He was born a slave in Maryland; as an adult, he founded numerous newspapers along the East Coast, as well as co-founding (with Arthur Alfonso Schomburg) the Negro Society for Historical Research in New York.

His duties included getting information for the next day's paper from Senator Charles Sumner, a Republican who supported civil rights for African-Americans.

They decided that the paper would "be a fearless advocate of the true principles of the Republican Party, and the moral and intellectual advancement of the Negro American."

In 1890, he joined activist T. Thomas Fortune's Afro-American League, the first organized black civil rights group in the nation.

Beginning in 1910, he served as American Correspondent for the African Times and Orient Review of London, England, edited by Dusé Mohamed Ali.

Appalled at the rise of lynchings and imposition of legal segregation, Bruce supported armed self-defense against racist attacks.

In 1911, with Arthur Schomburg from Puerto Rico, he founded the Negro Society for Historical Research, first based in Yonkers, to create an institute to support scholarly efforts.

Bruce was given an impressive state funeral at the UNIA Liberty Hall in New York City on August 10, 1924, and was buried in Oakland Cemetery in Yonkers.