Joel Augustus Rogers

Jamaican American historian

Joel Augustus Rogers (September 6, 1880 – March 26, 1966) was a Jamaican American author, journalist, and amateur historian who focused on the history of Africa; as well as the African diaspora. After settling in the United States in 1906, he lived in Chicago and then New York City. He became interested in the history of African Americans in the United States. His research spanned the academic fields of history, sociology and anthropology. He challenged prevailing ideas about scientific racism and the social construction of race, demonstrated the connections between civilizations, and traced achievements of ethnic Africans, including some with mixed European ancestry. He was one of the earliest popularizers of African and African American history in the 20th century. His book World's Great Men of Color was recognized by John Henrik Clarke as being his greatest achievement.

Joel Augustus Rogers was born September 6, 1880, in Negril, Jamaica. One of eleven children, he was the son of mixed race parents who were a minister and schoolteacher. His parents could afford to give Rogers and his ten siblings only a rudimentary education, but stressed the importance of learning. Rogers claimed to have had a "good basic education". Rogers emigrated from Jamaica to the United States in 1906, living in Chicago until 1921 and then settling in Harlem, New York. He became a naturalized citizen in 1916 and lived in New York most of his life. He was there during the Harlem Renaissance, a flowering of African American artistic and intellectual life in numerous fields. He became a close personal friend of Hubert Harrison, an intellectual and activist based in Harlem. While living in Chicago in the 1920s, Rogers worked as a Pullman porter and as a reporter for the Chicago Enterprise. His job of Pullman porter allowed him to travel and observe a wide range of people. Through this travel, he was able to feed his appetite for knowledge, by using various libraries in the cities which he visited. He self published the results of his research in several books.

Rogers died on March 26, 1966, in New York City. He was survived by his wife, Helga M. Rogers.

Rogers' work was concerned with "the Great Black Man" theory of history. This theory presented history, specifically black history, as a mural of achievements by prominent black people. He devoted a significant amount of his professional life to unearthing facts about people of African ancestry, intending these findings to be a refutation of contemporary racist beliefs about the inferiority of blacks. Books such as 100 Amazing Facts about the Negro, Sex and Race, and World's Great Men of Color described remarkable black people throughout the ages and cited significant achievements of black people. He falsely asserted that several historical figures previously classified or assumed to be "white" (European), including Aesop, Cleopatra, and Hannibal, were "black". This was decades before research by later Afrocentric historians (overwhelmingly rejected by specialist consensus) tried to support some of his work. Rogers commented on the partial black ancestry of some prominent Europeans, including Alexander Pushkin and Alexandre Dumas, père. Similarly, Rogers claimed that several portraits of Charlotte of Mecklenburg Strelitz, a direct ancestor of the British royal family, depicting her with "broad nostrils and heavy lips" indicated a "Negroid strain." Although popular among the general public, these claims are largely denounced by most scholars. Rogers' theories about race, sex and color can be found in his books Nature Knows No Color Line, World's Great Men of Color. His pamphlet Five Negro Presidents provided what he said was evidence that some 19th and 20th century presidents of the United States had partially black ancestry. His research in this book inspired Auset Bakhufu's book Six Black Presidents: Black Blood: White Masks USA (1993). Neither of these has gained consensus. Scholar Henry Louis Gates, Jr., said that Rogers' pamphlet would "get the "Black History Wishful Thinking Prize," if one existed. Rogers surmised that ethnic differences arose from sociological factors. He believed that such differences between groups were often attributed primarily to "physical" differences such as race. He deals with the themes of race and sex In Sex and Race and also in Nature Knows No Color Line. Rogers' research in these works was directed to examining migration and movement of populations, and evidence for intermarriage and interracial unions throughout human history. He contended that it resulted in a black "strain" in Europe and the Americas. In Nature Knows No Color Line, Rogers examined the origins of racial hierarchy and the color problem. He stated that the origins of the race problem had never been adequately examined or discussed. He believed that color prejudice generally evolved from issues of domination and power between two physiologically different groups. He thought that color prejudice was used as a rationale for domination, subjugation and warfare. Societies developed myths and prejudices in order to pursue their own interests at the expense of other groups. He was trying to show that there is nothing innate about color prejudice; that there is no natural distaste for darker skin by lighter skinned people; and that there is no natural aversion for lighter skin by darker skinned people. Sex and Race describes Rogers' theory regarding the origin of the races themselves, claiming that original humans were light skinned, though similar to black Africans. One strain became the modern "white" race, the other in Africa becoming black Africans. All other races are their descendants to greater or lesser degrees. None is regarded as superior to any other. Within these works, Rogers questioned the concept of race, the origins of racial differentiation, and the root of the "color problem". Rogers felt that the "color problem" was that race was used as social, political and economic determining factors.

Rogers was a meticulous researcher, astute scholar and concise writer. He traveled tirelessly on his quest for knowledge, which often took him directly to the source. While traveling in Europe, he frequented libraries, museums, and castles, finding sources that helped him document African ancestry and history. He challenged the biased viewpoint of Eurocentric historians and anthropologists. Rogers gathered what he called "the bran of history". The bran of history was the uncollected, unexamined history of the world, and his interest was the history of black people. Rogers intended that the neglected parts of history would become part of the mainstream body of Western history. He saw African inclusion in world historical discourses as helping to bridge racial divides. His scholarship was meant to shed light on hitherto unexamined areas of Africana history, as well as combat the stereotypes of inferiority that were attributed to black people. Rogers challenged that the color of skin did not determine intellectual genius, and that Africans had contributed more to the world than was previously acknowledged. He publicized the great black civilizations that had flourished in Africa during antiquity. He devoted his scholarship to vindicating a place for African people within Western history. According to Rogers, many ancient African civilizations had been primal molders of Western civilization and culture. With these discoveries, Rogers was also highlighting the absurdity of racial divisions. His belief in one race – humanity – precluded the idea of several different ethnic races. In this, he was a humanist. He used history as a tool to bolster his ideas about humanism, and his scholarship to prove his underlying humanistic thesis: that people were one large family without racial boundaries. Rogers was self financed, self educated, and self published.

Rogers was a member of professional associations including the Paris Society of Anthropology, the American Geographical Society, the American Association for the Advancement of Science, and the Academy of Political Science.