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Delilah Leontium Beasley (September 9, 1871 - August 18, 1934), was an American, historian, and newspaper columnist primarily in the newspaper Oakland Tribune, Oakland, California, USA.[1] Beasley becomes the first African American woman to be published regularly in a major metropolitan newspaper.[2][3]

As a writer, Beasley has the distinction of being the first person to have presented written proof of the existence of California Black pioneers, in her writings, Slavery in California (1918) and her classic, The Negro Trail-Blazers of California (1919), a pioneering work in the field of regional California Black history. Her journalists career spanned over sixty years, detailing the racial problems in California and the heroic achievements by Blacks to overcome them, during late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.

Biography

Beasley was born in Cincinnati, Ohio, the oldest of five children in the family of Daniel Beasley, an engineer, and Margaret Harris, a homemaker.[4] After her parents' death while she was still a teenager, Beasley had to find a full time job to support herself, she pursued a career as a trained masscuse.[5] She began her newspaper career in 1883 writing for an African American newspaper the Cleveland Gazette,[6] founded by Harry C. Smith.[7] She wrote briefly about church and social activities. Three years later, she published her first column in the Sunday Cincinnati, Ohio, Enquirer under the headline “mosaics.” Beasley studied journalism under the publisher of the Colored Catholic Tribune in Cincinnati.[8]

Beasley moved to Oakland, California in 1910,Cite error: A <ref> tag is missing the closing </ref> (see the help page). The small black population supported a flowering of indigenous institutions and community formation in the 10s and 20s. Among these institutions were various black-owned small businesses, churches, and private social-welfare organizations. In addition, several black newspapers were published in Oakland, including the Oakland Sunshine, which began publication in 1902, publisher William Prince, and the Western Outlook, established in 1894, publishers J. S. Francis and J. L. Derrick[9][10] By 1923 Delilah was writing regularly for the Oakland Tribune, and also wrote for a black audience in the Oakland Sunshine.[11] Her Sunday Tribune column was Activities Among Negroes and her name was also published with the articles. She often spent far over forty hours a week collecting material for her column. She wrote about churches, social events, women’s clubs, literary societies, and local as well as national politics. Beasley's motivation was to give the white readers of the Tribune a positive picture of the black community. She documented the achievements of successful black men and women, in Oakland and elsewhere. Richard Dillon, whose book on California Pioneers who had special qualities of their unusual and stimulating lives, wrote that Beasley was "born 50 years before her time".[12] She wrote for the Tribune from 1925-1934.[13]

Community service and social activist

Beasley, who never married, belonged to many civic organizations, including The Delilah L. Beasley Literary and Improvement Club, National Association of Colored People (NAACP), northern California branch founded in 1915, headquarters in Oakland. She was a member of the Alameda County League of Women Voters, the Public Welfare League of Alameda County, and the League of Nations Association of the California Federated Women's Club, which hosted the biennial convention in the Oakland Auditorium, attracting delegates from across the country[14] In 1920, Oakland's black club women, including Delilah Beasley and others, organized the Linden Center Young Women's Christian Association (YWCA) to combat the cold reception extended to them by the all-white branches in the city. The Linden Center YWCA provided an array of services, including "religious and vocational training, adult education, counseling services, and a full calendar of recreational and cultural programs".[15] In the mid-1920's, Beasley was a national historian of the National Association of Colored Women (NACW)[16] and the Alameda County League of Colored Women Voters, devoted press coverage to both in her column, Activities Among Negroes, which ran in the white daily, the Oakland Tribune.[17]

Beasley also used her professional skills and prominence in international groups to rebut white fears about the consequences of creating an International House at the University of California at Berkeley. Many Berkeley landlords protested the construction of the House, fearing an influx of foreigners. International House at UC Berkeley is a multi-cultural residence and program center serving students, the local community and alumni worldwide. Its mission is to foster intercultural respect, understanding, lifelong friendships and leadership skills for the promotion of a more tolerant and peaceful world. The university wrote: "More than 800 people gathered in Berkeley to protest racial integration in the proposed International House. At that meeting, Delilah Beasley, a black reporter for the Oakland Tribune, passionately defended the concept to a disgruntled and stunned audience. And it was Beasley who stood up to the protests of property owners who feared that I-House would cause Berkeley to be overrun with Blacks and Asians". [18] Notable I-House alumni and residents are, Delbert E. Wong, Jerry Brown, Oona King, Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni, Rose Bird, F. Drew Gaffney, Eric E. Schmidt, and Sadako Ogata.[19]

It was at Beasley urging that William F. Knowland, then assistant publisher of the Oakland Tribune, and Assemblyman Frederick M. Roberts of Los Angeles County, introduced an anti-lynching bill in 1933, that passed unanimously in both branches of the California Legislature.[20][21] It was the state's first mob violence law.Cite error: A <ref> tag is missing the closing </ref> (see the help page). The majority of lynching in California between 1850 and 1935 were perpetrated against Latinos, Native Americans, and Asian Americans; more Latinos were lynched in California than were persons of any other race or ethnicity.[22]

The weekly column she wrote for the newspaper, Activities Among Negroes, enhanced her standing in the community because of her ability to generate favorable publicity for black political struggles. It was Beasley who led the campaign to stop the use of derogatory words used to depict African Americans within the white press. Recognition of her ability to influence the white community strengthened her status within both white and black communities. She confronted misconceptions and contradictions as a newspaper journalist, and campaign against the use in the press of explicitly derogatory words when writing about African Americans.[23] In 1930 and 1931 the Harmon Foundation exhibit came to Oakland Municipal Art Gallery. Beasley, reported in 1931 that thousands poured in to see the exhibits. Due to her efforts as president of the “Far Western Inter-Racial Committee,” a painting by Eugene Alexander Burkes, titled The Slave Mother was purchased from the 1931 show for the Oakland Municipal Art Gallery collection.[24]

The Negro Trail-Blazers

Beasley chronicled African American "firsts", and notable achievements in early California in her book that was written in 1919, The Negro Trailblazers of California. A compilation of records from the California Archives in the Bancroft Library at the University of California, in Berkeley, searching newspapers from 1848 to the 1890's and all the black newspapers, from the first in 1855 through 1919.[25] Beasley Trail-Blazer book included diaries, biographical sketches, poetry commemorating black sacrifices, photographs, old papers, conversations of old pioneers, an comprehensive history of early legislation and court cases. Beasley's informative compilation of records from diaries and papers from the University of California, Bancroft Library, was full of success stories. It gives many hundreds of names of blacks in California from the pioneer period to the late nineteenth century. She spend nine years writing her book, the book is important to historians of California and the West and of African American western history. She knew many people who had been in California from the beginning of statehood and before. So much of what we know of California black pioneers grows out of her book.

One of her possible heroes was Lt. Col. Allen Allensworth, in 1908 founded of an all African American town in Allensworth, California, now a state park Colonel Allensworth State Historic Park. She wrote, "The late Colonel Allensworth was born a slave, and yet there are few, if any, who have made more out of life and done more for their fellow man".[26] Delilah Beasley placed women prominently in her history, the Negro Trail Blazer of California, no other major works followed Beasley's volume. Over the next four decades, no other major works followed Beasley's volume. One might expect a plethora of articles and books concerning various aspects of black women's history during and immediately following the civil rights movements of the 1910s. Yet western black women received little attention.[27]

Death

Delilah Leontium Beasley died August 18, 1934 in San Leandro, California, of heart disease.

Legacy

Veteran and student journalists are honored with the Hall of Fame & Scholarship Awards of the Cincinnati chapter of the National Association of Black Journalists, Delilah Leontium Beasley Scholar awards.[28]

Works by Beasley

Beasley, Delilah L. Slavery in California, Journal of Negro History, vol. 3, (January 1919), (includes California Freedom Papers (1851-1856)[29] Beasley, Delilah L. The Negro Trail-Blazers of California, (1919), reprinted 1969, 1997 & 2004 - ISBN 9781885852403 Beasley, Delilah L. Proceedings of the Fifteenth Biennial Convention, National Association of Colored Women: Held in Municipal Auditorium, Oakland, California, July 29 to August 6, 1926

References

  1. ^ Reforming Fictions: Native, African, and Jewish American Women's Literature and Journalism in the Progressive Era, Columbia University Press, p. 147, (2002) - ISBN 0231118503
  2. ^ Traeger, James. The Women's Chronology, Henry Holt & Company, Inc, page 345, (1994) - ISBN 1854103903
  3. ^ Riley, Sam G. Biographical Dictionary of American Newspaper Columnists, Greenwood Press, page 24 (1995) - ISBN 0313291926
  4. ^ Rodger Streitmatter, Raising Her Voice: African-American Women Journalists who Changed History, University Press of Kentucky, p. 74, (1994) - ISBN 0813108306
  5. ^ Appiah, Kwame Anthony & Gates, Henry Louis. Africana: The Encyclopedia of the African and African American Experience, Basic Civitas Books, page 207, (1999) - ISBN 0465000711
  6. ^ Darlene Clark Hine. Black Women in America: An Historical Encyclopedia, Carlson Pub., p. 664 (1993) - ISBN 0926019619
  7. ^ The Gazette (1883-1945)
  8. ^ Oakland Tribune, February 6, 1972, Museum Will Mark Black History Week
  9. ^ Daniels, Douglas Henry. Pioneer Urbanites: A Social and Cultural History of Black San Francisco, University of California Press, page 116, (1991) - ISBN 0520073991
  10. ^ The Oakland Sunshine and Western Outlook on microfilm at University of California, Berkeley, Library
  11. ^ Beasley, Colored Race at the Exposition, Oakland Sunshine, June 26, 1915, p. 2
  12. ^ Dillon, Richard H. Humbugs and Heroes: A Gallery of California Pioneers, James Stevenson Pub. (1983) - ISBN 1885852363
  13. ^ Oakland Tribune, Thursday, February 21, 1974, Noted Writers Worked for Tribune, 100 years Centennial Issue, "In 1926 one of the early champions for Negro rights joined The Tribune writing staff. Delilah L. Beasley was already a noted figure with the Bay Area black community."
  14. ^ Oakland Tribune, February 6, 1972, page 13
  15. ^ Kevin Mulroy, Quintard Taylor, Lawrence Brooks De Graaf. Seeking El Dorado: African Americans in California, University of Washington Press, p. 216 (2001) - ISBN 0295980826M.
  16. ^ Delilah L. Beasley, Proceedings of the Fifteenth Biennial Convention, National Association of Colored Women Held in Municipal Auditorium Oakland, California, July 29 to August 6, 1926 (reprinted from articles published in the Oakland Tribune)
  17. ^ Ellen Carol DuBois, Vicki Ruíz. Unequal Sisters: A Multicultural Reader in U.S. Women's History, Routledge, p. 301, (2000) - ISBN 0415925169
  18. ^ International House: Informal History, at the University of California, Berkeley
  19. ^ International House, UC Berkeley
  20. ^ Montgomery, Gayle B. One Step from the White House: The Rise and Fall of Senator William F. Knowland, University of California Press, page 22, (1998) - ISBN 0520211944
  21. ^ Penal Code 405a and 405b
  22. ^ Gonzales-Day, Ken. Lynching in the West, 1850-1935, Duke University Press, (2006) - ISBN 0822337940
  23. ^ Streitmatter, Roger. Delilah, Beasley: A Black Woman Journalist Who Lifted As She Climbed, American Journalism Historians Association, October 1991, Philadelphia
  24. ^ Africa Resource Center
  25. ^ Scanion, Jennifer. American Women Historians, 1700s-1990s: A Biographical Dictionary, Greenwood Press, page 15-16(1996) - ISBN 0313296642
  26. ^ Beasley, The Negro Trail-Blazer, page 287
  27. ^ Taylor, Quintard. African American Women Confront the West: 1600-2000, pp. 22-23, (2003) - ISBN 0806135247
  28. ^ Black journalists' group honors veterans and students
  29. ^ Slavery in California - Online access

Sources

Brown, Hallie Q. Homespun Heroines and Other Women of Distinction, (1925), Oxford University Press, reprinted (1988) Oxford University Press. - ISBN 0195052374 Crouchett, Lorraine Jacobs. Delilah Leontium Beasley: Oakland's Crusading Journalist, El Cerrito, California, Downey Place Publishing House, (1990) - ISBN 0910823030 Hine, Darlene, et. al. Black Women in America: An Historical Encyclopedia, Carlson Publishing Inc., (1994) - ISBN 0926019619 Roses, Lorraine E. Harlem's Glory: Black Women Writing, 1900-1950, Harvard University Press (1997) - ISBN 0674372700 Wheeler, B. Gordon. Black California: The History of African-Americans in the Golden State, Hippocrene Books, New York, (1993) - ISBN 0781800749

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