A few days ago I spent some time reading a back issue of Negro Digest. Published for the February 1968 edition, I was using it for a project on the legacy of black history. But I found myself intrigued by what I was reading from Vincent Harding, whose introductory essay in the issue, “The Uses of the Afro-American Past,” should be required reading for any student of the philosophy of history. As I read his essay, I reflected on the late 1960s and early 1970s as a golden age of black American periodicals—magazines such as Negro Digest (which changed its Read more