Negro Digest - Freedom Archives

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When NEGRO DicEST was founded back in 1942, the world was very
different . The United States was at war with Germany and Japan, and
even most Americans of African descent accepted the contention that
the American involvement in the war was aimed at "saving democracy"
although, in fact, we had never experienced that highly prized
way of life . We somehow managed even to accept that the Nazi brand
of racism was somehow more virulent than the American brand that
we knew first-hand . Perhaps we reasoned that, under the circumstances,
it was better to bear the oppression and the psychological maiming
imposed on us by the American system than to permit the ascendancy
of a nation which herded its hated humans into gas ovens . It was a
time of danger and struggle for us, just as all our times on this continent
have been, but the appearance of NEGRO DIGEST was one of
the events which signalled a hopeful new beginning : it marked the first
time in the history of this country that a commercial magazine unrelated
to any supporting national organization had been successfully
launched for a non-white audience . The magazine was frankly patterned
on the very popular Readers Digest, and neither that fact nor
the fact of the name itself brought anything other than a glow of pride
from Black people .
NEGRO DIGEST March 1970 q7