Rogers, Joel Augustus 249in their classes. In fact, aft er fi nding out about Rogers’s re-
jected application at the University of Chicago, Foster in-
vited Rogers to lecture in one of his classes.
While living in Chicago, Rogers offi cially became a
naturalized U.S. citizen on February 21, 1918. In 1921,
Rogers relocated to Harlem, where he met and befriended
Hubert Harrison (1883–1927), the Caribbean black radi-
cal and George Schulyer (1895–1977), journalist and satire
novelist. New York and later Paris (late 1920s and vari-
ous times aft erward) became the two places where Rog-
ers would live throughout his life, while doing research
at important libraries, art galleries, museums, and cathe-
drals in America, Europe, and Africa. Even though Rogers
never attained an academic degree, he was respected for
his work in France and England. In 1930, he was elected
to membership in the Paris Society of Anthropology, the
oldest anthropological society in the world. In 1931, Rog-
ers also gave a paper on “race mixing” at the International
Congress of Anthropology in Paris, France, which was
opened by President Paul Doumer (1857–1932) of the
Th ird French Republic. To Rogers’s surprise, his paper was
later published in several French newspapers and the Lon-
don Times. Roger also became a member of the American
Geographical Society in 1945.
Rogers is mostly known for his historical writing on
history and race, but he is rarely given credit for being an
exceptional journalist. During the 1920s, Rogers became a
newspaper columnist and reporter for the Pittsburgh Cou-
rier and the New York Amsterdam News and wrote many es-
says and commentaries for Th e Messenger Magazine. Rogers
worked for the Pittsburgh Courier from approximately 1923
to 1966. His weekly comic column, “Your History,” which
began in 1934, became a medium for popularizing Afri-
can and African Diaspora history to the masses of African
Americans throughout America. Rogers used the “Your
History” column not only to disseminate history but also
to popularize prominent contemporary people of African
descent. In 1962, the “Your History” column name was
changed to “Facts About the Negro.” Rogers also wrote so-
cial commentaries in the Pittsburgh Courier titled “Rogers
Says” and “History Shows.”
As a newspaper correspondent for the Pittsburgh Cou-
rier, Rogers became a household name among African
Americans as an overseas newspaper correspondent. He
wrote about his travels in Europe and Africa. During the
late 1920s, and while living in Paris, he wrote a short-livedGordon, Robert Winslow. Th e Robert Winslow Gordon Collec-
tion. Special Collections & University Archives, Th e Univer-
sity of Oregon, Eugene, Oregon.
Parrish, Lydia. Slave Songs of the Georgia Sea Islands. Athens: Uni-
versity of Georgia Press, 1992.
Rosenbaum, Art and Margo Newmark Rosenbaum, and Johann
Buis. Shout Because You’re Free: Th e African American Ring
Shout Tradition in Coastal Georgia. Athens: University of
Georgia Press, 1998.
Stuckey, Sterling. Slave Culture: Nationalist Th eory and the Foun-
dations of Black America. New York: Oxford University Press,
1987.
Rogers, Joel Augustus
Joel Augustus (J. A.) Rogers (1880–1966) was a prolifi c
self-trained historian, photo-anthropologist, novelist, and
journalist who fl uently spoke and read fl uently four diff er-
ent languages (Spanish, French, German, and Portuguese).
During his lifetime, Rogers did more to popularize African,
African American, and African Diaspora history than any
other American scholar in the 20th century. Rogers was
born on September 6, 1880, in Negril, B.W.I., Jamaica, to
Samuel Rogers and Emily Johnstone. As a child growing up
in Jamaica’s color class-consciousness, Rogers was taught by
the British ruling class that unmixed black people were in-
ferior to them and to biracial light-skinned colored blacks.
Fortunately, Rogers, a light-skinned black Jamaican, found
it very hard to believe such racist sentiments.
Before immigrating to the United States, Rogers served
in the British Army with the Royal Garrison Artillery at
Port Royal but was discharged because of a heart murmur.
Shortly aft er arriving in New York on July 23, 1906, Rogers
experienced his fi rst taste of American racism when he was
discriminated against at a small restaurant in Times Square,
something he never forgot for the rest of his life. Rogers
stayed briefl y in New York and Canada before relocating
to Chicago on July 4, 1908. In 1909, Rogers enrolled in the
Chicago Art Institute, where he studied commercial art and
worked as a Pullman porter during the summers from 1909
to 1919. Rogers tried to enroll at the University of Chicago
but was denied entry because he did not possess a high
school diploma. Th e irony of Rogers being denied entry to
this prestigious institution is that Zonia Baber and George
B. Foster, a couple of distinguished professors, were using
his self-published novel From “Superman” to Man (1917)