Born in Blackstock, South Carolina, Jesse Barber was the son of former slaves. He trained as a teacher at Benedict College in Columbia, South Carolina. His literary career began as editor of the University Journal at Virginia Union University in Richmond, Virginia.
Immediately after his graduation from Virginia Union in 1903, Barber became managing editor of a new black journal, Voice of the Negro, founded in Atlanta, Georgia in January 1904. While the Voice initially sought a moderate position between accomodationists and activists, Barber made the journal a progressive forum. He was known at the time as a politically aware, radical thinker who sided with his friend, African American writer W. E. B. Du Bois, against black intellectual Booker T. Washington. In addition to Barber, Du Bois, and Washington, other writers for the Voice included Pauline Hopkins, Charles W. Chesnutt, and Paul ...