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Journalist and activist Jesse Max Barber is born.
1878 (Mar 13)
Jesse Barber was born in Blackstock, South Carolina, to Jesse Max and Susan Barber, both formerly enslaved. Barber worked his way through school, earning a bachelor's degree from Virginia Union University in Richmond. Following graduation, he moved to Atlanta to help start a new publication, "The Voice of the Negro". Barber worked his way up from managing editor to principal editor of the publication, which became a respected and popular magazine. As editor, Barber was an outspoken advocate of the early Civil Rights Movement. In 1905, he was one of twenty-nine who answered William Edward Burghardt Du Bois's call to form the Niagara Movement, a radical group that was the predecessor of the National Association for Advancement of Colored People(NAACP). When The Voice folded in 1907, Barber returned to school, earning a degree in dentistry. He began a professional practice in Philadelphia in 1912. Barber worked with the newly formed NAACP, serving as president of its Philadelphia branch and as a member of its national board of directors for several years. Barber's final public activity was the founding of the John Brown Memorial Association, a group formed to raise funds for a statue honoring the famed abolitionist. The statue was erected in 1935 in North Elba, New York. Barber continued his dental practice until his death in Philadelphia in September 1949.
References:
- • Hornsby, Alton. Chronology of African-American History: Significant Events and People from 1619 to the Present. Detroit: Gale Research, 1995.