The Journal of African American History

The Journal of African American History
Title	The Journal of African American History
Discipline	African American history
Former names	Journal of Negro History
Abbreviation	JAAH
Publisher	University of Chicago Press
Country	United States
Frequency	Quarterly
History	1916–present

Contents

The Journal of African American History is a peer-reviewed academic journal publishing historical research on the experiences, institutions, and cultural production of African Americans and the African diaspora. Founded in 1916 as the Journal of Negro History by Carter G. Woodson, it has published scholarship on figures, movements, and events ranging from Frederick Douglass and Harriet Tubman to Brown v. Board of Education and the Great Migration. The journal is associated with the Association for the Study of African American Life and History and is issued by the University of Chicago Press.

History

Established in 1916 by Carter G. Woodson alongside the founding of the Association for the Study of African American Life and History, the journal aimed to counter prevailing narratives promoted by figures such as Woodrow Wilson and institutions like the Tuskegee Institute's critics by foregrounding African American agency. Early issues featured work on antebellum leaders including Frederick Douglass, Sojourner Truth, and Henry Highland Garnet and studied events such as the Nat Turner Rebellion and the aftermath of the Emancipation Proclamation. During the interwar years contributors included scholars influenced by the Harlem Renaissance such as Alain Locke and documents relating to the Great Migration, the Chicago Race Riot of 1919, and legal struggles culminating in Plessy v. Ferguson. Mid‑20th century editors navigated scholarship connected to W. E. B. Du Bois, the NAACP, and cases like Brown v. Board of Education, while later decades saw work on the Black Power movement, biographies of Malcolm X and Martin Luther King Jr., and analyses of cultural figures such as James Baldwin, Toni Morrison, and Richard Wright.

The journal publishes articles, book reviews, documentary evidence, and historiographical essays covering a wide array of subjects: biographies of leaders like Frederick Douglass, Booker T. Washington, Ida B. Wells-Barnett, and Marcus Garvey; institutional histories of the African Methodist Episcopal Church, Howard University, Tuskegee Institute, and Historically Black Colleges and Universities; legal and constitutional histories involving Dred Scott v. Sandford, Brown v. Board of Education, and legislative responses like the Civil Rights Act of 1964; labor and economic studies tied to events such as the Pullman Strike and migrations to cities including Harlem, Chicago, and Los Angeles; cultural histories of music and literature centering on Duke Ellington, Louis Armstrong, Muddy Waters, Zora Neale Hurston, and Langston Hughes; and transnational perspectives linking the United States to Haiti, Nigeria, Ghana, Cuba, and movements such as Pan-Africanism. The journal also addresses lesser-known figures and episodes, including activists like Ida B. Wells's contemporaries, artists connected to the Harlem Renaissance, and community organizations in locales from New Orleans to Detroit.

Founded by Carter G. Woodson, the journal's lineage of editors has included prominent historians and public intellectuals associated with institutions such as Howard University, Brown University, Rutgers University, Columbia University, and the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture. The current editorial office is housed with association ties to the Association for the Study of African American Life and History and the journal is published quarterly by the University of Chicago Press. It accepts submissions from scholars working on periods from early modern African diasporic connections involving Atlantic slave trade ports to contemporary analyses of figures like Barack Obama and events such as the Black Lives Matter movement. The journal maintains peer review and editorial boards comprising historians affiliated with universities including Yale University, Princeton University, University of Michigan, and University of California, Los Angeles.

Over its history the journal has published landmark studies and primary documents addressing topics such as slave narratives by individuals like Olaudah Equiano and emancipatory writings connected to Frederick Douglass; groundbreaking archival research on Reconstruction-era actors including Hiram Revels and Blanche K. Bruce; legal-historical analyses of cases such as Dred Scott v. Sandford and Plessy v. Ferguson; investigations into grassroots organizing tied to the NAACP, Southern Christian Leadership Conference, and Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee; and cultural criticism on writers and musicians including Zora Neale Hurston, Langston Hughes, Nina Simone, and Marian Anderson. The journal has also brought attention to lesser-known individuals and events such as black abolitionists active in Boston, black soldiers in the Civil War like those in the 54th Massachusetts Infantry Regiment, labor organizers in the Great Migration era, and diasporic connections between the United States and Caribbean movements including Marcus Garvey's Universal Negro Improvement Association.

The journal is indexed in major bibliographic and citation services commonly used by historians and scholars in related fields, including databases maintained by organizations such as ProQuest, JSTOR, and indexing services used by libraries at institutions like Harvard University, University of Chicago, and Columbia University. It appears in subject aggregations alongside titles covering studies of figures and events such as W. E. B. Du Bois, Frederick Douglass, Brown v. Board of Education, and the Harlem Renaissance, and is included in library catalogs and discovery services managed by entities like the Library of Congress and the HathiTrust Digital Library.

The journal has played a formative role in legitimizing African American studies and influencing curricula at universities including Howard University, Yale University, Princeton University, University of Michigan, and Columbia University. Scholarship first published in its pages has informed biographies of leaders such as Martin Luther King Jr. and Malcolm X, court historians of decisions like Brown v. Board of Education, and cultural histories of movements including the Harlem Renaissance and the Black Power movement. Reviews and citations in works by historians affiliated with institutions such as Brown University, Rutgers University, and the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture reflect its continuing relevance to studies of figures and events from Sojourner Truth to contemporary debates involving Barack Obama and Black Lives Matter.