Negro Digest: A Magazine of Negro Comment

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Title

Negro Digest: A Magazine of Negro Comment

Coverage

Chicago

Publisher

Negro Digest Publishing Co.

Date

November 1942–October 1943

Subject

Volume 1, numbers 1–12

Description

In 1942, John Harold Johnson borrowed $500 to start Negro Digest with the intention of creating the Black community’s alternative to Reader’s Digest, but with an important difference: it “spoke to an audience that was angry, disillusioned and disappointed. You couldn’t digest the world without digesting the frustration and anger.” Circulation increased dramatically after a contribution by First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt to a series entitled “If I Were a Negro.”