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Chronicling America
National Endowment for the Humanities

Newspaper Voice of Missions (Atlanta, Ga.) 1893-1900

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About Voice of Missions (Atlanta, Ga.) 1893-1900

The end of Reconstruction led many Black Americans to doubt about the possibility of racial equality and to despair over the prospect of ever being able to live without the threat of violence. For a significant number, leaving the country seemed the best option. They would return to the continent where their ancestors had been seized, bringing the fruits of Christianity and American ideas of governance. Foremost among this group in the 1890s was Bishop Henry McNeal Turner, who started the Voice of Missions in 1893 to further this movement.

Turner was born free in South Carolina in 1834. Devoted to his religion, he quickly rose to positions of leadership in the Republican Party and the African Methodist Episcopalian Church. He first became involved in politics during the Civil War, and afterwards moved to Georgia to help organize the Republican Party there. Turner’s disillusionment with the United States began in 1868, when he was elected to the Georgia House of Representatives, but the white legislators expelled all Black members. His public feelings of betrayal intensified when the Supreme Court overturned the 1875 Civil Rights Act in 1883. Turner made his first trip to Africa in 1891 and was impressed with the possibilities for life free from white supremacism. On his return, he persuaded the AME Church to start the Voice of Missions.

The Voice of Missions was a monthly four-page paper with occasional semimonthly editions, published in Atlanta. Turner used the publication to lobby for funds for emigration, such as with “the Ten-Mile Petition to Congress for $100,000,000.” He advertised ships from Savannah to Monrovia intended specifically for colonists interested in settling in Liberia. The paper also decried the continued dwindling of Black civil and political rights. Moreover, the Voice of Missions reported happenings within the AME Church and their attempt to bring the church to Africa. In 1900, the paper claimed a circulation of 11,000, but outside estimates placed it more conservatively between 2,250 and 4,000.

Turner’s mission was largely unsuccessful. Money was a constant problem. In his vision, the richest and most independent Black Americans would be the backbone of colonization, but in practice, emigration appealed mostly to the poorest and most disenfranchised. The Voice of Missions folded in 1900, and Turner became increasingly embittered over the plight of Black Americans. In 1906, he wrote of his contempt for the American flag, which reportedly caused Theodore Roosevelt to consider charging him with treason. Turner died in 1915 in Windsor, Ontario, thus fulfilling his wish to leave the United States. Although his colonization efforts were unfulfilled, he succeeded in dispelling stereotypes about Africa and stimulated Black intellectuals’ interest in the continent, prefiguring movements such as the Harlem Renaissance of the 1920s.

Note: A portion of the issues digitized for this newspaper were microfilmed as part of the Miscellaneous Negro newspapers microfilm collection, a 12 reel collection containing issues of African American newspapers published in the U.S. throughout the 19th and 20th centuries. Creation of the microfilm project was sponsored by the Committee on Negro Studies of the American Council of Learned Societies in 1947. For more information on the microfilm collection, see: Negro Newspapers on Microfilm, a Selected List (Library of Congress), published in 1953. While this collection contains selections from more than 150 U.S. newspapers titles, for further coverage, view a complete list of all digitized African American titles available in the Chronicling America collection.

Provided By: Digital Library of Georgia, a project of GALILEO located at the University of Georgia Libraries

About this Newspaper

Title

  • Voice of Missions (Atlanta, Ga.) 1893-1900

Dates of Publication

  • 1893-1900

Created / Published

  • Atlanta, Ga. : Missionary Dept. of the African Methodist Episcopal Church, 1893-1900.

Headings

  • -  African Methodist Episcopal Church--Georgia--Newspapers
  • -  African Americans--Georgia--Newspapers
  • -  African American newspapers--Georgia
  • -  Atlanta (Ga.)--Newspapers
  • -  Fulton County (Ga.)--Newspapers
  • -  African Methodist Episcopal Church
  • -  African American newspapers
  • -  African Americans
  • -  Georgia
  • -  Georgia--Atlanta
  • -  Georgia--Fulton County
  • -  United States--Georgia--Fulton--Atlanta

Genre

  • Newspapers

Notes

  • -  Monthly
  • -  Vol. 1, no. 1 (Jan. 1893)-v. 8, no. 12 (Dec. 1, 1900).
  • -  Available on microfilm from the Library of Congress for the Committee on Negro Studies of the American Council of Learned Societies.
  • -  Archived issues are available in digital format from the Library of Congress Chronicling America online collection.

Medium

  • volumes

Call Number/Physical Location

  • Newspaper

Digital Id

Library of Congress Control Number

  • sn83016234

OCLC Number

  • 9637716

ISSN Number

  • 2833-6844

Additional Metadata Formats

Availability

Rights & Access

The Library of Congress believes that the newspapers in Chronicling America are in the public domain or have no known copyright restrictions. Newspapers published in the United States more than 95 years ago are in the public domain in their entirety. Any newspapers in Chronicling America that were published less than 95 years ago are also believed to be in the public domain, but may contain some copyrighted third party materials. Researchers using newspapers published less than 95 years ago should be alert for modern content (for example, registered and renewed for copyright and published with notice) that may be copyrighted. Responsibility for making an independent legal assessment of an item and securing any necessary permissions ultimately rests with persons desiring to use the item.

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Cite This Item

Citations are generated automatically from bibliographic data as a convenience, and may not be complete or accurate.

Chicago citation style:

Voice of Missions Atlanta, Ga. -1900. (Atlanta, GA), Jan. 1 1893. https://aj.sunback.homes/item/sn83016234/.

APA citation style:

(1893, January 1) Voice of Missions Atlanta, Ga. -1900. Retrieved from the Library of Congress, https://aj.sunback.homes/item/sn83016234/.

MLA citation style:

Voice of Missions Atlanta, Ga. -1900. (Atlanta, GA) 1 Jan. 1893. Retrieved from the Library of Congress, aj.sunback.homes/item/sn83016234/.