Delilah Leontium Beasley (September 9, 1867August 18, 1934), was an American historian and newspaper columnist for the Oakland Tribune in Oakland, California.Batker, Carol J. Reforming Fictions: Native, African, and Jewish American Women's Literature and Journalism in the Progressive Era, Columbia University Press, p. 147 (2002) – . Beasley was the first African American woman to be published regularly in a major metropolitan newspaper.Traeger, James. The Women's Chronology, Henry Holt & Company, Inc, p. 345 (1994) – Riley, Sam G. Biographical Dictionary of American Newspaper Columnists, Greenwood Press, p. 24 (1995) – . Beasley was also first to present written proof of the existence of California's Black pioneers in Slavery in California (1918) and The Negro Trail-Blazers of California (1919). Her career in journalism spanned more than 50 years. She detailed the racism in California and the heroic achievements by Black people to overcome them during the late 19th century and early 20th century.
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.Rodger Streitmatter, Raising Her Voice: African-American Women Journalists who Changed History, University Press of Kentucky, p. 74, (1994) – After her parents' death, while she was still a teenager, Beasley had to find a full-time job to support herself, and she pursued a career as a trained masseuse.Appiah, Kwame Anthony & Gates, Henry Louis. Africana: The Encyclopedia of the African and African American Experience, Basic Civitas Books, p. 207 (1999) –
In 1883, Beasley began writing for a Black newspaper, the Cleveland Gazette,Darlene Clark Hine. Black Women in America: An Historical Encyclopedia, Carlson Pub., p. 664 (1993) – which was founded by Harry C. Smith. She wrote briefly about church and social activities. Three years later, she published her first column in the Sunday The Cincinnati Enquirer under the headline "Mosaics". Beasley studied journalism under Daniel Rudd, a well-known newspaper publisher of the Colored Catholic Tribune in Cincinnati.Oakland Tribune, February 6, 1972, Museum Will Mark Black History Week Beasley, like Rudd, was a devout Catholic.
In 1910, at age 39, Beasley moved to Oakland, California,Kevin Mulroy, Quintard Taylor, Lawrence Brooks De Graaf. Seeking El Dorado: African Americans in California, University of Washington Press, p. 221 (2001) – attending lectures and researching at University of California, Berkeley and writing essays for presentations at local churches. In 1910 the African American population in Oakland was 3,055.Rhomberg, Chris. No There There: Race, Class, and Political Community in Oakland, University of California Press, p. 82, . The small Black population supported a flowering of indigenous institutions and community formation in the 1910s and 1920s. 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.Daniels, Douglas Henry. Pioneer Urbanites: A Social and Cultural History of Black San Francisco, University of California Press, p. 116 (1991) – .The Oakland Sunshine and Western Outlook on microfilm at University of California, Berkeley, Library In 1915, she wrote for a black audience in the Oakland Sunshine.Beasley, Colored Race at the Exposition, Oakland Sunshine, June 26, 1915, p. 2
Trail-Blazers book Delilah Beasley chronicled African American "firsts" and notable achievements in early California in her book The Negro Trail-Blazers of California (1919), which is a compilation of records from the California Archives in the Bancroft Library at the University of California, Berkeley, found in newspapers from 1848 to the 1890s, and most particularly all the Black newspapers from the first in 1855 through 1919. Beasley's Trail-Blazers book included diaries, biographical sketches, poetry, photographs, old papers, conversations with old pioneers, and a comprehensive history of early legislation and court cases. Beasley's informative compilation of records is full of success stories. It gives many hundreds of names of Black figures in California from the pioneer period to the late 19th century.
Beasley writes about the Black gold miners of the late 1840s:
"A history of the Negro people of California would be incomplete without mention of the mining men who came in 1849. There were at one time several hundred Negro miners working claims on Mormon and Mokelumn Hill, at Placerville, Grass Valley and elsewhere in California mountains. One such man was Moses Rodgers a mining expert and was considered one of the best mining engineers in the state. He was also a metallurgist and owned a group of mines at Hornitus. The colored miners rarely took a chance in buying mining stock. He had more sacred duties to perform with his money. He either used it to pay for the freedom or liberty of himself, his family or other loved ones in faraway "Dixie-Land". If not that, then he contributed largely from his diggings to assisting the "Executive Committee of the Colored Convention" in their struggles to secure legislative enactments in the interest of the Negro race in California".The Negro Trail-Blazers of California (1919), pp. 104–105.
Beasley spent nine years writing her book, which 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.Scanion, Jennifer. American Women Historians, 1700s–1990s: A Biographical Dictionary, Greenwood Press, p. 15–16(1996) – . One of her possible heroes in the book was Lt. Col. Allen Allensworth, in 1908 founder of an all African American town in Allensworth, California, now a state park, Colonel Allensworth State Historic Park. Beasley 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".Beasley, The Negro Trail-Blazers, p. 287.
Delilah Beasley placed women prominently in her book. 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.Taylor, Quintard. African American Women Confront the West: 1600–2000, pp. 22–23, (2003) –
Newspaper columnist Her work on the book The Negro Trail-Blazers paved the way for Beasley to become the first Black woman in California to write regularly for a major metropolitan newspaper. By 1925 Delilah was writing regularly for the Oakland Tribune, whose Sunday column Activities Among Negroes was authored by Beasley. 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 Oakland Tribune a positive picture of the Black community by documenting the achievements of successful Black men and women, both in Oakland and elsewhere. By highlighting such items, she served the larger goal of demonstrating the capabilities of African Americans while building a strong constituency for her column and a network of sources from whom she could count on receiving information. In performing this service she laid an important part of the groundwork for the expanded inter-racial cooperation that developed during the Great Depression era of the 1930s. Richard Dillon, whose book on California Pioneers highlighted special qualities of their unusual and stimulating lives, wrote that Beasley was "born 50 years before her time".Dillon, Richard H. Humbugs and Heroes: A Gallery of California Pioneers, James Stevenson Pub. (1983) – . Beasley wrote for the Oakland Tribune from 1925–1934.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."
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 for the Advancement 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.Oakland Tribune, February 6, 1972, p. 13. 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".Kevin Mulroy, Quintard Taylor, Lawrence Brooks De Graaf. Seeking El Dorado: African Americans in California, University of Washington Press, p. 216 (2001) – . In the mid-1920s, Beasley was a national historian of the National Association of Colored Women (NACW),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) and the Alameda County League of Colored Women Voters, and devoted press coverage to both in her column, Activities Among Negroes, which ran in the white daily, the Oakland Tribune.Ellen Carol DuBois, Vicki Ruíz. Unequal Sisters: A Multicultural Reader in U.S. Women's History, Routledge, p. 301, (2000) –
In 1929, 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, 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".International House: Informal History, at the University of California, Berkeley 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.