more on H-J anti-racism

[Ralph Dumain]

I'm not going to comment on the quality of his historiography, but John G. Jackson is a significant figure in black freethought. He prefaces one of treatises with quotes from H-J and Joseph McCabe:

Ethiopia and the Origin of Civilization: A Critical Review of the Evidence of Archaeology, Anthropology, History
and Comparative Religion: According to the Most Reliable Sources and Authorities

By John G. Jackson (1939)

"It is pretty well settled that the city is the Negro's great contribution to civilization, for it was in
Africa where the first cities grew up." E. Haldeman-Julius

"Those piles of ruins which you see in that narrow valley watered by the Nile, are the remains of
opulent cities, the pride of the ancient kingdom of Ethiopia. … There a people, now forgotten,
discovered while others were yet barbarians, the elements of the arts and sciences. A race of
men now rejected from society for their sable skin and frizzled hair, founded on the study of the
laws of nature, those civil and religious systems which still govern the universe." Count Volney

"The accident of the predominance of white men in modern times should not give us supercilious
ideas about color or persuade us to listen to superficial theories about the innate superiority of the
white-skinned man. Four thousand years ago, when civilization was already one or two thousand
years old, white men were just a bunch of semi-savages on the outskirts of the civilized world. If
there had been anthropologists in Crete, Egypt, and Babylonia, they would have pronounced the
white race obviously inferior, and might have discoursed learnedly on the superior germ-plasm or
glands of colored folk." Joseph McCabe


I don't know where the quote from H-J himself comes from, though.

H-J is also referenced further down in the essay:

". . . last but not least, the brilliant monographs of Mr. Maynard Shipley: New Light on Prehistoric Cultures and Americans of a Million Years Age. (See also Shipley's Sex and the Garden of Eden Myth, a collection of essays, the best of the lot being one entitled: Christian Doctrines In Pre-Christian America.) These productions of Mr. Shipley, have been issued in pamphlet form in the Little Blue Book Series, published by Mr. E. Haldeman-Julius, of Girard, Kansas."

And McCabe:

"For example, the English scholar, Joseph McCabe, expresses the following view as the consensus of opinion among modern anthropologists: "There is strong reason to think that man was at first very dark of skin, woolly-haired and flat-nosed, and, as he wandered
into different climates, the branches of the race diverged and developed their characteristics." (Key to Culture, No. 11, p. 10.)"


The full text of this essay can be found at:

http://www.scribd.com/doc/4802877/Ethiopia-and-the-Origin-of-Civilization

. . . and in other formats, at these two sites:

http://www.africawithin.com/jgjackson/jgjackson_ethiopia_and_the_origin.htm

http://www.africaresource.com/rasta/sesostris-the-great-the-egyptian-hercules/ethiopia-and-the-origin-of-civilization-pt-1-by-john-g-jackson-1939/