The Western Outlook (San Francisco and Oakland, Calif.), Vol. 34, No. 24, Ed. 1 Saturday, March 17, 1928 Page: 2 of 8
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11
I
THE NEGRO
Under the Headline
"SCRATCHING THE SURfACE
The Amsterdam News
Prints the Following
By J. A. Rogers
19
In the latter part of 1926 I took
a trip to certain parts of the coun-
try south of New York, meeting
many Negroes of prominence, some
of whom one might designate as
leaders. In the course of conversa-
tion with them, I spoke from time to
time of certain articles that had ap-
peared in the Negro press, notably
one of the exposure of racial inter-
mixing in Virginia. As it will be
recalled, Virginia had tried to pass
been dead fifty years ago, so firmly
are their minds fixed in the past.
Siminlarly in ten years the Negro
press, from a puny, untaught weak-
ling, hac developed iuto a young
giant, lusty in promise, intellectual
and otherwise. There are today at
least six Negro pewspapers which
are on an intellectual par with about
80 per cent of the white papers.
Some of these Negro journals are
from two to three times the size of
a law making the marriage of white any daily published on the European
and Indian illegal. But it developed I continent, while one or two are just
that so many of the "first families" 1 a trifle smaller than The London
were of Indian descent, and that this Times or The London Observer, the
Indian descent when traced some- two largest European newspapers,
times not so far back was really In- The Amsterdam news is more than
dTian and Negro, that the bill met j twice the size of any daily that I
with crushing defeat. Had the Vir- j have seen in any of the other coun-
ginia legislators passed this bill, it j tries on the Continent in which I have
would have been only a matter of j been. Le Matin, the famous French
time when some of them would have daily, has only eight pages. And as
been riding in the Jim-Crow car. j to quality of matter and presenta-
The exposure was based on cases tion, some of these Negro papers
taken from the Bureau of Vital Sta-! rank with the white papers in Eu-
tistics at Richmond, and in condens- rope and America. Journals repre-
ed form appeared in several of the senting the interests of any particu-
leading Negro journals in various lar people are necessarily limited in
parts of the country. This, as it their scope, but this doe3 not mean
happened, was written by myself, but that they are not as competent in
.•—i * TV. — faeir own as the oneg repre.
views in a newspaper, not be:ause
they ousht not to be in a newspaper,
but because of what may bo consid-
ered their advanced nature. It then
struck me thr.t the Negro press was
much broader tllan I had thought it
all along, and broader than the ma-
jority of us think it is, and I could
see the Negro press, at this stage,
was serving no moneyed interest; its
principal concern was agitating; for
equal rights and privileges for Amer-
con citizens; and the nearest things
approaching the sacied w th i*.s were
the clergy and the cosmetic interests,
but that even these did not at times
escape scathing criticism. I further
pointed out that adverse articles ap-
peared in white publications— arti-
cles that sometimes hurt the group in
its tenderest spots,were carried in the
Negro press; while aricle? of a sim-
ilar nature in the Negro press rarely,
if ever, are copied by a white publi-
cation.
On the matter of the raf>e fruition
as it conccrns white, as well as black,
the Negro press is much broader
than the white press; that is, the for-
mer is more inclined to giv? the
white man his due. Speaking as a
\
profit* i
this MlKject •» rrvv-> 1j , ■
Put the nrtrr***?-/ ■
ballots U'lv»p it pnHj
son WHS •♦bout to (<•>. tftiji
because it will nia^e H 1 Henri®
big: man. Suppose ;t
objection should we have ^
heipg a powerful man in poiit'-Jrl
"Some of nr»* st"pi.j eno-i^!-u
*> ■ " j5™-
object. But tho«-e "f us wliol
supposed to have g?»od *c-->>se s|1(),
use our influence towards the ?
of having a colored ward le^cer
Philadelphia. We have I veil til
ing abaut the advantage^ <>t mic
position. Opportunity t > fake
present. And the onlv 11 up-j •:*
will prevent Negroes t" m hav
the leadership <>i the Thirtieths
within their lace is themselves
That sounds like practical &
tics, the only kind triar. achl«
practical results. Oakland voii
have opportunity that snouldi
be wasted.' Let us get ben
p
v
I
c
<
c
f
c
n|
Jt
at
matter of simple truth, i am ac-i ,nmai u , M ,■
quainted with the major portion of ^eO^y. How aoou. MciJ
literature on the Nesrro as it haslianc**
. ^ *—
been written by both black and white, i
and rack my mind as I may I can
recall but having seen one really
outspoken article on the Negro ap-
SAN FRANCISCO
1
that is irrelevant. The important
thing was the information which ev-
ery Negro, high and low, ought to
have had because here at last was
official proof that the white man
and the black man in America are so | Mid'agam'sf it~by some of the leaders
much mixed that it is impossible to above mentioned are true. It is
tell who is who. bound to have faults. In order to
Yet, to my astonishment, I dis-<> succeed it must reflect, as a whole
senting national and international
interests.
The Negro press, of course, has
its faults, and many of the things
• j • • f c i i i
covered that a large number of Ne
gro luminaries had never even heard
about the bill, although it caused
considerable stir over the nation, and
set most of the whites in Virginia in
two bitterly opposing camps.
When I mentioned the fact that
the minds of its readers, and we will
have perfect newspapers, white or
black, only when we have perfect
readers. To please some people, one
must inevitably displease others. One
thing is sure, were the Negro press
in the hands of some of its finical
the exposures had been printed in j critics, it's only a matter of time
the Negro press, several of them in-i when the public would have far less
formed me rather scornfully that interest, if any, in it.
they never read Negro newspapers, Within the past few years there
and one educator told me that he ha® been an improved psychological
was not interested in what Negroes
wrote on the race question, but in
what the whites wrote. The infer-
ence was that this learned gentleman
altitude on the part of Negro editors
in general. Once, many editors
would not carry news about persons
they did not like. It was a personal
already knew what was in the mind affair with them, and they introduced
of the Negro, past and to come; that; petty, feminine spites into their sheets
he was such an authority himself This type of editor now is, happily'
that no Negro could tell him any-
thing. However, nearly all were ea-
ger to get the articles then!
I could not then help thinking how
much of the "cracker*' spirit was in
rare. He sees now that while he may
not be interested in a certain man,
his readers may be, and he puts the
broader interest first.
In the course of discussion the
these and other Negroes who speak subject of the Negro press came ud
scornfully of the Negro press. In I told him of the travel artirU. oJj
f --- travel articles, and
of some of the things I had said in
it c i-r i_ e i . * them, not only about the race crues-
walks of life, but as far as the minds' tion, but of politics and life
peanng in a winte magazine—an ar-
ticle that really went below the sur-
face, and that is Mr. Schuyler's re-
cent article in The American Mer-
cury. Of course, 1 mean an article
written by a Negro. And this is not
so much a tribute to Mr. Schuyler's
genius and keen wit as it is to The
Mercury. Gallons of ink have been
spilt on this race question and the
sole reason for saying anything more
is to say those things that are not
supposed to be said.
The Negro press, with all its im-
perfections, is the spokesman of the
group. It fills a unique and indis-
pensable role. It is the champion of
citizenship rights in the fullest sense
of the word. It introduces Negroes
to themselves, to their shortcomings
as well as to their accomplishments.
How else could they have had this
self-knowledge, which we are told is
the beginning of all wisdom? As
for myself, far from scorning the
Negro newspaper I read everyone,
however humble, that I can get hold
of, thereby stumbling sometimes on
are bits of knowledge as one finds
diamond in some out of the
place.
Mr and Mrs O A. Geri
will give a reception o i V\a«rha
complimentar v to D-*-n Willi
Piemen*; of t^e N. A. A .O.P. Iti
take place at
Pine street.
3 to 6.
Th<
» V VM
hutr
No. 11
are
• P
Co:
of
Mrs. Nelson Prvor, wit-*
Prvor, met with a p:«i.-/ il accw
on Sundav, when v'aidinj '*
burned her hand and foo'. VV;
glad to report it '>a>; »
tated I ier, and she is
at the present time.
sc!
an
*nj
•-t mcr
lining Hi
P)oc SneH'n-'s for-jvi-'r tf
land, now re^idm,T »n N Ynr-|
<~>n leave o^ n^enc" H• • mpHp
in recita' on March 11 »f Y.M.C§
to an appreciative r«u ?;
M
a
way
this
1
11
singing postman'
the past ten years the Negro group
has made tremendous strides in all
of m inv white
are concern
te people regarding ineral, and to my surpr^he'exprefs.d
J they might as well surprise that I was able or a* o«« L>
was able to get such
Let's Have a
Leader
Accenting- the point that poli-
tics is cold business, the Phila-
delphia Tribune made the follow-
ing suggestion of a successor to
a local leader who had climbed
to power on necks of Negroes:—
"Magistrate Edward W. Henry is
the logical man to lead the Thirtieth
ward. He has his faulty most
iiuu.'an beings ;ire not pel tect. dut
b\ fji. long, and wiJtr, bd Hvmy
shOvitu uc made t^«c bos>. ^.,<inc; Preciuted.
•
u ;th
elusive tenor war^
tions were varied, manv
quest numbers- I >roth-
Dieu of Oakland wa< aco>mpaj
The voung lad v. of rm'e
abilit\-, is of tb.e Anglo-Saxon £
Her piano Selections met with
applause. She to'd tie r^p>>rttf
found great pleasure in the
she rendered SuiKiav aftenioofl-
Miss Tabitha Anderson will •
sent Dean Wm. Pickens at
church on March 26, und r au>?
of the Bethel stewards' departs
Admission free. Everybody wet
— . il
The big rally at Bethel is
Do vour best. Rev. Prvor
j.-aring to attend ti e ci'iifci'^
an\ assistance vv;ii be v.dit'
m
% gw
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Wysinger, J. E. & Derrick, J. Lincoln. The Western Outlook (San Francisco and Oakland, Calif.), Vol. 34, No. 24, Ed. 1 Saturday, March 17, 1928, newspaper, March 17, 1928; (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth596380/m1/2/?q=%22%22~1: accessed June 21, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu.; .