Read the slogan, please!

The regime is getting desperate and going lower and lower despite claiming the high ground.  Now that many members of ASALH know that their leaders lie and disenfranchise them, hard questions come frequently.  And in response to why I would oppose this move if it were such a good thing, members of the regime are telling people that Daryl Scott is upset that his company is not being allowed to publish the journal!   Yes, folks the claim is that I want ASALH to publish with Godwin House Publishers, a firm I am starting.  Let’s review some facts about this struggle.

1. The Get Right with Woodson Campaign has always held that we–ASALH–should self-publish as we have for a century.
   1. The T-Shirts that I gave away free at the 101st Annual Meeting say, “Self-publish ASALH.”    They do not say, send the journal to Daryl Scott’s start up press.
   2. Everything on this website says, “Self-Publish,” and makes clear that is what we were founded to do.
2. I put a motion on the floor of the 101st Business Session of ASALH–legally seconded and still under discussion–that called for the Executive Council to cease and desist from entering into any contract with any publisher without the expressed permission of the Business Session.  That was my motion, and it would prohibit the board from taking on any publisher, period.  That would include Godwin House Publishers.
3. I have raised $55,000 to create a fund for ASALH to continue self-publishing.  I came to the 101st Annual Meeting to deliver the money, and the regime took measures to bar me from the Executive Council meeting. (Hotel security and then the police were looking for me!)  Over forty people have given to this fund.
4. I would not begin to suggest any company, including anyone I am associated with, as the way for the future for self-publishing at ASALH.  The best method of reducing the cost of publishing the journal will be to outsource the various publishing services to get the best price on each task ranging from copy editing to composition to printing and shipping.  (This is what most publishers do today, including Chicago.)  This is what ASALH already does for every other publication and this is why they are less expensive to run.  So going with a press even as fee-for-service rather than as the publish would not be the way to go.  This argument is the same whether we are talking about firms like Sheridan, the Allen Press, Tapestry, or Godwin House.

People who have been around ASALH know that I GIVE to ASALH and I take nothing from it.  I am usually among the leading individual donors.  I have given for over a decade–time and money, and much more time than money.  And I will continue to give after we send the sell outs off the board.

dms

P.S. Godwin House Publishers is being built to help underwrite ASALH’s self-publishing.  It is a for-profit that aims to donate funds to the Woodson tradition of self-publishing.  It will publish projects that ASALH could not take on or have in the past rejected.  Most people who know me and talk to me know this too.  As library subscriptions decline, there needs to be new revenue to underwrite the Journal of African American History.  Even if it goes to Chicago, it will come back because their business model is flawed,  and they won’t stop the bleeding–something they probably suspect themselves.