The Messenger (magazine)

The Messenger

Cover of the July 1918 issue
Frequency	Monthly
First issue	1917
Final issue	1928
Country	United States
Based in	New York City
Language	English

The Messenger was an early 20th-century political and literary magazine by and for African-American people in the United States. It was important to the flowering of the Harlem Renaissance and initially promoted a socialist political view. The Messenger was co-founded in New York City by Chandler Owen and A. Philip Randolph in August 1917.

After 1920, The Messenger featured more articles about black culture and began to publish rising black writers. It became a kind of literary magazine (like The Little Review, the revived The Dial, and The Liberator), contributing to the Harlem Renaissance. It was notable for helping strengthen African-American intellectual and political identity in the age of Jim Crow. Through the 1920s it also noted the success of blacks who were reaching the middle class in business and the professions, publishing a series of essays known as "These 'Colored' United States", submitted by writers across the country.

Toward the end of 1916, A. Philip Randolph and Chandler Owen dropped out of college, joined the Socialist Party, and gave soapbox orations on street corners around Harlem. Their socialist and labor union propagandizing gained them celebrity in the area. When they walked into the office building at 486 Lenox Avenue, while looking for a meeting space for their Independent Political Council, they were recognized by William White, President of the Headwaiters and Sidewaiters Society of Greater New York. He suggested they move into his society’s headquarters and edit a monthly magazine for waiters.

From January until August 1917, Randolph and Owen published the Hotel Messenger. But their exposé of union corruption (wherein the headwaiters were selling uniforms to sidewaiters at high prices and pocketing the kickbacks from uniform dealers) resulted in their immediate dismissal.