Abstract
The power of media outlets, their narratives on pivotal social issues and community experiences, and representation of issues and groups continue to inspire debate. D’Weston Haywood’s Let Us Make Men sheds light on how black newspapers in the first half of the twentieth century worked on a dual construction of envisioning racial advancement and combatting white supremacy, while also developing variations of what the “manly vision” of these black freedom movement approaches should be that shaped black masculinities. These visions evolved as black communities participated in the Great Migration and found themselves fighting white supremacy in cities and towns across the nation once they moved from the Jim Crow southern communities they once called home. Black newspapers were the voice of the struggles black communities faced, and leaders of these movements used newspapers to craft their arguments for why black men should be the leaders of communities and their racial justice movements. However, it was not just any man. Haywood’s research elaborates how newspapers put forth specific conceptions of black masculinity as the ideal features leaders should embody.
Central to the volume is conflict and competition over what vision of racial advancement was best, and what black men should do to lead. Haywood provides readers an intimate look at how newspapers represented varying perspectives of black men competing to lead communities and construct a future in their own likeness. Uncovered are the desires to construct black men as “self-made” and how variations of strength evolved as new figures rose to prominence. Newspapers not only sought resolution to a crisis regarding racial advancement but also envisioned black masculinity in their communities as part of the fight against white supremacy. As Haywood’s analysis shows, these dual conflicts in the black press held across the political spectrum in black communities.
Haywood provides a nuanced account of how constructions of racial advancement and black masculinities intersected within the black press among some of the most revered figures in history. Black leaders have many voices, and newspapers were their megaphones across the early to mid-twentieth century. Haywood masterfully details how seemingly disconnected perspectives of racial advancement and black masculinity fulfill a larger project using the newspapers of movements and communities. Central figures and their papers are noted for this dual construction of racial advancement and black manhood. We are shown the importance of Robert Abbott’s The Defender and W. E. B. Du Bois’s The Crisis for laying new tracks for black newspapers to follow and document the savagery of white supremacy across the nation but also explain what communities should do to fight for social justice and why black men were seen as the natural leaders of this vision for racial advancement. Haywood describes Marcus Garvey’s uses of The Negro World to elaborate his vision of black nationalism and manhood in relation to the United Negro Improvement Association’s efforts. Insight is also given into the challenging of black militancy and its relationship to black manhood in the Southern fight for social justice through the examination of Robert F. Williams’s organizing efforts and guidance of The Crusader. Lastly, Haywood discusses Malcolm X’s use of Muhammad Speaks to funnel some of the leading voices of black men to trumpet racial advancement through his newspaper, but also the conflict occurring on these issues between him and Elijah Muhammad.
Together, Haywood weaves a meaningful history of the production of culture through news media outlets shaping the visions for racial justice and how they connect threads of idyllic versions of black manhood fitting these distinct visions. In light of current public frustrations with news outlets, Haywood’s tome showcases how the form of news media may change, but many of our stories today continue to center on black men and their voices for racial uplift, often rendering black women leaders and men not fitting an ideal of black manhood as background figures, or worse, invisible. A lingering question remains from Haywood’s volume of what additional roles women played in the interconnected construction of black masculinity and femininity informing the black freedom struggle of this era. Although we are given a partial answer due to the near invisibility of black women in this narrative, there is still much to learn from this investigation into meanings and ideals constructed in the pages of black newspapers. Let Us Make Men is an important and critical perspective that different fields as well as many in the broader public will find helpful for their understanding of how race, class, gender, and sexuality intertwine in media perspectives and who is behind their production.