202 / 326
287
●
(LITERATURE AND POETRY—
PERIODICALS.)
The Voice of the Negro.
Volume 1, Number 1—Volume 1, Number
12, the entire first year. 4to’s, all original
covers present, bound in modern black
cloth with black morocco label on the
spine, lettered in gilt. First issue cover with
the fore-edge with japan paper restoration;
otherwise all issues in excellent condition.
Atlanta: J.L. Nichols and Co. 1904
[1,500/2,500]
THE ENTIRE FIRST YEAR OF THIS IMPOR
-
TANT PERIODICAL
,
edited by Max Barber
(1878-1949), with occasional help from Pauline
Hopkins and Kelly Miller. The Voice was the
most important black periodical in the country
with a circulation of 15,000 by 1906. The main
vehicle for political and social conversation in the
black community, it was published in Atlanta
until 1906. Max Barber ran afoul of the city
“fathers” and local white politicians after he
wrote a scathing article on the 1906 Atlanta
Riot that had taken place in the summer. Barber
was threatened by the Klan and fled for his life.
He went to Chicago where he tried to keep the
Voice afloat, but his radicalism had angered Booker T. Washington and other “don’t rock the boat”
conservative minded blacks; and the Voice was silenced in 1907. Washington, also made it difficult for
Barber to find work. Max Barber, one of the major figures of the Niagara Movement, wound up going
to dental school in Philadelphia in order to survive.
288