When I searched for the first Black American magazine, Ebony came up. This is the first POC magazine in the United States that achieved national publication. However, The Colored American Magazine was the true first monthly publication in the U.S. and it built the market for future magazines, like Ebony. it was created in May of 1900 and ran until November of 1909 out of Boston. It was founded by Harper S. Fortune, Walter Alexander Johnsons, Walter W. Wallace and Jesse W. Watkins who all hailed from deep south Virginia. Their mission was to write about black Americans succeeding in business, art, education, medicine, etc. and who were devoted to the culture in regard to religion, literature, science, music and art. What is pleasantly surprising is that at the time at least 1/3 of the readers were white, although the magazine was targeted to POC. The magazine was known for portraying the lives of the black American through their own voices in stories, poems, essays, and novels. They were also the first to publicly called out white Americans for doing nothing around issues surrounding hate crimes, such as lynching in the south at the time. They called for repealing racist laws such as the 15th Amendment and spoke up on voting choices. It’s unfortunate that the publication had financial issues from the get-go and went under. However, the entire publication has been digitized and can be viewed at Coloredamerican.org. It’s obvious how and why they set the tone for magazines to come!
