Viewing page 210 of 256

This transcription has been completed. Contact us with corrections.

The Beginnings

[[image - black & white photograph of man in suit and tie, seated at a desk with pen in hand]]

[[letterhead]]
The Association for the Study of Negro Life and History, Incorporated

GEO C HALL PRESIDENT
3408 SOUTH PARK AVENUE CHICAGO ILLINOIS

JESSE E. MOORLAND, SECRETARY-TREASURY
1816 12TH ST. N. W., WASHINGTON, D. C.

Executive Council

GEORGE C. HALL, CHICAGO ILL.
JESSE E. MOORLAND, WASHINGTON, D. C.
CARTER G WOODSON, WASHINGTON, D. C.
JOHN A. BIGHAM, ATLANTA, UNIVERSITY
S. P BRECKINRIDGE, THE UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO
A. L. JACKSON, CHICAGO, ILL.
B. C. WILKINSON, WASHINGTON, D. C.

THE JOURNAL OF NEGRO HISTORY
CARTER G. WOODSON
DIRECTOR OF RESEARCH AND EDITOR
2223 12TH STREET, N. W.
Washington, D. C.

Associate Editors
MONROE H. WORK, TUSKEGEE INSTITUTE
BENJAMIN G. BRAWLEY, MOREHOUSE COLLEGE
GEORGE E. HAYNES, FISK UNIVERSITY
WALTER DYSON, HOWARD UNIVERSITY
ROBERT S. PARK, THE UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO
KELLY MILLER, HOWARD UNIVERSITY
[[/letterhead]]
June 16, 1916.

Dr. G. E. Haynes:
Fisk University
Nashville, Tenn.

My dear Dr. Haynes:

I write this to take up with you the matter of finding in Nashville an active agent to place the Journal of Negro History before the body of teachers attending the Summer School there. As we are now making a strenuous effort to increase our circulation, we are offering a considerable discount. Do you know a competent man?

Very truly yours,
[[signed]] C. F. Woodson [[/signed]]

The memoirs of many Negroes in the fields of education and religion during the period of 1914-16 record their deep concern for the teaching in American colleges of the Negro in American life and race relations. The first systematic course on this subject (as far as is known the first of its kind to be taught in any American college) was conducted at Fisk University (Nashville, Tenn.) commencing in 1910 by the head of Fisk's Department of Social Science, George Edmund Haynes, Ph. D. About 1914 Dr. Carter G. Woodson, returning to the United States from teaching school in the Philippines, visited Dr. Haynes at Fisk and talked with him about his (Dr. Woodson's) dream of an association to promote the study of Negro life and history and to develop a publication to preserve historical records about Negroes. Dr. Haynes' memoirs (mss.) state: "Carter Woodson and I talked over the idea and I enthusiastically encouraged him and offered suggestions based upon my experience with my courses. A short time later he launched the plan for the organization of the Association for the Study of Negro Life and History, and I became one of the founding members. Later he proposed my joining the staff of the Association, but at that time I was deep in the promotion of the National Urban League." - Records reveal the hard work of both men in this cause, over the succeeding years of their respective lifetime, in the many struggles of the Association to become nationally established. During Dr. Haynes' years as the Race Relations Secretary of the Federal Council of the Churches of Christ in America (1922-47) he personally gave emphasis - in publications, in lectures, in interracial projects, and in all materials reaching the Protestant churches of America - to the work of Dr. Woodson and the Association. And as late as 1959 Dr. Haynes was in touch with the Association's secretary, Albert N.D. Brooks, in forward-looking plans for large fund-raising and a new headquarters building in Washington, D.C. The reproduced letterhead below of the Association with note from Dr. Woodson to Dr. Haynes, June 1916, is of historical interest in its designation of their official personnel including the Associate Editors of The Journal of Negro History which Dr. Woodson founded in 1916.

208