Asa Phillip Randolph was born in Crescent City, Florida in 1889. The vibrant Black community in Jacksonville, Florida, where his family moved early in his life, provided him with a powerful education and close-knit community.1 However, the systemic violence of the Jim Crow South and its limited economic opportunity compelled Randolph to migrate to New York City in 1911 in pursuit of greater opportunity. He took on various jobs while living in New York and enrolled in some courses at City College.
Scholar W.E.B. DuBois was an editor of The Crisis, a magazine of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (or NAACP). DuBois wrote a short editorial in the magazine, responding to claims that intelligence test scores showed Black people to be less intelligent than white people.
The Brownies’ Book included different kinds of writing, visual art, and photography by adults. But it also included letters from readers. Black children from around the United States who read the magazine sometimes wrote back.1 What they chose to write about tells us what The Brownies’ Book meant to them and what was happening in their lives.
The NAACP and W.E.B. Du Bois created The Brownies’ Book to speak directly to Black children about the world and their lives. The images in the magazine were a key part of how the magazine worked to help its readers know (in the language of the time) that “being ‘colored’ is a normal, beautiful thing.” The creators also gave this issue the title “I am an American Citizen.”1
Here are a few pages from the first issue of the magazine. The editors of the magazine made many choices about their publication. They chose the text and articles, the images, the design, and more. Looking carefully at what they produced helps us think about their goals for the publication.
The US Army offered up its recruits as a test population for the new intelligence tests. The tests had been initiated in France but then modified for new uses in the US by psychologists like Henry Goddard, Lewis Terman and Robert Yerkes. The test’s creators promised to help the Army discern levels of preparation and aptitude among its soldiers.1
Immigrants helped New York City grow and prosper in the late 1800s and early 1900s, yet they faced many anti-immigrant attitudes in their new home city. Negative attitudes towards immigrants increased as more people from southern and eastern European countries (like Italy and Russia), rather than from Northern and Western countries (like Ireland and Germany), began to arrive. Many New Yorkers perceived these new immigrants to be very culturally, religiously, and at times racially different than themselves. Notice the choices that cartoonist Louis Dalrymple made in this cartoon. What people or groups does he include, and how does he show them visually? What text does he include, and what message does this send? What does the caption say?
