John Edward Bruce: Ex-Slave, Bibliophile, Historian, and Journalist

John Edward Bruce (1856-1924), a former slave, was a noted bibliophile, historian, and journalist. In 1911, he co-founded the Negro Society for Historical Research with his friend and colleague Arthur Schomburg. Mr. Bruce attended Howard University, was a member of the Republican National Committee’s Literary Bureau, the Men’s Sunday Club, the Bethel Literary and Historical Association, the American Negro Academy, and once worked for The New York Times. In addition, he was a member of Marcus Garvey’s Universal Negro Improvement Association (UNIA), and founded newspapers such as The Argus Weekly (Washington, D.C.), The Sunday Item (Norfolk, Va.), The Republican (Norfolk, Va.), The Grit (Washington, D.C.), and The Weekly Standard (Yonkers, N.Y.). He was known in the literary world as “Bruce Grit” and wrote for such papers as The African Times and Orient Review, The Negro World, The Albany Argus, and The Buffalo Express. John Edward Bruce passed away in 1924 and is buried in Oakland Cemetery in Yonkers, New York.

See related posts:  Arthur Alfonso Schomburg, 1874-1938: Noted Bibliophile, Collector, Curator, and Scholar and The Bethel Literary and Historical Association.

Sources: Crowder, Ralph L. John Edward Bruce: Politician, Journalist, and Self-Trained Historian of the African Diaspora. New York: New York UP, 2004. Print. ; Seraile, William. Bruce Grit: The Black Nationalist Writings of John Edward Bruce. Knoxville: U of Tennessee P, 2003. Print. ; Sinnette, Elinor D. V. Arthur Alfonso Schomburg, Black Bibliophile & Collector: A Biography. New York : New York Public Library, 1989. 28-30, 36-37, 61, 73-74, 206. Print. ; Black Bibliophiles and Collectors: Preservers of Black History. Ed. Elinor D. V. Sinnette, W. Paul Coates, and Thomas C. Battle. Washington, D.C.: Howard UP, 1990. 10, 33-34, 38-39, 42, 47, 52, 69. Print. ; Anderson, Sarah A. "'The Place to Go': The 135th Street Branch Library and the Harlem Renaissance." Library Quarterly 73.4 (2003): 414. Print.

             

                                                                                                                                             

The Bethel Historical and Literary Association

The Bethel Historical and Literary Association, a literary society for African Americans, was founded in 1881 by Daniel A. Payne in Washington, D.C. The society met at Bethal Hall, a building owned by the Metropolitan A.M.E. Church. Members of the Bethel Historical and Literary Association met to discuss literature and issues of  interest and importance to African Americans. Meetings often included guest lecturers and speakers. Notable speakers included:

Frederick Douglas

Ida B. Wells Barnett

John Mercer Langston

Archibald H. Grimke

Richard Greener

Charles W. Chesnutt

John W. Cromwell

Mary Church Terrell


Note: Mary Church Terrell, an 1884 graduate of Oberlin College and a professor at Wilberforce College (now Wilberforce University), became the society's first female president in 1892.

See related posts: John Edward Bruce: Ex-Slave, Bibliophile, Historian, and Journalist and Arthur Alfonso-Schomburg, 1874-1938: Noted Bibliophile, Collector, Curator, and Scholar.

Sources: McHenry, Elizabeth. Forgotten Readers: Recovering the Lost History of African American Literary Societies. Durham: Duke U P, 2002. 149-165. Print. ; Albritton, Rosie L. "The Founding & Prevelance of African-American Social Libraries & Historical Societies, 1828-1918." Untold Stories: Civil Rights, Libraries, and Black Librarianship. Ed. John Mark Tucker. Champaign: U of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, 1998. 35. Print. ; Sinnette, Elinor D.V. Arthur Alfonso Schomburg, Black Bibliophile & Collector: A Biography. New York: New York Public Library, 1989. 51. Print. ; "Emancipation Meetings." Crisis 5.5 (Mar. 1913): 243-244. Print. ; Des Jardines, Julie. Women and the Historical Enterprise of America: Gender, Race, and the Politics of Memory, 1880-1945. Chapel Hill, NC: U of North Carolina, 2003. 120-121. Print.