Negro Digest - Freedom Archives

But times and the world have changed. When the Nazis unleashed
their terror upon Europe, the British flag waved over a disproportionate
portion of the world . In Asia, only Japan and China were free of
white dominance ; and only tiny, impotent Liberia held high the banner
of political independence in Africa, proud Ethiopia having been
ravaged and betrayed into submission to fascist Italy . Americans of
African descent wanted only to be accepted as Americans, having
no vision at all of the imminent break-up of the great British Empire
and the rise to political power of such nation-states as India, Indonesia
and Egypt . An independent Africa remained only a dream in the hearts
of a vanguard of her sons in America . But the moment had now come,
and change was swift . The Third World emerged and flexed its young
muscles, and a new image of modern man crowded old white-faced
Hamlet on the international stage of politics and power . In the United
States, which inherited the mantle of Western leadership dropped by
the British, the sons of Africa understood, at last, that it was not
Allah or Buddha or Krishna who had inflicted upon them "the mark
of Cain" ; in rejecting the notion that they should forever remain
demeaned, they also rejected the god who had ordained it so .
When NEGRO DIGEST was revived in 1961 after a hiatus of 10 years,
it resumed the old name-but it was far from being the same old
magazine . The new magazine sought to reflect the new black spirit
wafting gingerly across the land and to provide it room in which to
expand and mature . It was no longer a "digest," for it actually digested
no material and only occasionally published reprints . The emphasis
was on original ideas, fresh talent, untried directions . The new black
spirit fomented a full-fledged revolt, and Black Consciousness flashed
like lightning into every corner of America .
Many of those who read
NEGRO DIGEST and approved it wondered why, in the new age, it did
not make the extra step which would have brought it into full harmony
with the times. "Change the name," they urged . The editors of NEGRO
DIGEST think that the moment has come to do the bidding of the magazine's
friends and, at the same time, to reflect the actual character of
the publication . Beginning with the May issue, NEGRO DIGEST Will
have a new name, in keeping with its character and the times : The new
name :
~LACI~ WORLD
HOYT W. FULLER
Managing Editor
98 Marcb 1970 NEGRO DIGEST