J. A. Rogers

Selected Writings

Louis J. Parascandola

• Publisher: University of Tennessee Press
• Year: 2023
• eBook ISBN: 9781621907732
• Topic: Literature
• Subtopic: African American History
• Index: Literature

“No man living has revealed so many important facts about the Negro race as has Rogers,” wrote W. E. B. DuBois. Indeed, as Henry Louis Gates Jr. contends, J. A. Rogers was often the only source for an ordinary Black person to learn of their history from the 1920s through the 1970s. Now Louis J. Parascandola makes available an accessible collection of Rogers’s writings for a new generation.

Joel Augustus Rogers was born in Negril, Jamaica, in the late nineteenth century, where—although his father was a teacher—he received only basic education. Rogers emigrated to the United States and studied at the Art Institute of Chicago while working as a Pullman porter. He later took up journalism and moved to New York for better opportunities, writing for papers and journals published by the likes of Marcus Garvey, W. E. B. DuBois, and H. L. Mencken. While working with the Pittsburgh Courier, he was assigned to cover the Italo-Ethiopian War (1935–1937), becoming the first American Black foreign war correspondent. His column for the Courier became vital to the Black middle class, conveying stories of Black achievements and relating a distinguished history that imparted knowledge and pride. He continued this work with his books 100 Amazing Facts about the Negro with Complete Proof, the two-volume The World’s Great People of Color 3000 B.C. to 1946 A.D., and the novel From Superman to Man.

This engaging collection represents the wide range of Rogers’s work across time and demonstrates his intellectual philosophy. J. A. Rogers: Selected Writings is required reading for anyone interested in Black nationalism, Black journalism, Black literature, and Pan-African culture and identity.

Table of contents

• Contents
• Acknowledgments
• Introduction
• Notes on the Selections and the Text
• Excerpt: From Superman to Man, 1917
• From As Nature Leads, 1919
• “The Thrilling Story of the Maroons,” Negro World, March 18, 1922
• From “The West Indies: Their Political, Social, and Economic Condition,” The Messenger, September–December 1922
• From Blood-Money, New York Amsterdam News, April 1923
• From “The Ku Klux Spirit: A Brief Outline of the History of the Ku Klux Klan Past and Present,” 1923
• “Jazz at Home,” Survey Graphic, March 1925; also The New Negro, 1925
• “J. A. Rogers Makes Comparison of French and American Customs,” New York Amsterdam News, October 14, 1925
• (Interview with Two White Supremacists)
• “What Are We, Negroes or Americans?,” The Messenger, August 1926
• “Is Black Ever White?,” The Messenger, September 1926
• “Talks with Garvey in Atlanta Prison,” New York Amsterdam News, November 17, 1926
• [“Is There Such a Thing as Negro Art?,”] Opportunity, December 1926 (Review of Paul Whiteman’s book Jazz)
• “J. A. Rogers Discusses West Indian Women,” Pittsburgh Courier, February 26, 1927
• “Who Is the New Negro, and Why?,” The Messenger, March 1927
• “Is the Star of the Folies-Bergere Really Married?,” Pittsburgh Courier, July 16, 1927 (Interview with Josephine Baker)
• From “The Negro’s Experience of Christianity and Islam,” Review of Nations, January–March 1928
• “Communism and the Negro,” New York Amsterdam News, January 30, 1929
• “Ahead of Its Time,” New York Amsterdam News, April 10, 1929 (Interview with Claude McKay)
• “Paris Pepper-Pot,” Pittsburgh Courier, June 15, 1929
• “The American Negro in Europe,” American Mercury, May 1930
• “Ruminations: Takes a Poke at ‘The Emperor Jones,’” New York Amsterdam News, September 27, 1933
• From 100 Amazing Facts About the Negro with Complete Proof, 1934
• “Italy Over Abyssinia,” Crisis, February 1935
• “J. A. Rogers Gets Exclusive Interview with Emperor,” Pittsburgh Courier March 7, 1936 (Interview with Emperor Haile Selassie)⤀
• “Rogers Describes His ‘Adventures in Jim-Crow Land,’” Pittsburgh Courier, August 8, 1936
• “J. A. Rogers Rips ‘Veil of Hypocrisy’ from ‘Best-Seller,’” Pittsburgh Courier, February 27, 1937 (Review of Margaret Mitchell’s Gone with the Wind)
• “The Suppression of Negro History,” Crisis, May 1940
• From Your History, 1940
• From Sex and Race, 1941–44
• “Rogers Says: Exception Is Taken to Criticism of ‘Black Boy,’ Written by Theophilus Lewis,” Pittsburgh Courier, July 14, 1945
• From World’s Great Men of Color, 1946–47
• From Nature Knows No Color-Line, 1952
• From Africa’s Gift to America, 1959
• From She Walks in Beauty, 1963
• “Civil War Centennial: Myth and Reality,” Freedomways, Winter 1963
• Notes
• Works Cited
• Index