Journal of Negro History

Prior to the First World War, Africology, despite the impressive works of George Washington Williams, W.E.B. Du Bois, and others, largely languished in the disrespect that racist scholars in the United States had placed upon it. A major breakthrough in combating this racially imposed exile occurred when the Harvard-trained black scholar Carter G. Woodson met with a group of his associates in Chicago in 1915 to found the Association for the Study of Negro (later African-American) Life and History (ASNLH). Woodson and his cohorts sought to counter prevailing notions that Africans and people of African descent elsewhere had no past that was worthy of serious scholarly study. They believed that a scientific presentation of the true versions of the African and the African diasporan past would not only win respect for the race in academia but also serve as an inducement to better race relations generally. They thought that such a presentation of the historical record of people of African descent in the United States would raise the self-esteem of African Americans as well. They knew that the achievement of this latter goal could have important cultural as well as political and economic consequences.

[Page 288]Within a few months after the founding of the ASNLH, Woodson moved ahead with the idea of disseminating studies of the black past as widely as possible. Thus, on January 1, 1916, the first issue of the ASNLH's scholarly organ, the Journal of Negro History (JNH), appeared. This revolutionary development was made possible by Woodson's borrowing $400 against his $2,000 New England Mutual Life Insurance policy to pay for the original printing costs. Woodson had wanted the inaugural issues of the JNH to be published by a black printer, but when black printers' bids proved too high, he turned to the New Era Printers of Lancaster, Pennsylvania, who, interestingly and ironically, were also the publishers of the leading historical journal by whites, the American Historical Review.

From this beginning, the journal was published quarterly, without missing an issue, until the 1980s. But the struggle to finance publication of the journal plagued the ASNLH throughout Woodson's tenure and continued to plague the ASNLH, and its successor, the ASALH (Association for the Study of African-American Life and History) thereafter. These financial difficulties led to a brief suspension of publication in the early 1980s.

While Woodson knew that the JNH might never be a financial success, he also knew that in order to achieve its larger objective of presenting a scholarly chronicle of the African and African diasporan experiences, particularly to skeptics in the “white world,” he would have to establish and maintain the scholarly integrity of the publication. Thus, he sought out some of the most prominent African American and Euro-American scholars and named them to his editorial staff and editorial board. As impressive, research-based essays began to appear in the early issues of the journal, many by Euro-American scholars, the organ's favorable reputation was quickly established.

After Woodson's death in 1950, several African American scholars who served as editors continued the traditions that the founder had established and solidified the JNH's international reputation as the leading scholarly organ in Africology. Notable among these were Lorraine Williams, the first female editor, and Alton Hornsby, Jr., the first editor based at a historically black undergraduate college.

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