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 a political and literary magazine by and for African-American people in the early 20th century that was important in the flowering of the Harlem Renaissance. 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). It was notable for helping strengthen African-American intellectual and political identity in the age of Jim Crow.

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 brought out the Hotel Messenger until 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.

They moved into an office next door at 513 Lenox Avenue and, with the patronage of Randolph’s wife Lucille, launched the Messenger. The first issue cost 15 cents (its price would never change) and ran the mission statement written by Randolph and Owen:

Declaring that “with us, economics and politics take precedence to music and art,” the magazine’s first two years were primarily devoted to advocating black labor unionism and socialism, and denouncing the War and its effects on black Americans. The magazine attacked President Woodrow Wilson’s call to make “the world safe for democracy,” as the black community was at risk in the U.S., having suffered a high rate of lynchings in the South and other violence. Its editors also criticized major black figures such as W. E. B. Du Bois, who was pro-war at the time, and Marcus Garvey. They believed that Garvey's program to “repatriate” native-born American black citizens to Africa was illogical and far fetched.