Joel Augustus Rogers

J. A. Rogers

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J. A. Rogers
Joel Augustus Rogers
(1883 to 1966)

Joel Augustus Rogers was born September 6, 1883 at Negril, Jamaica. Very little is known about his early schooling. The historian is said to have had a "good basic education" but lacked higher formal education.

J.A. Rogers immigrated to the United States in 1906 and became a naturalized citizen in 1917. Despite his light complexion and mulatto background, Rogers bitterly discovered that Black people were all treated the same, no matter the complexion. Rogers, however, rejected the dogma of white superiority, even as a child. In a class and color conscious Jamaica, the young Rogers observed, "I had noticed that some of my schoolmates were unmixed blacks and were, some of them, more brilliant than some of the white ones." Rogers grew up around Blacks who were physicians and lawyers--graduates of "the best English and Scottish Universities." This realization that the doctrine of white superiority was contradicted by the talent and expertise of Black intellect inspired Rogers to begin his research into the Black experience.

J.A. Rogers published his first book, the 87 page "From Superman to Man" in 1917. At the time he wrote the book, he was working as a Pullman porter out of Chicago. Rogers had gone to Chicago to Study art. Rogers was one of the first and few African historians to use art extensively in helping to validate the achievements of African people.

J.A. Rogers' search for truth led him to examine the African blood lines of Europeans and Americans. His signal work, "Nature Knows No Color-Line" and the three-volume set, "Sex and Race" destroyed the myth of Aryan race purity.

Rogers' other historical focus was on producing biographical portraits of prominent African personages. In 1931, he published "The World's Greatest Men of African Descent" and in 1947, published "The World's Great Men of Color 3000 B.C. to 1946 A.D." Joel Augustus Rogers died on his birthday, September 6, 1966.

—bio. written by by Runoko Rashidi

100 Amazing Facts about the Negro with Complete Proof
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ISBN: 0960229477
Format: Paperback, 71pp
Pub. Date: January 1989 (originally published in 1934)
Publisher: Helga Rogers
Edition Description: REVISED

Written in the 1940's and published in 1957.

Example:
BLACK FACT:
White American slave-holders used to induce white women to marry Negro slaves in order to hold the women slaves for life.
PROOF:
In Sept. 1664, Maryland passed a law that any white woman who married a 'Negro' should serve the master of such slave "for life." Slave-holders took advantage of this law to induce the white women, some of whom were recent arrivals, to marry the "Negroes." MacCormac says, "Instead of preventing such marriages this law enabled avaricious and unprincipled masters to convert many of their (white) servants into slaves." In 1681, the Legislature was forced to issue the following law: "Divers freeborn English or white women sometimes by the instigation, procurement, and connivance of their master.... and always to the satisfaction of their lascivious and lustful desires....do intermarry with 'Negroes' and other slaves, be it enacted that if any master....having any freeborn English or white woman servant in their possession or property, shall by any instigation, procurement, knowledge, permission or contrivance," cause her to marry a slave she should be free at once and the master should pay a fine of "10,000 lbs. of tobacco." (Archives of Maryland, Vol. I, pp. 433-34; and Vol. III, pp. 203-04, also Johns Hopkins University Studies in Hist. & Pol. Science, No. 3 & 4.) What is true of Maryland was true of other states.

Sex and Race: A History of White, Negro, and Indian Miscegenation in the Two Americas Vol, 2
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ISBN: 0960229418
Format: Hardcover, 304pp
Pub. Date: January 1989
Publisher: Helga Rogers

Sex and Race was published in three volumes from 1941 to 1944. The first volume focuses on antiquity and is arguably the most fundamental of the three. As to ancient Asia, for example, Rogers devoted several pages of Sex and Race to the Black presence in early Japan. In the process he cites the studies of a number of accomplished scholars and anthropologists, raising the question "were the first Japanese Negroes?"

Other chapters are devoted to "The Negro in Ancient Greece," "Negroes in Ancient Rome and Carthage" and "Were the Jews Originally Negroes?" The appendices of Sex and Race are equally fascinating, focusing on "Black Gods and Messiahs" and the "History of the Black Madonnas." In Volume Two of Sex and Race Rogers examines "racism and race-mixing in the New World," while Volume Three of Sex and Race seeks to define the concept of race itself. Like most of his works, all three volumes of Sex and Race are lavishly illustrated. –Runoko Rashidi

Sex and Race: The Old World, Vol. 1
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ISBN: 096022940X
Format: Hardcover, 411pp
Pub. Date: December 1990
Publisher: Helga Rogers
Sex and Race: Why White and Black Do Mate, Vol. 3
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ISBN: 0960229426
Format: Hardcover, 359pp
Pub. Date: November 1990
Publisher: Helga Rogers

From "Superman" to Man
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by Joel Augustus Rogers

ISBN: 0960229442
Format: Hardcover, 132pp
Pub. Date: January 1989
Publisher: Helga Rogers

This short book follows a prolonged conversation on skin color prejudice between a white senator from the South and his widely traveled, well-read Black porter. Rogers himself worked as a Chicago porter and was largely self-educated. Toward the end of the book, Dixon, the porter, is asked if Christianity has not been a solace to mistreated Black people. Dixon echoes the feelings of his creator:

To enslave a man, then dope him to make him content! Do you call THAT a solace? . . . The honest fact is that the greatest hindrance to the progress of the Negro is that same dope that was shot into him during slavery. . . . The slogan of the Negro devotee is: Take the world but give me Jesus, and the white man strikes an eager bargain with him. . . . Another fact — there are far too many Negro preachers. Religion is the most fruitful medium for exploiting this already exploited group. As I said, the majority of the sharpers, who among the whites would go into other fields, go, in this case, to the ministry.

—John Ragland (http://www.atheists.org/Atheism/roots/ham)

Africa's Gift to America: The Afro-American in the Making and Saving of the United States : With New Supplement, Africa and Its Potentialities
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ISBN: 0960229469
Format: Hardcover, 272pp
Pub. Date: January 1989
Publisher: Helga Rogers
Edition Description: REVISED

Africa's Gift to America is another classic which should be added to the library of every serious student of African American history. He lays out in clear and fascinating detail the role of the African American from the founding of the nation in the 17th century through the Revolutionary War period to the Civil War and early Post-Civil War era. His use of first hand documents such as newspapers, magazines, political cartoons, journals, and his extensive citation to then-contemporary historical works is masterfully woven to create a rich historical tapestry. His mentioning of obscure historical facts such as the Corwin Amendment, the rejected original form of the 13th Amendment that would have preserved rather than abolished slavery, as well as the role of slave Jo Anderson in creating the McCormick reaper, are but a small sampling of the treasures within this invaluable volume.

Related links

Hitler and the Negro by J. A. Rodgers
http://www.nathanielturner.com/hitlerandnegro.htm