JOEL AUGUSTUS ROGERS (September 6, 1880-March 26, 1966) was a Jamaican-American author, journalist, and historian who contributed to the history of Africa and the African diaspora, especially the history of African Americans in the United States. His research spanned the academic fields of history, sociology and anthropology. He challenged prevailing ideas about race, demonstrated the connections between civilizations, and traced African achievements. He was one of the greatest popularizers of African history in the twentieth century. Rogers addresses issues such as the lack of scientific support for the idea of race, the lack of black history being told from a black person's perspective, and the fact of intermarriage and unions among peoples throughout history. A respected historian and gifted lecturer, Rogers was a close personal friend of the Harlem-based intellectual and activist Hubert Harrison. In the 1920s, Rogers worked as a journalist on the Pittsburgh Courier and the Chicago Enterprise, and he served as the first black foreign correspondent from the United States.
"No man living has revealed so many important facts about the Negro
as Rogers."--W.E.B. Dubois
"The published works of Joel Augustus Rogers are known currently to
only a handful of scholars. Even those historians and
anthropologists who are aware of Rogers' self-published and popular
scholarly works tend only to remember him for the biographical
portraits of African and African American leaders and his
investigations of the history of sex and race in antiquity and in
the modern era. Most contemporary college students have never heard
of J.A Rogers nor are they aware of his long journalistic career
and pioneering archival research. Rogers committed his life to
fighting against racism and he had a major influence on black print
culture through his attempts to improve race relations in the
United States and challenge white supremacist tracts aimed at
disparaging the history and contributions of people of African
descent to world civilizations."--Thabiti Asukile, Black
International Journalism, Archival Research and Black Print
Culture, The Journal of African American History
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