Abstract
Let Us Make Men provides gendered analyses of the Black Press, which D’Weston Haywood describes as a locus for “racial advancement” of African Americans through an overlooked institution—namely, newspapers headed by Black men. Haywood focuses on five publishers, including Robert S. Abbott (Chicago Defender), W. E. B. Du Bois (The Crisis), Marcus Garvey (Negro World), Robert F. Williams (Crusader), and Malcolm X (Muhammad Speaks), to argue that Black freedom discourses were constructed by 20th-century publishers emphasizing Black male redemption. Haywood equates redeeming Black manhood with liberatory attempts to overcome discrepant narratives, stereotypical images and biased news by mainstream papers whose assumptions of Black inferiority were epitomized by emasculated Black men. Using historical documents, theories of a male-dominated “Black Public Sphere,” and stories from each Black newspaper, Haywood offers intriguing counter-narratives with both positive and problematic Black masculinity. In so doing, he concludes that “manly men” who developed Black newspapers and entrepreneurial hegemony laid the foundation for civil rights and the long freedom struggle which heretofore were examined through the prism of other social institutions. D’Weston Haywood is an associate professor of history at Hunter College, City University of New York.
Haywood “reinterprets” Black newspapers by explaining the obvious: The Black Press was a bulwark for male advocates, turning a contingent definition of masculinity on its head, while elevating Black men as paragons of “the race.” Haywood builds on Black Press history, but not by limiting that history to simplistic cries of protest or stories of heroic movements for social justice. Haywood’s case studies allow reexamination of advocacy, sensationalism, and the role of masculinity in promoting democratic causes for the nation, and for Black communities separated by region, gender, and patriarchy.
This book suggests a constructive site for Black manhood—often eclipsing Black female leadership—against a dominant White patriarchy that framed prevailing notions of masculinity and femininity in the 1900s. Haywood outlines benefits and dangers of Black male publishers who proved their masculinity while defending Black women’s honor. This was a problematic displacement, as judged by scholars such as Hazel Carby (1998), Farah Jasmine Griffin (2001), and others.
It was necessary to develop narratives of Black male hegemony, writes Haywood, to counter racial stereotypes and scientific racism that questioned Black humanity. Racial uplift, liberation, and the freedom struggle were all debated within the Black Press—making explicit links between “literacy, literature and liberation.” The Defender provided a conduit for imagining freedom to thousands of Blacks who courageously left the South to settle in northern cities. The “Great Migration” was buoyed by Defender stories of northern opportunity, freedom from racial transgression, advertisements for jobs, housing, and Black unity—developed through Abbott’s ingenious distribution (sending Black train porters South with armloads of Defender publications). Abbott combined noble stories of restored manhood with sensationalist accounts of lynchings and violence. The Defender grew phenomenally to over 125,000 weekly copies by 1919—establishing the newspaper as a very lucrative Black business. This mixture of advocacy and business sense led to extreme power-broking that Abbott was not afraid to wield against competitors such as Marcus Garvey during the 1920s—his influence may have led to Garvey’s arrest, conviction, and ultimate deportation.
The most fascinating aspect of these stories is in the details—how Abbott invoked sensationalism, copying Hearst’s “yellow journalism” (even borrowing Hearst’s eagle masthead and a similar banner), and then admitted his sensationalism may have contributed to deaths during the 1919 Chicago race riots. Abbott was torn between advocating “self defense” versus a more objective tone—a criticism levied by Du Bois and other men of letters, who challenged “self-made” men like Abbott or Booker T. Washington.
When Abbott advocated for “the race” he chose sides against radical activism, to avoid Justice Department surveillance and disruption that other Black publishers experienced. Haywood could possibly be faulted for limiting his analysis to these five—when others, such as A. Philip Randolph, might not fit a “redeeming Black manhood” paradigm for their Black newspapers.
As each publisher (Garvey: 1920s, Williams and Malcolm X: 1950s-1960s) proclaimed Black male redemption, they instantiated patriarchy that obscured female standing. Haywood notes that Black women were path-breaking publishers as well—but writes they were marginalized. Notwithstanding, examination of influential publishers such as Charlotta Bass and Mildred Brown begs for comparison.
Assessment of Black male-gendered ideologies and discourses of a Black Public Sphere could be improved. Carby, Griffin, Von Eschen, and others cover the terrain, but Haywood’s gendered constructions of masculinity rely upon repetitive phrasing: “manly men” who “redeemed Black manhood”—while incompletely defining these terms. Black Public Sphere also suffers from under-examination of readers and shapers of news. Exploration of a varied Black world behind the veil—evoking social clubs, professional associations, women’s and youth organizations, and so on—could articulate a rich social life extending beyond discourses that only focused on manly men.
Other Black Press histories are missing, including Jane Rhodes’s history of Mary Ann Shadd Cary, the modern Black Press, and her Framing the Black Panthers (2017). These add texture to the masculinity thesis, examining Black print culture through other lenses. Comparisons of “imagined Black communities” (in Benedict Anderson’s terms) beyond prerogatives of male publishers would strengthen Haywood’s assessment of public sphere norms—one that does not parallel, but rather challenges—relationships to the community, even those not hailed by masculinity or patriarchy.
