Joel Augustus Rogers (September 6, 1880 – March 26, 1966) was a Jamaican-American author, journalist, and professional historian who focused on the history of Africa; as well as the African diaspora. After settling in the United States in 1906, he lived in Chicago and then New York City. He became interested in the history of African Americans in the United States. His research spanned the academic fields of history, sociology and anthropology. He challenged prevailing ideas about scientific racism and the social construction of race, demonstrated the connections between civilizations, and traced achievements of ethnic Africans, including some with mixed European ancestry. He was one of the earliest popularizers of African and African-American history in the 20th century. His book World's Great Men of Color was recognized by John Henrik Clarke as being his greatest achievement.

Joel Augustus Rogers was born September 6, 1880, in Negril, Jamaica. One of eleven children, he was the son of mixed-race parents who were a minister and schoolteacher. His parents could afford to give Rogers and his ten siblings only a rudimentary education, but stressed the importance of learning. Rogers claimed to have had a "good basic education".

Rogers emigrated from Jamaica to the United States in 1906, living in Chicago until 1921 and then settling in Harlem, New York. He became a naturalized citizen in 1916 and lived in New York most of his life. He was there during the Harlem Renaissance, a flowering of African-American artistic and intellectual life in numerous fields. He became a close personal friend of Hubert Harrison, an intellectual and activist based in Harlem.

While living in Chicago in the 1920s, Rogers worked as a Pullman porter and as a reporter for the Chicago Enterprise (a paper later renamed The Chicago World). His job of Pullman porter allowed him to travel and observe a wide range of people. Through this travel, he was able to feed his appetite for knowledge, by using various libraries in the cities which he visited. He self-published the results of his research in several books.

Rogers' first book From "Superman" to Man, self-published in 1917, attacked notions of African inferiority. From "Superman" to Man is a polemic against the ignorance that fuels racism. The central plot revolves around a debate between a Pullman porter and a white racist Southern politician. Rogers used this debate to air many of his personal philosophies and to debunk stereotypes about black people and white racial superiority. The porter's arguments and theories are pulled from a plethora of sources, classical and contemporary, and run the gamut from history and anthropology to biology. Rogers continued to develop ideas that he first expressed in From "Superman" to Man. He addresses issues such as the lack of scientific support for the idea of race, the lack of black history told from a black person's perspective, and the fact of intermarriage and unions among peoples throughout history.

The book reveals Rogers' position on Christianity. When the second main character, the Senator asks: "Then you do not advocate Christianity for the Negro?"

The main character Dixon then answers, "The real Christianity, yes. The usual Christianity of the white Gentile with its egotism and self-interest, no."

The exchange continues as follows: