BLACK OWNED AND OPERATED
LITTLE MAGAZINES
BY YEAR STARTED

Many of the magazines titles can be clicked on. In most cases, I have tried to link to online digital collections, or at least partial digital collections that are freely available to the public. In some cases I have had to link to purchasable collections where I haven't been able to find free online collections, and in other cases to the University website where the journals are kept physically on-site. In some cases, I have simply linked to sites where front covers can be viewed, in lieu of any better open access information. I am open to any and all suggestions from researchers with better links to collections or links to collections I have not been able to find.
 

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LITTLE MAGAZINE YEAR STARTED YEAR ENDED YEARS EXTANT TYPE CLASSIFICATION ASSOCIATED EDITORS/AUTHORS
Anglo-African Magazine 1859 1865 6 Scholarly Journal Scholarly Journal Martin Delany
Colored American Magazine 1900 1909 9 Uplift Black Popular Pauline Hopkins (editor) / Booker T. Washington (strongman)
McGirt's Magazine 1903 1907 4 Uplift Black Popular
Voice of the Negro 1904 1907 3 Uplift Black Popular Jesse Max Barber
Alexander's Magazine 1905 1909 4 Uplift Black Popular
Moon Illustrated Weekly 1905 1906 1 Harlem Renaissance Harlem Renaissance W.E.B. Du Bois
Horizon: A Journal of the Color Line 1907 1910 3 Harlem Renaissance Harlem Renaissance W.E.B. Du Bois
The Crisis 1910 Ongoing 108+ House Organ House Organ NAACP / W.E.B. Du Bois
Champion 1916 1917 1 Fine Arts Black Popular Fenton Johnson (editor)
New Era 1916 1916 0 Uplift Black Popular Pauline Hopkins (editor)
Half-Century Magazine 1916 1925 9 Women's Magazine Black Popular
Stylus 1916 1947 31 College Review College Review Howard University / Alain Locke
Messenger 1917 1928 11 Socialist Socialist A. Philip Randolph, Chandler Owen
The Competitor 1920 1921 1 Uplift Black Popular
Opportunity 1923 1949 26 Harlem Renaissance Harlem Renaissance Charles S. Johnson
Reflexus 1925 1925 0 Black Popular Journal Black Popular Richard L. Jones
Spokesman 1925 1926 1 Uplift Black Popular
Survey Graphic 1925 1925 0 Literary Arts (Sepcial Issue) Literary Arts (Special Issue) Alain Locke (Guest editor)
American Life Magazine 1926 1928 2 Black Popular Journal Black Popular
The Negro American Magazine 1926 1929 3 Black Popular Journal Black Popular
Fire!! 1926 1926 0 Harlem Renaissance Harlem Renaissance Wallace Thurman (editor), Langston Hughes, Zora Neale Hurston
Palms 1926 1926 0 Literary Arts (Special Issue) Literary Arts (Special Issue) Countee Cullen (Guest editor)
Black Opals 1927 1928 1 Harlem Renaissance Harlem Renaissance Arthur Fauset (editor)
Caroline Magazine 1927 1929 2 Harlem Renaissance Harlem Renaissance Eulalie Spence
Harlem: A Forum of Negro Life 1928 1928 0 Harlem Renaissance Harlem Renaissance Wallace Thurman (editor)
Saturday Evening Quill 1928 1930 2 Harlem Renaissance Harlem Renaissance Boston Quill Club, Eugene Gordon
Bronzeman 1929 1933 4 Pulp Black Popular
Abbott's Monthly 1930 1933 3 Pulp Black Popular Himes, Hughes, Wright
Challenge and New Challenge 1934 1937 3 Socialist Socialist Dorothy West, Richard Wright
Metropolitan 1935 1935 0 Harlem Renaissance Harlem Renaissance Jessie Fauset, Rudolph Fisher
Race 1935 1936 1 Scholarly Journal Scholarly Journal Langston Hughes
Arts Quarterly 1937 1939 2 Fine Arts Magazine Black Popular Dillard University
African 1938 1938 0 House Organ House Organ Claude McKay (editor), Counteen Cullen (co-editor)
Negro World Digest 1940 1940 0 Black Popular Journal Black Popular Zora Neale Hurston, Sterling Brown, Ralph Ellison
Phylon 1940 Ongoing 78+ Scholarly Journal Scholarly Journal Atlanta University, W.E.B. Du Bois
Negro Digest (later Black World) 1942 1970 28 Black Popular (later Black Arts) Black Popular (later Black Arts) John H. Johnson (later Hoyt Fuller)
Negro Quarterly 1942 1944 2 Socialist Socialist
Angerlo Herndon
Negro Story 1944 1946 2 Black Popular Journal Black Popular Fern Gayden, Ralph Ellison, Langston Hughes
Midwest Journal: A Magazine of Research and Creative Writing 1948 1956 8 College Review Scholarly Journal Langston Hughes, Melvin Tolson
Harlem Quarterly 1949 1950 1 House Organ House Organ Harlem Writers Club, Benjamin Brown (editor)
Voices: A Magazine of Verse 1950 1950 0 Literary Arts (Special Issue) Literary Arts (Special Issue) Langston Hughes (Guest editor), Harold Vinal, editor
The Free Lance 1953 1976 23 Integrationist Integrationist Russel Atkins (editor)
Black Orpheus 1957 1975 18 Scholarly Journal Scholarly Journal Wole Soyinka, Aime Cesaire
Yugen 1958 1963 5 Integrationist Integrationist LeRoi Jones (later Amiri Baraka), Hetti Cohen
Liberator 1961 1971 10 Black Arts Movement Black Arts Movement Larry Neal, Daniel Watts, LeRoi Jones (later Amiri Baraka)
Dasein 1961 1969 8 College Review College Review Howard University
Freedomways 1961 1985 24 Socialist Socialist Shirley Graham (editor, Wife of W.E.B. Du Bois)
Umbra 1963 1974 11 Black Arts Movement Black Arts Movement DanThomas Dent (editor), Calvin Hernton, David Henderson (associate editors),Rolland Snellings, Ishmael Reed
Black Dialogue 1964 1970 6 Black Arts Movement Black Arts Movement SF State University, Aubrey Labrie (editor), Amiri Baraka, Larry Neal, Ed Bullins, Nikki Giovanni
Soul Book 1964 1976 12 Black Arts Movement Black Arts Movement Larry Neal, Donald Freeman, Isaac Moore, Ernest Allen Jr., Carroll Holmes, Kenn M. Freeman, Bobb Hamilton
African Forum 1965 1967 2 House Organ House Organ American Society of African Culture, John A. Davis
Journal of Black Poetry 1966 1973 7 Black Arts Movement Black Arts Movement Joe Goncalves, Larry Neal, Askia Touré
Black Theatre 1968 1971 3 Black Arts Movement Black Arts Movement Ed Bullins
Nommo 1968 1972 4 Black Arts Movement Black Arts Movement UCLA
Black Books Bullettin 1970 1994 24 Black Arts Movement Black Arts Movement Haki Madhubuti, Sterling Plumpp
Black World (formerly Negro Digest) 1970 1976 6 Black Arts Movement Black Arts Movement Hoyt Fuller (editor), previously John H. Johnson
Phase II, Journal of Black Art Renaissance 1970 1971 1 Black Arts Movement Black Arts Movement Sarah Webster Fabio
BANC: Black; Afro-American; Negro; Colored 1970 1971 1 Scholarly Journal Scholarly Journal Fisk University
Black Creation 1970 1975 5 Scholarly Journal Scholarly Journal NYU, Fred Beauford (editor)
Black Review 1971 1972 1 Black Arts Movement Black Arts Movement Mel Watkins (editor)
WATU: Journal of Black Poetry/Art 1971 1971 0 Black Arts Movement Black Arts Movement Granville Walker
Renaissance 2: A Journal of Afro-American Studies 1971 1973 2 Scholarly Journal Scholarly Journal Afro-American Cultural Center, Yale University
Yardbird Reader 1972 1976 4 Black Arts Movement Black Arts Movement Ishmael Reed, Al Young, Cecil Brown
Kitabu Cha Jua (Formerly Journal of Black Poetry) 1974 1976 2 Black Arts Movement Black Arts Movement Joe Goncalves

Main sources for little magazines:

*Johnson, Abby Arthur and Ronald Maberry Johnson. Propaganda and Aesthetics: The Literary Politics of Afro-American Magazines in the Twentieth Century. University of Massachussetts Press, 1991.
*Salaam, Kalamu Ya. The Magic of Juju: An Appreciation of the Black Arts Movement. Third World Press Foundation, 2016.

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