Black and White: Land, Labor and Politics in the South (1884)

Biographies & Memoirs

Fortune, T. Thomas

Fortune, Timothy Thomas

Community & Culture

Kessinger Publishing

Born into slavery, T. Thomas Fortune was known as the dean of African American journalism by the time of his death in the early twentieth century. The editorship of three prominent black newspapers--the New York Globe, New York Freeman, and New York Age--provided Fortune with a platform to speak against racism and injustice. For nearly five decades his was one of the most powerful voices in the press. Contemporaries such as Ida B. Wells, W.E.B. Du Bois, and Booker T. Washington considered him an equal, if not a superior, in social and political thought. Today's histories often pass over his writings, in part because they are so voluminous and have rarely been reprinted. Shawn Leigh Alexander's anthology will go a long way toward rectifying that situation, demonstrating the breadth of Fortune's contribution to black political thought at a key period in American history.

T. Thomas Fortune, the Afro-American Agitator: A Collection of Writings, 1880-1928 (New Perspectives on the History of the South)

Politics & Social Sciences

Social Sciences

University Press of Florida

T. Thomas Fortune was a leading African American publisher, editor, and journalist of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, who was born a slave in antebellum Florida lived through emancipation, and rose to become a literary lion of his generation. In T. Thomas Fortune's “After War Times,” Daniel R. Weinfeld brings together a series of twenty-three autobiographical articles Fortune wrote about his formative childhood during Reconstruction and subsequent move to Washington, DC. By 1890 Fortune had founded a predecessor organization to the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, known as the National Afro-American League, but his voice found its most powerful expression and influence in poetry, prose, and journalism. It was as a journalist that Fortune stirred national controversy by issuing a passionate appeal to African American southerners: “I propose to start a crusade,” he proclaimed in June 1900, “to have the negroes of the South leave that section and to come north or go elsewhere. It is useless to remain in the South and cry Peace! Peace! When there is no peace.” The movement he helped propel became known as “the Great Migration.” By focusing on Thomas’s ruminations about his disillusion with post–Civil War Florida, Weinfeld highlights the sources of Fortune’s deep disenchantment with the South, which intensified when the Reconstruction order gave way to Jim Crow–era racial discrimination and violence. Even decades after he left the South, Fortune’s vivid memories of incidents and personalities in his past informed his political opinions and writings. Scholars and readers interested in Southern history in the aftermath of the Civil War, especially the experiences of African Americans, will find much of interest in this vital collection of primary writings.

After War Times: An African American Childhood in Reconstruction-Era Florida

History

Americas

University Alabama Press

Includes seven classic essays by some of the most provacative thinkers from the African-American community, providing a historical perspective on race relations in America. "Industrial Education for the Negro", by Booker T. Washington "The Talented Tenth", by W.E. Burghardt DuBois "The Disfranchisement of the Negro", by Charles W. Chesnutt "The Negro and the Law", by Wilford H. Smith "The Characteristics of the Negro People", by H.T. Kealing "Representative American Negroes", by Paul Laurence Dunbar "The Negro's Place in American Life at the Present Day", by T. Thomas Fortune

The Negro Problem

Chesnutt, Charles W.

Washington, Booker T.

Smith, Wilford H.

DUNBAR, PAUL LAURENCE

DuBois, W.E.B.

Kealing, H.T.

Historical Study & Educational Resources

CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform

Literature & Fiction

DU BOIS, W.E.B.

Dramas & Plays

Published at the beginning of the 20th century, The Negro problem is a compilation of interesting articles authored by leading African American citizens of the day. Looking back at this synopsis of African American affairs one can get a good sense of both the progress made and the problems yet to be overcome, some of which have still not been fully addressed. Aside from the well known Booker T. Washington, other prominent African Americans contributed to this book. William Edward Burghardt DuBois was an intellectual leader of the black community in America. Charles Waddell Chesnutt was an author, essayist and political activist, best known for his novels and short stories exploring complex issues of racial and social identity. Paul Laurence Dunbar was a seminal African American poet of the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Dunbar gained national recognition for his 1896 "Ode to Ethiopia", one poem in the collection Lyrics of Lowly Life. Wilford H. Smith was an attorney and an official of the Afro-American Realty Company, a Black-owned company that leased White-owned buildings to Blacks. H. T. Kealing was a professor and was President of Paul Quinn College, Waco, Texas, T. Thomas Fortune was the most militant Afro-American newspaper editor of the post-Reconstruction era. Among the issues discussed are Booker T. Washington's stress on industrial education for black Americans, W. E. B. Du Bois's concept of "The Talented Tenth," disenfranchisement of blacks, the law and African Americans, real versus perceived characteristics of people of color, and outstanding representative black Americans.

The Negro Problem: Views of Leading African American Citizens at the Turn of the Twentieth Century (Timeless Classic Books)

DuBois, W.E.Burghardt

Chestnutt, Charles W.

One hundred years ago, African Americans looked forward to the new twentieth century with mixed feelings of pride and discouragement. On the one hand, they could point to the tremendous progress many of them had made since the end of slavery under the dynamic leadership of Booker T. Washington, whose thriving vocational school, the Tuskegee Institute, was famous throughout the nation. Washington had become the confidant of powerful and influential white Americans, and in 1901 he even dined with President Theodore Roosevelt at the White House. But on the other hand, the majority of white Americans showed little willingness to accept blacks as equals, and in the South segregation was practically institutionalized through the recently enacted Jim Crow laws. It was at this uncertain time that this interesting collection of articles by leading African American citizens was published to address what was then commonly known as "the Negro problem."Looking back at this synopsis of African American affairs one can get a good sense of both the progress made and the problems yet to be overcome, some of which have still not been fully addressed. Predictably, the collection begins with a piece by Booker T. Washington on the value and purpose of stressing industrial education for black Americans. This is followed by a now-famous article by W. E. B. Du Bois called "The Talented Tenth," in which he argued for the cultivation of an elite corps of black intellectuals who would then work to uplift the African American masses. Though Du Bois later changed his approach, one can see in this article how different his philosophy was from Washington's, a difference that later led to a complete break between the two men. The other contributors are Charles W. Chesnutt, Wilford H. Smith, H. T. Kealing, Paul Laurence Dunbar, and T. Thomas Fortune, who discuss the disenfranchisement of blacks; the broader subject of the law and the rights of African Americans; real versus perceived characteristics of people of color; and outstanding representative black Americans, some famous, others little-known. The collection concludes with a sober assessment of "the Negro's place in American life."Issued in the centennial year of its original publication, this new edition of a valuable classic is complemented by an informative introduction by Bernard R. Boxill, professor of philosophy at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill.

The Negro Problem (Classics in Black Studies)

Humanities Press

A collection of ground-breaking essays about the experiences of African-Americans and race relations in the United States at the early Twentieth Century. Contributing authors include: Booker T. Washington, W.E.B. Du Bois, Charles W. Chestnutt, Wilford H. Smith, H.T. Kealing, Paul Laurence Dunbar, and T. Thomas Fortune. The essays include: Industrial Education for the Negro, The Talented Tenth, The Disfranchisement of the Negro, The Negro and the Law, The Characteristics of the Negro People, Representative American Negroes, and The Negro’s Place in American Life at the Present Day.

Featuring a new foreword by Robin D. G. Kelley, this updated edition of the classic exploration of the economic inequality that fuels systematic racism, from one of the leading Black public intellectuals of the 19th century, is as timely and radical today as it was when it was first published.\n“The preeminent Black journalist of his age” (Henry Louis Gates, Jr., author of The Black Church) and an early agitator for civil rights, T. Thomas Fortune astutely and compellingly analyzes the relationship between capitalism and racism in the United States. He reveals that the country’s racial hierarchy has been part of our national fabric since the first European set foot here and is rooted in a much larger system of economic exploitation. He argues that in order for the United States to realize its founding ideals and end racial discrimination, this system must be dismantled, reparations made, and labor fairly remunerated.\nFortune’s passionate analysis and radical vision of the United States will force you to rethink what America could have been if his arguments had been heeded in the 1880s and what must be done for us to move forward as a unified nation.

Black and White: Land, Labor, and Politics in the South

Atria Books

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