John Edward Bruce
Encyclopedia
John Edward Bruce, also known as Bruce Grit or J. E. Bruce-Grit (February 22, 1856 – August 7, 1924), born a slave
in Maryland
, United States, became a journalist
, historian
, writer
, orator, civil rights activist and Pan-African nationalist. He founded newspapers in Washington, DC; and Norfolk, Virginia; as well as co-founding the Negro Society for Historical Research in New York.
, Maryland
, to enslaved parents Robert and Martha Allen (Clark) Bruce. When he was three years old, his father was sold to a slaveholder in Georgia and he and his mother fled to Washington, D.C. and later to Connecticut, where Bruce enrolled in an integrated school and received his first formal education. Traveling back to Washington later, he received a private education and attended Howard University
for a time.
At age 18, Bruce was an assistant at the New York Times.
Next, Bruce founded the Sunday Item in 1880, and the Republican in 1882, both in Norfolk
, Virginia
. He served as the associate editor and business manager of the Baltimore, Maryland
, Commonwealth in 1884.
Later that year, he returned to Washington, D.C. to establish the Grit. He earned income as a paid contributor to The Boston Transcript, The Albany Argus, Buffalo Express, Sunday Gazette, and Sunday Republic of Washington under his pen name of "Bruce Grit".
Bruce also became prominent on the lecture circuit, giving speeches that addressed lynching, the condition of southern blacks, and the weak American political system that failed to protect the rights of its black citizens. In 1890, he joined activist T. Thomas Fortune's Afro-American League, the first organized black civil rights group in the nation. He became the organization’s new president in 1898 when it reformed as the Afro-American Council.
Bruce was a member of the literary bureau of the Republican National Committee
in 1900.
By 1908, he had followed the Great Migration
to New York. There, in 1908, he established the Yonkers, New York
, Weekly Standard. Beginning in 1910, Bruce served as American Correspondent for the African Times and Orient Review of London
, England
, edited by Dusé Mohamed Ali
. In Yonkers, he also worked as a probation officer in 1910.
and Yonkers, Bruce became involved with the emerging community of intellectuals, including newly-arrived immigrants from the Caribbean
. In 1911, with Arthur Schomburg from Puerto Rico
, he founded the Negro Society for Historical Research, first based in Yonkers, to create an institute to support scholarly efforts. For the first time it brought together African, West Indian and Afro-American scholars. This later became the foundation for the Arthur Schomburg Center for Research, New York Public Library
, in Harlem.
Bruce also was a mentor to Hubert Henry Harrison, the young migrant from St. Croix who became influential in black socialism and black nationalism.
Bruce's belief in an independent national destiny for blacks in the United States led him in the period around 1919 to embrace Jamaican Marcus Garvey
's Pan-African nationalism. As a member of Garvey's Universal Negro Improvement Association (UNIA), Bruce wrote for the movement's Negro World
and the Daily Negro Times.
Despite his productivity, Bruce found that to sustain himself he had for most of his adult life to work for the Port of New York Authority. After he retired in 1922, he received a small pension until his death in New York City
's Bellevue Hospital two years later.
Bruce was given an impressive State Funeral at the UNIA Liberty Hall in New York City on August 10, 1924, and was buried in Oakland Cemetery in Yonkers. More than 5,000 people attended three services conducted that day honoring him.
Bruce was a Prince Hall
Mason, member of the Liberian Humane Order of African Redemption
and the African Society (London).
, Ohio
, on September 10, 1885, in Washington, DC.
Slavery
Slavery is a system under which people are treated as property to be bought and sold, and are forced to work. Slaves can be held against their will from the time of their capture, purchase or birth, and deprived of the right to leave, to refuse to work, or to demand compensation...
in Maryland
Maryland
Maryland is a U.S. state located in the Mid Atlantic region of the United States, bordering Virginia, West Virginia, and the District of Columbia to its south and west; Pennsylvania to its north; and Delaware to its east...
, United States, became a journalist
Journalist
A journalist collects and distributes news and other information. A journalist's work is referred to as journalism.A reporter is a type of journalist who researchs, writes, and reports on information to be presented in mass media, including print media , electronic media , and digital media A...
, historian
Historian
A historian is a person who studies and writes about the past and is regarded as an authority on it. Historians are concerned with the continuous, methodical narrative and research of past events as relating to the human race; as well as the study of all history in time. If the individual is...
, writer
Writer
A writer is a person who produces literature, such as novels, short stories, plays, screenplays, poetry, or other literary art. Skilled writers are able to use language to portray ideas and images....
, orator, civil rights activist and Pan-African nationalist. He founded newspapers in Washington, DC; and Norfolk, Virginia; as well as co-founding the Negro Society for Historical Research in New York.
Early life and education
Bruce was born in 1856 in PiscatawayPiscataway, Maryland
Piscataway is an unincorporated community in Prince George's County, Maryland, United States. It is one of the oldest European-colonized communities in the state...
, Maryland
Maryland
Maryland is a U.S. state located in the Mid Atlantic region of the United States, bordering Virginia, West Virginia, and the District of Columbia to its south and west; Pennsylvania to its north; and Delaware to its east...
, to enslaved parents Robert and Martha Allen (Clark) Bruce. When he was three years old, his father was sold to a slaveholder in Georgia and he and his mother fled to Washington, D.C. and later to Connecticut, where Bruce enrolled in an integrated school and received his first formal education. Traveling back to Washington later, he received a private education and attended Howard University
Howard University
Howard University is a federally chartered, non-profit, private, coeducational, nonsectarian, historically black university located in Washington, D.C., United States...
for a time.
At age 18, Bruce was an assistant at the New York Times.
Career
In Washington, DC, in 1879, Bruce established the Argus Weekly. It was a time of flourishing projects in the black community.Next, Bruce founded the Sunday Item in 1880, and the Republican in 1882, both in Norfolk
Norfolk, Virginia
Norfolk is an independent city in the Commonwealth of Virginia in the United States. With a population of 242,803 as of the 2010 Census, it is Virginia's second-largest city behind neighboring Virginia Beach....
, Virginia
Virginia
The Commonwealth of Virginia , is a U.S. state on the Atlantic Coast of the Southern United States. Virginia is nicknamed the "Old Dominion" and sometimes the "Mother of Presidents" after the eight U.S. presidents born there...
. He served as the associate editor and business manager of the Baltimore, Maryland
Maryland
Maryland is a U.S. state located in the Mid Atlantic region of the United States, bordering Virginia, West Virginia, and the District of Columbia to its south and west; Pennsylvania to its north; and Delaware to its east...
, Commonwealth in 1884.
Later that year, he returned to Washington, D.C. to establish the Grit. He earned income as a paid contributor to The Boston Transcript, The Albany Argus, Buffalo Express, Sunday Gazette, and Sunday Republic of Washington under his pen name of "Bruce Grit".
Bruce also became prominent on the lecture circuit, giving speeches that addressed lynching, the condition of southern blacks, and the weak American political system that failed to protect the rights of its black citizens. In 1890, he joined activist T. Thomas Fortune's Afro-American League, the first organized black civil rights group in the nation. He became the organization’s new president in 1898 when it reformed as the Afro-American Council.
Bruce was a member of the literary bureau of the Republican National Committee
Republican National Committee
The Republican National Committee is an American political committee that provides national leadership for the Republican Party of the United States. It is responsible for developing and promoting the Republican political platform, as well as coordinating fundraising and election strategy. It is...
in 1900.
By 1908, he had followed the Great Migration
Great Migration (African American)
The Great Migration was the movement of 6 million blacks out of the Southern United States to the Northeast, Midwest, and West from 1910 to 1970. Some historians differentiate between a Great Migration , numbering about 1.6 million migrants, and a Second Great Migration , in which 5 million or more...
to New York. There, in 1908, he established the Yonkers, New York
Yonkers, New York
Yonkers is the fourth most populous city in the state of New York , and the most populous city in Westchester County, with a population of 195,976...
, Weekly Standard. Beginning in 1910, Bruce served as American Correspondent for the African Times and Orient Review of London
London
London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...
, England
England
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...
, edited by Dusé Mohamed Ali
Dusé Mohamed Ali
Dusé Mohamed Ali , , was an African nationalist. He was also an actor, historian, journalist, editor, lecturer, traveller, publisher, a founder of the Comet Press Ltd. and The Comet newspaper .-Early life:He was born in Alexandria, Egypt...
. In Yonkers, he also worked as a probation officer in 1910.
Position on armed self-defense
During the American Reconstruction era and after, many black leaders espoused nonviolent strategies for social change. Appalled at the rise of lynchings and imposition of legal segregation, Bruce supported armed self-defense against racist attacks. He is quoted as saying: "The Man who will not fight for the protection of his wife and children...is a coward and deserves to be ill treated. The man who takes his life in his hand and stands up for what he knows to be right will always command the respect of his enemy." He supported "organized resistance to organized resistance."Later career
In HarlemHarlem
Harlem is a neighborhood in the New York City borough of Manhattan, which since the 1920s has been a major African-American residential, cultural and business center. Originally a Dutch village, formally organized in 1658, it is named after the city of Haarlem in the Netherlands...
and Yonkers, Bruce became involved with the emerging community of intellectuals, including newly-arrived immigrants from the Caribbean
Caribbean
The Caribbean is a crescent-shaped group of islands more than 2,000 miles long separating the Gulf of Mexico and the Caribbean Sea, to the west and south, from the Atlantic Ocean, to the east and north...
. In 1911, with Arthur Schomburg from Puerto Rico
Puerto Rico
Puerto Rico , officially the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico , is an unincorporated territory of the United States, located in the northeastern Caribbean, east of the Dominican Republic and west of both the United States Virgin Islands and the British Virgin Islands.Puerto Rico comprises an...
, he founded the Negro Society for Historical Research, first based in Yonkers, to create an institute to support scholarly efforts. For the first time it brought together African, West Indian and Afro-American scholars. This later became the foundation for the Arthur Schomburg Center for Research, New York Public Library
New York Public Library
The New York Public Library is the largest public library in North America and is one of the United States' most significant research libraries...
, in Harlem.
Bruce also was a mentor to Hubert Henry Harrison, the young migrant from St. Croix who became influential in black socialism and black nationalism.
Bruce's belief in an independent national destiny for blacks in the United States led him in the period around 1919 to embrace Jamaican Marcus Garvey
Marcus Garvey
Marcus Mosiah Garvey, Jr., ONH was a Jamaican publisher, journalist, entrepreneur, and orator who was a staunch proponent of the Black Nationalism and Pan-Africanism movements, to which end he founded the Universal Negro Improvement Association and African Communities League...
's Pan-African nationalism. As a member of Garvey's Universal Negro Improvement Association (UNIA), Bruce wrote for the movement's Negro World
Negro World
Negro World was a weekly newspaper, established in January 1918 in New York City, which served as the voice of the Universal Negro Improvement Association and African Communities League, an organization founded by Marcus Garvey in 1914...
and the Daily Negro Times.
Despite his productivity, Bruce found that to sustain himself he had for most of his adult life to work for the Port of New York Authority. After he retired in 1922, he received a small pension until his death in New York City
New York City
New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...
's Bellevue Hospital two years later.
Bruce was given an impressive State Funeral at the UNIA Liberty Hall in New York City on August 10, 1924, and was buried in Oakland Cemetery in Yonkers. More than 5,000 people attended three services conducted that day honoring him.
Bruce was a Prince Hall
Prince Hall
Prince Hall , was a tireless abolitionist and a leader of the free black community in Boston. Hall tried to gain New England’s enslaved and free blacks a place in some of the most crucial spheres of society, Freemasonry, education and the military...
Mason, member of the Liberian Humane Order of African Redemption
Liberian Humane Order of African Redemption
Liberian Humane Order of African Redemption was founded on January 13, 1879 during the presidency of Anthony W. Gardiner. It is awarded for humanitarian work in Liberia, for acts supporting and assisting the Liberian nation and to individuals who have played a prominent role in the emancipation of...
and the African Society (London).
Marriage and family
He married Florence A. Bishop of ClevelandCleveland, Ohio
Cleveland is a city in the U.S. state of Ohio and is the county seat of Cuyahoga County, the most populous county in the state. The city is located in northeastern Ohio on the southern shore of Lake Erie, approximately west of the Pennsylvania border...
, Ohio
Ohio
Ohio is a Midwestern state in the United States. The 34th largest state by area in the U.S.,it is the 7th‑most populous with over 11.5 million residents, containing several major American cities and seven metropolitan areas with populations of 500,000 or more.The state's capital is Columbus...
, on September 10, 1885, in Washington, DC.
Books
- Bruce Grit: The Black Nationalist Writings of John Edward Bruce, Seraile, William (2002) ISBN 1572332107
- Concentration of Energy: Bruce Uses Plain Language in Emphasizing the Power of Organization, 1899
- Eminent Negroes, 1910 (children's book);
- The Blood Red Record (a history of lynching in the South), 1905
- The Blot of the Scutcheon
- The Nation, the Law, the Citizen: Their Relation Each to the Other;
- The Awakening of Hezekiah Jones: A Story Dealing With Some Of The Problems Affecting The Political Rewards Due The Negro 1916. ISBN 0548590362; ISBN 978-0548590362 Full Text
- No Heaven for the Black Man
- The Black Sleuth, 2002 (first published in serial form in 1907-1909)
- Prince Hall, the Pioneer of Negro Masonry. Proofs of the Legitimacy of Prince Hall Masonry. New York: Hunt Printing Company, 1921.
- The Selected Writings of John Edward Bruce: Militant Black Journalist, Gilbert, Peter ed. (1971)
External links
- The Official UNIA-ACL Website
- The Global African Community
- John Edward Bruce at Find A GraveFind A GraveFind a Grave is a commercial website providing free access and input to an online database of cemetery records. It was founded in 1998 as a DBA and incorporated in 2000.-History:...