in science, medicine, law, and historical discourse to uphold mental and cultural inferiority of African peoples. The autobiographical works written by Alexander Crummell, Ida Wells-Barnett, James Weldon Johnson, Harry Haywood, Adam Clayton Powell, Jr., and W. E. B. Du Bois described nature of relationship between experience and ideology. These important spokespersons used their life writings to tell truth about themselves and their people, and expose lies abou t nature of European and American cultures and societies being spread internationally by white supremacists. While autobiographical writings of Richard Wright, Zora Neale Hurston, James Baldwin, Malcolm X, Gwendolyn Brooks, and Amiri Baraka no longer presented an overarching concern for race vindication, biographical studies of these artists and intellectuals presented in Living Our Stories, Telling Our Truths revealed important connections between their personal experiences and ideological commitments. (3) BLACK NATIONALISTS AND RACE VINDICATION Many biographical studies of African American intellectuals have focused on individual's commitment to telling truth about Africa and people of African descent. Those black preachers, publishers, and other professionals in nineteenth century who subscribed to black nationalist ideological positions understood importance of race vindication. Along with belief in distinct and positive African group traits, consciousness of shared oppression at hands of whites, awareness of mutual duties and responsibilities of African peoples to each other, and need for black self-determination and solidarity, black nationalists from early nineteenth century believed in and practiced race vindication. …