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Woodson Was a Rare Bird
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Woodson Was a Rare Bird

When Carter G. Woodson fell out with the imperious white president of Howard and was about to lose his job during his first and only year as Dean of the College of Arts and Sciences, it imperiled the Journal of Negro History. It was his pride and joy, his labor of love on behalf of the race. Today, many members of ASALH only join to attend the Annual Meeting. Others, to stay financial as members of their branch. Never get it twisted, for him ASALH was about the journal, the publication of knowledge about black folks. The Annual Meeting and eventually Negro History Week were vehicles to spread the word about the scholarship being researched and published. Without gainful employ, he would never be able to sustain the journal because he was largely funding it from his salary first a high school principal and then as a Howard professor. For five years, as we see below, he gave $1,500 a year–that’s the equivalent of $35,350 annually.


Now the Association had a board which was supposed to give or get money, but boards often mean well and do little. This is the case quite often among small not-for-profits and major universities. Woodson was pulling the journal weight by himself and was not only paying for the journal but serving as the editor and the director at his own expense, too.

Little has changed in ASALHland. Black history thrives as a discipline because of Woodson but there are few professional historians who would put money on the table to keep their journal alive. In 2017–despite there being no financial reason for doing so–a group of modern boomers of the golden age of black activism sent the JAAH to be managed by white folks. When asked why would Chicago do it when they wouldn’t make much money, we literally heard that the white folks loved the journal and that was the reason for their wanting to publish it. (Don’t doubt this account, there were almost 200 witnesses to this.) Then we heard from the national president that Woodson was willing to sell the journal to the NAACP, which meant he was willing to take white assistance. What was left out of that tale told by a leading scholar was that Woodson was desperate because he was about to be jobless. Moreover, there was no comparison between the ASALH of then and now because 1. The journal was making a profit of nearly $40K a year, and 2. everyone involved (except me) was being paid. Moreover, a group of us came in the meeting with $55k to show the seriousness of our intentions–only for another leading scholar to question whether I had $50k. (I don’t live high like some of us, so I had it.)

If the academy ever finishes with its Negro project, it is not clear whether black folks would have a scholarly journal of African American history. Black Studies in the academy was born of protest and it is a dependent field of study. To be sure, it deserves to be funded, but for most it is a career, not a calling. Woodson was a rare bird.

Reflections on the 104th Anniversary of ASALH
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Reflections on the 104th Anniversary of ASALH

Yesterday, September 9th, marked the Association’s 104th anniversary. As long as Carter G. Woodson’s association lives there is hope that organization will get back right with its founder. This site exists to remind people who know ASALH that its founder’s first and foremost purpose was to create an organization for black people to publish–publish–the truth about themselves. He dedicated the remainder of his life and his resources to publishing the Journal of Negro History, now the Journal of African American History. In 2017, when ASALH’s Executive Board signed to a contract to make the University of Chicago Press its publisher, it broke faith with the past. It lost its way.

Publishing is a business, and once you leave a business, getting back into it is difficult. Most of the members on the board at the time of the sellout, did not understand what it took to publish a journal. Indeed, most some made the inane argument that we lacked a physical printing press, not know that the University of Chicago Press did not literally “press” books any more. Most of the tasks of publishing are outsourced by most publishers–even if they call themselves a “press” or a “publishing house.” Publishing is about making a publication happen financially and being legally responsible for the content. To be sure, anyone with cash and integrity can re-enter publishing, but the business of publishing also requires accomplishing all the tasks and making all the decision that make the final product viable. How this work is done and coordinated changes over time. All businesses change.

This means that as each year passes, ASALH will become more, not less, dependent on the University of Chicago or some other publisher to publish Woodson’s journal. Once fully deskilled as a publisher, ASALH will have to pay the cost of dependency. From the beginning, ASALH decided to cease self-publishing on the basis of status, not money–the new arrangements meant less, not more, net revenue. Indeed, those involved confused revenue for profit, and boasted ASALH would have the money to buy itself the things it needed. Instead, the lasting result was the loss of staffing, as predicted.

Anyone knowledgeable about academic publishing knows that a journal like Woodson’s is shrinking in university library sales, which are the source of the revenue to sustain the journal. As history shrinks as a discipline and as university libraries get their budgets cuts or frozen, they subscribe to fewer title. The carnage is real as the academy contracts, and yet ASALH, through its publishing arrangement with Chicago, is more rather than less dependent on libraries sales. The gambit by publishers with their own platforms is to make an increasing percentage of their revenue from old rather than new articles. They want to compete with JSTOR as an archive. Libraries are committed to continuing access to old journals even when they cannot afford the latest, more expense articles. The long and the sort of this that if ASALH’s publisher cannot make a living off of Woodson’s journal, it will cut it royalties to ASALH, and, if necessary, charge ASALH to publish its journal. In any event, ASALH will have to go along or find another publisher. After all, Woodson’s association is losing its publishing knowledge.

Overtime, my knowledge of academic publishing will be outdated. Frankly, I volunteered by time to ASALH for 13 years, from 2003 to 2015, because of a bookshelf I saw in Marquette’s library that looks like the one here. If you notice, there are bound and unbound issues of the journal. Moreover, there are missing numbers from the early 1980s. Those reflect neglect, not by the libraries, but by ASALH. The journal was being published irregularly, and I vowed to do what I could to change that situation if I had the chance. Everyone comes to ASALH through a door. For some it’s the journal. For others, the Black History Bulletin, the annual black history kit, or the Annual Meeting. I came for the journal and learned publishing to put the business back on its footing. This would have been impossible without V. P. Franklin, and self-publishing would have ended without me. He was the poorly paid editor, and I was the unpaid business manager. Well, ASALH is paying for the expertise of the University of Chicago because it, not ASALH, is the shot caller and gets 50% of all revenue from the labors of new editors–and the old ones too. Yes, Chicago gets a cut of all sales from 1916 to present.

What’s left of ASALH’s in-house publishing program is the Black History Bulletin. A publication for teachers by teachers, it is now one of the oldest self-published journals having been around since 1937. Those on ASALH’s board who care about the tradition of self-publishing should become involved in that publication. It is right with Woodson, and it is the hope for the future.

History from the Community Up
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History from the Community Up

Since the 1990s, I have witnessed many talented historians, including some truly gifted ones, go without any real opportunity to practice their chosen profession. I have watched a rare few claw their way into the ranks of the tenured after being adjuncts for years. Most of us become academics because we want to think, write, and teach. Because I have always guarded myself against undo influences on my thinking–always skeptical or willing to be unconvinced–I have ever believed that the profession might have little for me. Yet I have been fortunate to ply my trade, but I was always willing to be a historian outside the academy. This is why I have always believed in ASALH and came to respect Carter G. Woodson–who did precisely the thing I thought I might have to do. He only lasted a year at Howard University and was saved for two years by his friend John Davis at West Virginia Institute. Before and after these experiences, he existed as a historian trained on his own dime and surviving outside of the academy.

The historical profession’s associations cannot imagine themselves serving anything but the academy, and then only from the top down. K-12 teachers, junior college professors, and independent scholars all feel less than welcome at gatherings, and publishing in one of the leading journals is but a dream. I spent a lot of time over thirteen years intentionally trying to be more democratic and inclusive than Woodson. Yet try as some of us did, the tendency of ASALH and all organizations occupied by academics is towards professional separation, hierarchy, and perceived prestige. Every time ASALH has tilted too far towards academics, its well-being has suffered. What is true for ASALH, I fear is true now for the entire academy.

Historians need to rethink their relationship to the university, the public, and one another. Attached to the academy, with its high cost structure, historians-in-training are running up enormous debt. Everyone who thinks about it for a moment knows that graduate programs could operate on weekends only. Societies unattached to the academy are able to publish journals at a fraction of the cost because they are free from course releases, graduate student stipends, and the ever-escalating demands of university libraries who increasingly don’t subscribe to journals anyway. Associations with their own peer-review programs could put a seal of approval on scholarship that gets preserved in their databases and then published anywhere the author, the rightful copyright holder, desires. Through local branches, historians who are from the community can promote history. Not just local history, but whatever history is being produced by the historians.

Implicit in all of this is that many of the historians, if not most, will be considered amateurs. Yet many would be history professionals outside of the academy. They will be teachers, museum workers, church historians, journalists, and former community leaders. I am convinced that America has been and remains a history wasteland precisely because we leave it to professionals rather than growing history from the community up.

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Do You Still Have Confidence in the CPA Who Reported Revenue as Profit?

In the wake of the 101st Business Session in Richmond in 2016, the leadership of ASALH defended their treasurer, Gilbert A. Smith, against this blog’s assaults on his performance. Though he had misrepresented a $100,000 proposal to the membership as profit rather than revenue, the ASALH board gave him a vote of confidence a few months later in February of 2017. For the sake of ASALH’s financial credibility, they need to reverse their course and take a vote of non-confidence against him. They would be wise to not let him run for re-election as well. Bad financial leadership erodes trust.

Here and in correspondence to branch members, I pointed out that Smith, along with other leaders on the board, was making a significant financial error and misleading the membership.  Smith knew that the Chicago proposal to publish the journal came with $100,000 that was revenue, not profit. And he should have known that the contract with the University of Chicago would leave ASALH cash starved. Indeed, no long after the contract was signed, ASALH found itself in need of a loan from Chicago to make up for the revenue the journal normally brings.  Gilbert Smith is both a certified public account (CPA) and a credentialed Project Management Professional (PMP). While others who said this should have known better, a certified public accountant cannot be excused for either lying or incompetence. A trained project manager cannot be forgiven a botched transition from self-publishing to contracting with a publisher.

The error of his statement was plain to anyone who had a copy of the Chicago proposal because it made clear that ASALH had to pay for the Journal of African American History’s editorial offices from that royalty.  It listed the cost as $45,000 when in fact the costs associated with the journal, even when published by Chicago, would be much more. All activities include overhead, and this one also includes staff salaries.  While ASALH would receive $100,000, it would have to pay for the editorial office and other journal expenses out of those funds.  In short, the money is revenue, not profit.

 

A CPA not knowing revenue from profit is akin to a chemist not knowing atoms from molecules or a butcher not knowing muscle from fat.  Evelyn Brooks Higginbotham, who should have known better herself, defended Gilbert Smith on a manner of grounds that he is a Christian gentleman, a phrase that smacks of late nineteenth century respectability politics, which lets you know you’re on to something.  If a Christian gentlemen is not above falsehoods and a CPA certifies nothing, then I guess we are all supposed to throw up our hands and say no one is accountable either here on earth or in heaven.  In a defense of Smith, Evelyn, misrepresenting the truth about ASALH’s financial record keeping, pretended that he had brought order and regularity.  The truth is financial record keeping and transparency had been in place a decade before Gilbert Smith’s arrival as evidenced by the fact that over that period we received major sponsorships totaling over $2,000,000 from corporations that scrutinized our financial statements, audits, and IRS filings.  No, what Gilbert Smith brought has been financial reports that lack the supporting documentation in reporting to the board and the membership–despite their existence.  This is the method of people who want their way without transparency.  Despite this lack of accountability, Evelyn wrote a letter to the branch presidents touting the moral and professional worth of the treasurer who assisted her in selling out Woodson’s tradition of self-publishing.  She closed her letter:

Of course, if the truth were not on my side, Gilbert Smith would likely sue me, but the truth and witnesses are on my side.  We cannot we cannot expect Evelyn to correct the historical record–even though she now knows the proposal was misrepresented to the membership and the board.  That would be to admit an error.  Yet the board cannot afford to allow their deference to her continue undo the best interest of ASALH.  As a consequence of misrepresenting the Chicago proposal as $100,000 in profit, the board, in the same meeting that it gave Smith a vote of confidence, voted to undergo the expense of moving off Howard University’s campus.  Once again, it did so without documenting the cost.  This method of doing business is happening with the support of a CPA\PMP.

Well, Gilbert A. Smith has been wrong about money before.  In 2016, merely weeks before he misrepresented revenue as profit, Gilbert Smith’s now defunct telecommunications company, Gateway Communications, was embroiled in a dispute with Verizon about how much he owed them.  At stake was nearly $60,000, and without his relationship with Verizon he could not continue his business. The oversight board in State of Maryland was having none of Gilbert’s claim, would not even hear it, unless he could escrow the amount in dispute.  Billing disputes rarely rise to such a level, especially when one party is claiming the other off by tens of thousands of dollars.  When Gilbert failed to place the money is escrow, the commission ordered him shut down. Failing in his own business affairs is one thing, tragic as it is, but it’s quite another to fail to perform due diligence for a not-for-profit as they serve the public good.  Following his financial leadership, the board believed it had $100,000 that was free of expenses, profit as he told everyone.  Simply put, it did not.  The Association is now scrambling for new revenue sources, and will likely continue its pattern of making decisions without sound budgets and projections.  This is the new pattern under the leadership of the Christian accountant and Evelyn of Harvard.

The question before the ASALH board when it meets later this week is whether it will hold Gilbert Smith accountable.  Will it take another vote of confidence on Gilbert Smith as treasurer?  Will it hold accountable the other officers of the organization who also represented revenue as profits, including Evelyn Brooks Higginbotham, the president.  Professors should be able to read a contract and see the stipulation that ASALH had to pay for its editorial offices and forthrightly say that the money would not be all profit.  Moreover, the president of any non-for-profit organization making such an important decision should insist on a cost benefit analysis that should have been shared with the members.  And we should never forget, the president must be held accountable for disenfranchising the members of ASALH at the 101st Business Session in Richmond.  Well the board stand up, or will it lay down, once again?  Why sit on a board that refused to do due diligence and your number one responsibility is the financial well-being of the organization?

The Journal of African American History Goes under White Management
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The Journal of African American History Goes under White Management

After one hundred and two years of successful publishing by a black organization, The Journal of African American History is now published by a predominately white institution, the University of Chicago.  This was not done out of economic necessity;  the journal will now make less money than it did when it was self-published.  The membership of Carter G. Woodson’s once proud organization has largely shrugged its shoulders. They have lost their way in the wilderness.

Gilbert A. Smith’s Big Lie Blows Up Like Pinocchio’s Nose
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Gilbert A. Smith’s Big Lie Blows Up Like Pinocchio’s Nose

When You Return to the Scene of the Big Lie

As anyone who has followed this blog knows,  101st Business Session of ASALH was one where the membership was lied to and disenfranchised.  I will write about the latter in due time, but here I want to give an update on the effort to erase the Big Lie at the 102nd Business Session in Cincinnati a couple of weeks ago.  When the secretary of ASALH, Karsonya Wise Whitehead, read highlights of the minutes that were under consideration for approval, she reported that the ASALH Treasurer, Gilbert A. Smith, had told the meeting that the publishing proposal from the University of Chicago promised $100,000 in profits.  At that point, the treasurer being properly recognized stood up and asked that the minutes be amended.  Sounding and looking professional as his credentials, he said the word profit should be replaced by revenue!  What a grand admission a year later.  Those touted profits were merely revenues!  No mea culpa, no apology, nope. Instead the power player tried to get away with a power lie to leave no paper trace of his professional misdoings of a year ago.

A Rush to the Truth

My head snapped back, and before I could jump up and ask for the floor, Jamon Jordan, the president of the Detroit Branch, was recognized and asked whether the Gilbert wanted the minutes to say what he should have said or what he actually said!  In other words was he wanted the minutes to reflect the truth about the past or what he wishes had been the truth.  Jordan made clear that the minutes were accurate.  I was recognized and made clear that Gilbert A. Smith had said profits, not revenue, more than once and that I was willing to sign an affidavit.  (And I will and append it to this post.)  I said others in the room had heard him and others would probably be willing to sign affidavits and the response of the room of more than two hundred members was audible.  We all know what Gilbert and others had said at the 101st Business Session in Richmond when they still believed they would have to face a vote of the membership about whether to take on the University of Chicago as our publisher, ending a century of self-publishing.

Gilbert Stood without Support from His Friends

Now the others who had presented the proposal as profit rather than revenue were silent.  No, they would not stand up and take ownership of their falsehoods.  Gilbert, whom the President Evelyn Brooks Higginbotham has referred to as a Christian gentleman, stood alone.  She would not repeat what she had written to the Branch Presidents:

No, she did not stand up for the Christian Gentleman on September 29th, nope.  He was not alone in the Big Lie, but he was all alone a year later.  Yet Gilbert Smith cannot cry about the damage to his reputation, and being alone in it.  After all, he is the one who regaled us with his credentials as a business man, a Certified Public Accountant, who had a world of experience.  Indeed, he is the one who mentioned his affiliation with the Eron case, which resulted in Sarbanes Oxley Act, the law that makes financial accountability and transparent reporting a must.  Oh, he must know better than to lie about a proposal to a body that had to make a financial decision!  Given his credentials and his position, he must bear the weight.  An organization does not need to have a CPA as its treasurer, just an honest man whether or not he is an accountant or a Christian gentleman.

Stay tuned for more on this.

The Permanent Damage Being Done by the University of Chicago Deal
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The Permanent Damage Being Done by the University of Chicago Deal

Someone asked me what is the permanent financial damage to the Journal of African American History by taking it to Chicago? It is a good question, and the answer is sobering.

1. After five-years, it is likely that the revenue from the journal will be below the $100,000 promised in the initial contract. Chicago has no magic business plan. They are trying to snatch part of JSTOR’s $80,000,000 archive business. With 70 journals versus JSTOR’s 2000, they are nobody. They are trying to increase the revenue from archive sales precisely because they know the new journals business is shrinking and less money will come from new sales. They are trying to force institutions that want a journal to buy both the archive and the new journal. That strategy won’t work for most journals, including ours. Libraries will opt for the old journals that are in JSTOR, Ebsco Host, Centage, and Proquest. If I am right about this massive failure, Chicago will offer much less than $100,000 a year after five years. In fact, they might just ask us to pay them to host our journal. Yeah. They are making a business bet that might be ended by their university. Happens all the time.

2. If ASALH got out of the contract today, we would likely suffer huge short-term damage and some permanent damage. Chicago is trying to sell subscriptions now for 2018 and the geniuses did not realize what this meant. Chicago probably won’t do half as well as we would have done.  Many librarians may take this opportunity to drop our journal as they always need to make cuts. (This may explain why Chicago never tried to ascertain how many customers we had!) Transitions like these always lead to customer losses. There is no way of knowing this in the short run.

The point being made here is that in stealing the decision from the membership and going rogue damage has been done by the Executive Council. We are effectively not the publishers of the journal and would have to rebuild our business already. Most people don’t understand that you cannot shut down an operation and start it back up without there being financial consequences.

If the decision were mine and mine alone, I would lay off any and all staff whose work has been eliminated by the move to Chicago. Financially, it is a no brainer. Boards and organizations, unfortunately, do not work this way. People are carried, and so as ASALH seeks a new basis for funding its journal, it will have to carry the past into the future.

The people who made this decision have cost us $35k a year for five years and untold lost future revenues beyond that. Remember the entire ASALH reserve is $150K or so, which is less than the losses from the deal. They rented out the farm to rich people running an experiment. When it’s over, the field may be less rather than more fertile.

The board members who supported this have to be sent packing. And those of us who believe in self-publishing have five years to lay the ground work for a new financial basis for the Journal of African American History. We have been seriously wounded in the digital revolution–shot by Du Boisians in the House of Woodson.

JAAH on the Brink of Whitrification
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JAAH on the Brink of Whitrification

 

It bothers VP Franklin and Evelyn Brooks Higginbotham none that to sell out a century of self-publishing they have had to disenfranchise the membership and make less money. Why let an organization of black folks get in their way? A graduate of the University of Chicago, Franklin with whom I labored for thirteen years gets to be the editor for a whole year at a journal published by his alma mater. For Evelyn, whose ASALH accomplishment before becoming ASALH president was to write a fund-raising letter, this is the crowning achievement of her presidency and her time on the board.

Now both still try to pretend that the white folks who used to work for us, Tapestry Press, was our publisher. This is largely because they do not really know what a publisher is. Believe me, documents will bear this out. They cannot distinguish a vendor from a shot caller. Yet publishers get a cut and are liable for what is printed, thus they are the decision makers. Ask a lawyer filing a libel suit and they’ll tell you who is the publisher. And Chicago has a clause in the contract saying that the next editor has to be agreeable to them. Now, Tapestry had no contract and printed whatever we told them. We could have told them to print that the white man is the devil, and they would have done it. That is what printers do. Say something Chicago doesn’t like, and you’ll meet your boss, baby–even if you own the journal.

The membership does not have to take being disenfranchised and having its authority usurped lying down. Before we were disenfranchised we were told everyone would get a print copy of the journal. That is not true. We were told that the $100,000 would be all profit–the only money they’ll make will come from cheating people out of the promised journals. Indeed, we will make about $35,000 less than before. And our new issues will not be in JSTOR. Worse still, worse of all, we will no longer be the oldest scholarly journal published by a black organization in the world. Nope. We gave that up for the look of being a University of Chicago Journal. Wow, how black is that?

By the way, until now, the board has not voted to give VP Franklin the $5,000 raise he has been looking for. If so, ASALH will make about $40,000 less than it has been making. In ASALH world, where deficit are frequent, this is more money than you know.

Selling Out Tradition at a Financial Disadvantage
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Selling Out Tradition at a Financial Disadvantage

 

After disenfranchising the members of ASALH at the 101st Annual Meeting in Richmond, denying our constitution and by-laws and throwing out a motion during discussion, Evelyn Brooks Higginbotham got the board to compound her extra-constitutional action by authorizing her to sign the contract with Chicago. So much in this letter is inaccurate, but what is missing is more important. I will keep it to six points.

1. The contract with reduce our profit from the journal by $35,000 a year.

2. The officers told the membership in Richmond that the we would receive $100,000 in profit each year from the new relationship, but in fact the expenses that ASALH will incur will total almost $70,000–unless ASALH lays off staff.

3. The officers told the membership that every member would receive a print copy of the journal, and they will not. Only certain categories of members will receive a print copy–over half of the members will not.

4. Although ASALH will own the journal, we will be content providers and not publishers. We would own the farm and work the farm, but the white university press will manage us. Because of our scholarship, editing, and brand, we will feed them and ourselves, leaving us less profit than we make now.

5. Tapestry Press worked for us, now we will work for Chicago.  They were paid a fee for services, not a percentage.  They took no risk, we did.  We were liable for what we said–this is what publishers do. Publishers are shot callers and risk takers.  Now, Chicago is our publisher, and we are no longer the oldest black published journal in the scholarly world.  That title now belongs to The Journal of Negro Education.   As our publishers, Chicago will manage the affairs and cut us a check when we produce content.  Without an examination of either numbers or facts, our board believes Chicago can do it better and make us more money–and they won’t.   That is because they still really don’t understand what publishing is.  Now, those of you who love status more than independence, who love taking care of others as they tell you what they are doing for you, who love the ice in the other person’s cup–the ice that you put there, then you should be happy with this new era of ASALH.

6. New issues of The Journal of African American History will no longer be part of JSTOR’s database, and so each year the JSTOR archive will become less useful to scholars.

One fact will let you know how little the President still knows about the journal publishing business even a year later. Chicago is far from the leading publisher of journals. It is a very small fry with less than 100 journal. Sage publishes about 1,000 journals; Wiley, 1,500 journals; Frances Taylor, 2,100; Elsevier, 2,500 journals, Chicago publishes three times less than Cambridge or Oxford, less than the University of California Press, and not much more than Duke and North Carolina. It looks big only in the eyes of Penn State University Press and the University of Illinois.

Here is the letter in its entirety.

 

Why Does the Regime Not Have Numbers for the Impending University of Chicago Press Decision?
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Why Does the Regime Not Have Numbers for the Impending University of Chicago Press Decision?

Unless those who believe only the Business Session of ASALH owns the publishing issue win the day, the ASALH Executive Council is poised to make a decision on the University of Chicago contract proposal on Tuesday.  Despite having the basic proposal for nearly six months, the regime has not presented the board with the any financial information and analysis that should accompany a major decision.  At the Business Session of the 101st Annual Meeting, Gilbert A. Smith, our treasurer and a CPA, told the members they that the $100,000 per year was all profit, not simply revenue.  We have exposed that to be a lie, but since then neither he nor the committee headed by Sharon Harley has produced known expenses or a cost-benefit analysis. Although the council met in person last Friday and will vote on Tuesday, the editorial office expenses, including overhead, has not been represented to the decision makers–and the Chicago proposal makes clear it does not cover 100% of the publishing costs.  And nothing that looks like a cost benefit analysis of self-publishing versus going to Chicago has been produced.   Mind you, without such numbers two former presidents of ASALH, Robert Harris and John Fleming, have endorsed the move–somehow. This is not surprising giving ASALH’s history of making poor big decisions such as the purchase and sell of two headquarters buildings, the 14th Street property and Q Street. Given that this Association, founded by Carter G. Woodson, has self-published for a century and given that its journal is the oldest, scholarly journal in the black world–yes, the entire black world– you would think that due diligence would be done, that a sound basis for making a decision would be made.  One is left to speculate aloud about why due diligence is not being performed.  Why hasn’t it?  Your guess is as good as ours, but let me suggest a number of possibilities.

Why not Delineate the Expenses against the $100,000?

  • Revealing expenses will confirm that the original position that the Chicago money was all profit was a flat-out a lie?
  • Enumerated expenses will reveal that the promise that all members will receive free hard copies of the journal was a lie, too, or that keeping the promise will cost as much as $20,000 to $24,000?
  • Disclosed expenses might reveal a decision to eliminate office staff whose position would be made superfluous by the contract?
  • Reporting expenses would reveal an on-going overhead cost of $15,000 because it cannot be eliminated, reducing the revenue available after the deal?
  • Reporting expenses would reveal a decision whether to increase the editor’s salary $5,000 or not, which was the origins of the entire fiasco?
  • Fear that surplus revenue of $10,000 to $20,000 is not worth ending a century of tradition?  This begs the question of the cost-benefit analysis.
  • It would become clear that there would not be any money left to do all the wonderful things the for rest of the Association as the regime has suggested there would be.

Why not Prepare a Cost-Benefit Analysis?  Well, It Would Reveal the following:

  • We can make $200,000 over five years via self-publishing.
  • We will have a $55,000 Reserve Fund proffered by the Get Right with Woodson Campaign.
  • We can make more surplus revenue without eliminating a staff position.
  • That the if the Chicago contract proved unprofitable, our revenue might slide 50% in five years and cannot be replaced.
  • That it would cost us $20,000 or more to re-establish our self-publishing if necessary.
  • The opportunity cost for not self-publishing.  We could work with branches to place JAAH in primary and secondary schools, a place where Chicago cannot effectively market.
  • Would reveal that something other than our traditional values and money were behind this entire project.

Those Right with Woodson Believe in Data

For more information on the financial benefits of self-publishing. Despite the personal success of the folks who make our decisions, the collective failure of ASALH boards–past and present–reveals a fundamental shortcoming of our institutional life.  How tragic it is it that Carter G. Woodson, who viewed the lack business acumen of educated blacks part of their mis-education, has been plagued by the shortcomings he sought to eliminate.  It is almost as tragic as the organization’s losing its way on the question of self-determination.  None of this is right with Woodson, and those of us who disagree will either stop this move before it happens or clean it up in its aftermath.  Do know that the self-publishing tradition will prevail now or later.