1.
Niagara Movement
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The Niagara Movement was a black civil rights organization founded in 1905 by a group led by W. E. B. Du Bois and William Monroe Trotter and it was named for the mighty current of change the group wanted to effect and Niagara Falls, near Fort Erie, Ontario, was where the first meeting took place in July 1905. During the Reconstruction Era that followed the American Civil War, African Americans had a level of civil freedom and civic participation. With the end of Reconstruction in the 1870s this began to change, by the 1890s many of the Southern states introduced laws that significantly restricted the political and civil rights of African Americans. All of them passed laws restricting voting rights, or making them more difficult to exercise. These policies became entrenched when the United States Supreme Court in 1896 ruled in Plessy v. Ferguson that law requiring separate, the most prominent African-American spokesman during the 1890s was Booker T. Washington, leader of Alabamas Tuskegee Institute. Washington outlined a response to policies in an 1895 speech in Atlanta. The basic thrust of his approach was that Southern African-Americans should not agitate for political rights as long as they were provided economic opportunities, Washington also politically dominated the National Afro-American Council, the first nationwide African-American civil rights organization. By the turn of the 20th century activists within the African-American community began demanding an active opposition to racist government policies than the type advocated by Washington. Early opponents of Washingtons accommodationist policies included W. E. B, Du Bois, then a professor at Atlanta University, and William Monroe Trotter, a Boston activist who in 1901 founded the Boston Guardian newspaper as a platform for radical activism. In January 1904 Washington, with funding assistance from Andrew Carnegie, organized a meeting in New York to unite African American, Trotter was not invited, but Du Bois and a few other activists were. Du Bois was then sympathetic to the activist cause and suspicious of Washingtons motives, the meeting laid the foundation for a committee that included both Washington and Du Bois, but quickly fractured, and dissolved when Du Bois resigned in July 1905. By this time both Du Bois and Trotter recognized the need for a well-organized anti-Washington activist group. In addition to Du Bois and Trotter, Fredrick L. McGhee of St. Paul, Minnesota and these four men organized a conference to be held in the Buffalo, New York area in the summer of 1905, inviting 59 carefully selected anti-Bookerites to attend. In July 1905 twenty nine men met at the Erie Beach Hotel in Fort Erie, Ontario, differing explanations exist for why the group met in southern Ontario and not Buffalo. A commonly given reason, which has not been substantiated by primary sources, is that they had planned to meet in Buffalo. Du Bois writings of the time, however, show that his plan was to find a quiet, out of the way location for the event. Researcher Cynthia Van Ness has further located contemporary evidence of Buffalo hotels complying with a statewide anti-discrimination law passed in 1895, Bookerites had been alerted to the planned conference, but one who traveled to Buffalo to investigate the conference found no activity there
2.
African Americans
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African Americans are an ethnic group of Americans with total or partial ancestry from any of the Black racial groups of Africa. The term may also be used to only those individuals who are descended from enslaved Africans. As a compound adjective the term is usually hyphenated as African-American, Black and African Americans constitute the third largest racial and ethnic group in the United States. Most African Americans are of West and Central African descent and are descendants of enslaved peoples within the boundaries of the present United States. On average, African Americans are of 73. 2–80. 9% West African, 18–24% European, according to US Census Bureau data, African immigrants generally do not self-identify as African American. The overwhelming majority of African immigrants identify instead with their own respective ethnicities, immigrants from some Caribbean, Central American and South American nations and their descendants may or may not also self-identify with the term. After the founding of the United States, black people continued to be enslaved, believed to be inferior to white people, they were treated as second-class citizens. The Naturalization Act of 1790 limited U. S. citizenship to whites only, in 2008, Barack Obama became the first African American to be elected President of the United States. The first African slaves arrived via Santo Domingo to the San Miguel de Gualdape colony, the ill-fated colony was almost immediately disrupted by a fight over leadership, during which the slaves revolted and fled the colony to seek refuge among local Native Americans. De Ayllón and many of the colonists died shortly afterwards of an epidemic, the settlers and the slaves who had not escaped returned to Haiti, whence they had come. The first recorded Africans in British North America were 20 and odd negroes who came to Jamestown, as English settlers died from harsh conditions, more and more Africans were brought to work as laborers. Typically, young men or women would sign a contract of indenture in exchange for transportation to the New World, the landowner received 50 acres of land from the state for each servant purchased from a ships captain. An indentured servant would work for years without wages. The status of indentured servants in early Virginia and Maryland was similar to slavery, servants could be bought, sold, or leased and they could be physically beaten for disobedience or running away. Africans could legally raise crops and cattle to purchase their freedom and they raised families, married other Africans and sometimes intermarried with Native Americans or English settlers. By the 1640s and 1650s, several African families owned farms around Jamestown and some became wealthy by colonial standards and purchased indentured servants of their own. In 1640, the Virginia General Court recorded the earliest documentation of slavery when they sentenced John Punch. One of Dutch African arrivals, Anthony Johnson, would own one of the first black slaves, John Casor
3.
W. E. B. Du Bois
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William Edward Burghardt W. E. B. Du Bois was an American sociologist, historian, civil rights activist, Pan-Africanist, author, born in Great Barrington, Massachusetts, Du Bois grew up in a relatively tolerant and integrated community. Du Bois was one of the co-founders of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People in 1909, Du Bois rose to national prominence as the leader of the Niagara Movement, a group of African-American activists who wanted equal rights for blacks. Instead, Du Bois insisted on full civil rights and increased political representation and he referred to this group as the Talented Tenth and believed that African Americans needed the chances for advanced education to develop its leadership. Racism was the target of Du Boiss polemics, and he strongly protested against lynching, Jim Crow laws. His cause included people of color everywhere, particularly Africans and Asians in colonies and he was a proponent of Pan-Africanism and helped organize several Pan-African Congresses to fight for independence of African colonies from European powers. Du Bois made several trips to Europe, Africa and Asia, after World War I, he surveyed the experiences of American black soldiers in France and documented widespread bigotry in the United States military. Du Bois was a prolific author and he wrote one of the first scientific treatises in the field of American sociology, and he published three autobiographies, each of which contains insightful essays on sociology, politics and history. In his role as editor of the NAACPs journal The Crisis, Du Bois believed that capitalism was a primary cause of racism, and he was generally sympathetic to socialist causes throughout his life. He was an ardent peace activist and advocated nuclear disarmament, the United States Civil Rights Act, embodying many of the reforms for which Du Bois had campaigned his entire life, was enacted a year after his death. William Edward Burghardt Du Bois was born on February 23,1868, in Great Barrington, Massachusetts, to Alfred, Mary Silvina Burghardts family was part of the very small free black population of Great Barrington and had long owned land in the state. She was descended from Dutch, African and English ancestors, William Du Boiss maternal great-great-grandfather was Tom Burghardt, a slave, who was held by the Dutch colonist Conraed Burghardt. Tom briefly served in the Continental Army during the American Revolutionary War and his son Jack Burghardt was the father of Othello Burghardt, who was the father of Mary Silvina Burghardt. William Du Boiss paternal great-grandfather was James Du Bois of Poughkeepsie, New York, One of James mixed-race sons was Alexander. He traveled and worked in Haiti, where he fathered a son, Alfred, Alexander returned to Connecticut, leaving Alfred in Haiti with his mother. Sometime before 1860, Alfred Du Bois emigrated to the United States and he married Mary Silvina Burghardt on February 5,1867, in Housatonic. Alfred left Mary in 1870, two years after their son William was born, Mary Burghardt Du Bois moved with her son back to her parents house in Great Barrington until he was five. She worked to support her family, until she suffered a stroke in the early 1880s, Great Barrington had a majority European American community, who treated Du Bois generally well
4.
NAACP
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Du Bois, Mary White Ovington and Moorfield Storey. Its mission in the 21st century is to ensure the political, educational, social and their national initiatives included political lobbying, publicity efforts, and litigation strategies developed by their legal team. The group enlarged its mission in the late 20th century by considering issues such as police misconduct, the status of foreign refugees. Its name, retained in accordance with tradition, uses the common term colored people. The NAACP bestows annual awards to people of color in two categories, Image Awards are for achievement in the arts and entertainment, and Spingarn Medals are for outstanding achievement of any kind and its headquarters is in Baltimore, Maryland. The NAACP is headquartered in Baltimore, with regional offices in New York, Michigan, Georgia, Maryland, Texas, Colorado. Each regional office is responsible for coordinating the efforts of state conferences in that region, local, youth, and college chapters organize activities for individual members. In the U. S. the NAACP is administered by a 64-member board, julian Bond, Civil Rights Movement activist and former Georgia State Senator, was chairman until replaced in February 2010 by health-care administrator Roslyn Brock. For decades in the first half of the 20th century, the organization was led by its executive secretary. James Weldon Johnson and Walter F. White, who served in that role successively from 1920 to 1958, were more widely known as NAACP leaders than were presidents during those years. Departments within the NAACP govern areas of action, local chapters are supported by the Branch and Field Services department and the Youth and College department. The Legal department focuses on cases of broad application to minorities, such as systematic discrimination in employment, government. The Washington, D. C. bureau is responsible for lobbying the U. S. government, the goal of the Health Division is to advance health care for minorities through public policy initiatives and education. As of 2007, the NAACP had approximately 425,000 paying and non-paying members, the NAACPs non-current records are housed at the Library of Congress, which has served as the organizations official repository since 1964. The records held there comprise approximately five million items spanning the NAACPs history from the time of its founding until 2003, in 1905, a group of thirty-two prominent African-American leaders met to discuss the challenges facing people of color and possible strategies and solutions. They were particularly concerned by the Southern states disenfranchisement of blacks starting with Mississippis passage of a new constitution in 1890, through 1908, southern legislatures dominated by white Democrats ratified new constitutions and laws creating barriers to voter registration and more complex election rules. In practice, this caused the exclusion of most blacks and many whites from the political system in southern states. Black voter registration and turnout dropped markedly in the South as a result of such legislation, men who had been voting for thirty years in the South were told they did not qualify to register
5.
The Crisis
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The Crisis is the official magazine of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People. It was founded in 1910 by W. E. B, Du Bois, Oswald Garrison Villard, J. Max Barber, Charles Edward Russell, Kelly Miller, W. S. Braithwaite, and Mary Dunlop Maclean. The Crisis has been in print since 1910, and it is the oldest black publication in the world. The original title of the magazine was The Crisis, A Record of The Darker Races, the magazine’s name was inspired by James Russell Lowell’s 1844 poem, The Present Crisis. The suggestion to name the magazine after the poem came from one of the NAACP co-founders and it takes its name from the fact that the editors believe that this is a critical time in the history of the advancement of men. Although The Crisis was officially an organ of the NAACP, Du Bois had a degree of control over the periodicals expressed opinion. The NAACP was founded in response to the Springfield Race Riots of Illinois in 1908, after this Riot, William Walling composed an article in the newspaper, prompting his audience to fight racism in a united fashion. There were 60 individuals that attended the call,7 of them were persons of color, including Mary Church Terrell and this meeting and signing of the call led to the formation of the NAACP in 1909. The NAACP was largely recognized as a foundation, as it relied on the surrounding to community to sell subscriptions to the magazine. In its first year, the journal had a circulation of 1,000 and by 1918. It also grew in size, beginning at 20 pages and rising to as many as 68 pages, the Crisis would go on to become incredibly influential during the 1910s and 1920s and would take a large role in the Harlem Renaissance literature movement. It was primarily during Jessie Fauset’s tenure that literature abounded, though not nearly as well-known today as Du Bois, Fausets literary contributions were equal in importance. The poet Langston Hughes described Fauset as one of the midwives of the Harlem Renaissance, Hughes wrote in his autobiography The Big Sea that the parties at Fauset’s Harlem home were rather exclusive “literary soirees with much poetry but little to drink. Despite Fauset’s personal tastes and interests in her own writing, she featured poetry, prose, short stories, Fauset was also the primary force that kept the New York office going logistically between 1919 and 1926. After her departure from The Crisis, the quality and quantity of the section of The Crisis declined. In addition to literature, art played an important role in The Crisis’s overall message, I stand in utter shamelessness and say that whatever art I have for writing has been used always for propaganda for gaining the right of black folk to love and enjoy. I do not care a damn for any art that is not used for propaganda, but I do care when propaganda is confined to one side while the other is stripped and silent. In pursuing the use of art to portray the African-American race
6.
African-American newspapers
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African-American newspapers are newspapers in the United States that cater to primarily African-American audiences. Samuel Cornish and John Brown Russwurm started the first African-American periodical called Freedoms Journal in 1827, during the antebellum South, other African-American newspapers sprang forth, such as The North Star founded by Frederick Douglass. As African Americans moved to urban centers around the country, virtually every city with a significant African-American population soon had newspapers directed towards African Americans. Today, these newspapers have gained audiences outside African-American circles, irvine Garland Penns book, The Afro-American Press and Its Editors along with Armistead S. Most of the earliest African-American publications, such as Freedoms Journal, were published in the North and then distributed, often covertly, blacks ability to establish many environments and black neighborhoods in the North led to the first wave of publications. By the 20th century, daily papers appeared in Norfolk, Chicago, Baltimore and Washington, in the late 19th century, the main reason that newspapers were created was to uplift the black community. Many black people sought to assimilate into society and Northern blacks felt that it was their duty to educate Southern blacks on the mores of Victorian society. Many African-American newspapers struggled to keep their circulation going due to the low rate of literacy among African Americans, many freed African-Americans had low incomes and could not afford to purchase subscriptions but shared the publications with one another. The national Afro-American Press Association formed in 1890 in Indianapolis, African-American newspapers flourished in the major cities, with publishers playing a major role in politics and business affairs. Representative leaders included Robert Sengstacke Abbott, publisher of the Chicago Defender, John Mitchell, the national, Chicago-based Associated Negro Press was a news agency with correspondents and stringers in all major centers of black population. There were many specialized black publications, such as those of Marcus Garvey and these men broke a wall that let black people into society. The Roanoke Tribune was founded in 1939 by Fleming Alexander, the Minnesota Spokesman-Recorder is Minnesotas oldest Black newspaper and the United States oldest ongoing minority publication, second only to The Jewish World. Many Black newspapers that began publishing in the 1960s, 70s and they were also victims of their own substantial efforts to eradicate racism and promote civil rights. As of 2002,200 Black newspapers remained, as of 2010, there has been a resurgence of online African-American news organizations, most notably Black Voice News, The Grio, and Black Voices. With the decline of print media and proliferation of internet access, burned down during Wilmington insurrection of 1898. The Denver Weekly News Douglas Monthly The St. Louis Argus - St. Louis, Louis Metro Evening Whirl SC Black News Group The Skanner www. theblackviewpoint. Freedoms journal, the first African-American newspaper Belles, A. Gilbert, Journal of the Illinois State Historical Society, 344-352. Eye on the Struggle, Ethel Payne, the First Lady of the Black Press, journalism History 41.1, 53+ Brown, Warren Henry
7.
Bay State Banner
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The Bay State Banner is an independent newspaper primarily geared toward the readership interests of the African-American community in Boston, Massachusetts. The Bay State Banner was originated in 1965, in 2005, the publication celebrated its 40th anniversary serving the journalistic needs of the regions minority-oriented neighborhoods. The newspapers chief editor and publisher is Melvin B. Miller, the Bay State Banners official website
8.
New Pittsburgh Courier
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The New Pittsburgh Courier is a weekly newspaper catering to African Americans, based in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, United States. It is owned by Real Times, after circulation declines in the 1950s and 1960s, the original Courier was purchased in 1965 by John H. Sengstacke, publisher of The Chicago Daily Defender, in 1966. He reorganized the paper under a new name — the New Pittsburgh Courier — to avoid paying several outstanding tax bills and he later commented, The Courier had a great history. The loss would not only be a big loss for the city of Pittsburgh, the Black press is the only true voice Black people have. Ive worked tireless to make sure that it is heard loud and he re-opened it in 1967 under the new name. The New Pittsburgh Courier joined Sengstackes three other newspapers in a chain of prominent African-American publications, including the Defender. In 1974 Sengstacke appointed Hazel B. Garland as the new editor-in-chief of the New Pittsburgh Courier, making her the first African-American woman in history to be editor of a national newspaper. When asked about his decision, Sengstacke replied, I have supreme confidence in Hazel and she has proven herself over the many years of dedication to the Courier and the Negro cause. She will be a force in leading this paper to bigger and better things in the future. Two years later, the won the John B. Russwurm Award for the best national African-American newspaper, following Sengstackes death in 1997, what was then a four-paper chain was held in a family trust until 2003. It was sold that year for nearly $12 million to Real Times, a group of investors with several business and family ties to Sengstacke
9.
Atlanta Daily World
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The Atlanta Daily World is the oldest black newspaper in Atlanta, Georgia, founded in 1928. Currently owned by Real Times Inc. it publishes daily online and it was one of the earliest and most influential black newspapers. It was founded as the weekly Atlanta World on August 5,1928, a year later he published a similar directory for Atlanta. This was despite the fact that Atlanta contained at the time the most prominent black educational institutions and persons of influence in the country, the paper became a semi-weekly in May 1930, and a triweekly in April 1931. In 1932 Scotts Atlanta World became a daily and added Daily to its title, becoming the first black daily in the U. S. in the 20th century and the first successful one in all U. S. history. At the time of its founding, the other black paper in the area was the Atlanta Independent. This left the Daily World as the black paper in town. Its offices were on Auburn Avenue celebrated as the home of the business, social. On February 4,1934, Scott was shot and killed, during the Civil Rights Movement, the Daily World was criticized for not supporting sit-ins staged at several white-owned restaurants in downtown Atlanta. Advertisers threatened to pull their business if the demonstrations didn’t stop, the paper did urge blacks to shop at black-owned businesses. In the 1940s it sponsored voter registration efforts, the paper also covered the Atlanta black communitys social, church, and sports news. S. Cornelius Scott retired in 1997 and his niece, Alexis Scott Reeves. Reeves has previously been a journalist at the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, Atlantas leading daily, during the 1980s and 1990s, the newspapers circulation declined from its peak over 20,000 in the 1960s to a steady 10,000. By 2000, although it retained the word Daily in its name, in 2012, the Atlanta Daily World joined Real Times Inc. a publisher of five other African-American weeklies, including the Chicago Defender and New Pittsburgh Courier. Alexis Scott said the sale would give the World more multimedia resources, in 2008 the Downtown Atlanta tornado damaged the Worlds offices at 145 Auburn Avenue. The papers operations subsequently moved to another location, in 2012 Scott announced plans to sell the building where this important part of Atlantas black history took place, the buyer had plans to demolish the building. This caused outcry in the local Old Fourth Ward neighborhood at the loss of yet another building on Auburn Avenue. The Historic District Development Corporation, whose mission is historic preservation in the Martin Luther King, three Atlanta Daily World newsstands opened at Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta Airport in 2009
10.
Baltimore Afro-American
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The Baltimore Afro-American, commonly known as The Afro, is a weekly newspaper published in Baltimore, Maryland, USA. It is the newspaper of the Afro-American chain and the longest-running African-American family-owned newspaper in the United States, established in 1892 by John H. Murphy. The newspaper was founded in 1892 by John H. Murphy, Sr. who was born into slavery and served in the Civil War in the United States Colored Troops and he worked a variety of jobs after the war. With The Afro-American, Murphy promoted unity in the community of Baltimore, as well as combating racial discrimination in the city. He crusaded for racial justice while exposing racism in education, jobs, housing, in 1913, he was elected president of the National Negro Press Association. The publication began to grow to more cities and to rise in national prominence after his son Carl J. Murphy took control in 1922. He expanded the paper to have nine national editions, with papers published in 13 major cities, in the early 21st century, the Afro-American has two city editions, one in Baltimore, and the other for Washington, D. C. These included manuscripts, articles, photographs, and clippings that date to the founding of the paper, the program is one facet of the Center for Africana Studies larger Diaspora Pathways Initiative, which also includes oral history projects and academic courses. Media in Baltimore List of newspapers in Maryland Farrar, Hayward, Afro. com digitized photos from The Afro-American archives Digitized, searchable issues of The Afro-American Ledger
11.
The Florida Star
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The Florida Star is a weekly newspaper in Jacksonville, Florida. Founded in 1951 to cater to Jacksonvilles African American community, it is the oldest African-American newspaper in Northeast Florida, the Florida Star was founded in 1951 by Eric O. Simpson, a veteran of national publications, to give Jacksonville its own African-American newspaper. The Star catered specifically to the black community at a time when other local media ignored or downplayed African-American. The Star also became known for its crime reporting, which often included scandalous headlines printed in red. In 1983 the paper became embroiled in a battle when it printed a rape victims name. A trainee reporter copied the police report, which included the name. This violated the Stars internal policy and Floridas rape shield law, the victim sued and was awarded $97,500 in damages, greater than the papers value. The Star appealed, eventually reaching the Supreme Court, in 1989 the Court overturned the earlier judgement, ruling that punishing a newspaper for reporting accurate, legally obtained material did not accord with the First Amendment. In 1977, following telephone threats, The Florida Star headquarters on Myrtle Street was subject to an attack that damaged the lobby. In 1993, an arson attack destroyed the building and much of its archive. Simpson and his family committed to maintaining the paper, publishing that weeks issue only one day late, Simpson headed the paper until his death in 1994. His wife, Mary Wooten Simpson, succeeded him, under her watch the paper expanded its staff, coverage, managing editor Erica Simpson, Eric and Mary Simpsons daughter, took over after her mothers death in 2001. Media pioneer Clara McLaughlin purchased the paper from the Simpson family in 2002, in January 2007, The Florida Star launched a Georgia edition, The Georgia Star. Eric Simpson was posthumously inducted into the Florida Press Association Hall of Fame in 2003 and he was the first African-American to be inducted
12.
Call and Post
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The Call and Post is an African-American weekly newspaper, based in Cleveland, Ohio. Walker, a black Republican who had been co-founder of the Washington Tribune, the Call and Post provided extensive coverage of the social and religious life in the African-American community, and was known to feature sensational coverage of violence on its front page. The publication also extensively covered Larry Doby, the first black player to integrate into the American Leagues Cleveland Indians baseball franchise. Reporter Cleveland Jackson communicated extensively with Indians owner and team president Bill Veeck before Doby was signed by the Indians in 1947 and it earned praise as one of the finest African-American newspapers in the country. As early as 1934, the Call and Post was active in calling for public involvement in the Scottsboro case, in 1952, a former Call and Post reporter, Simeon Booker, became the first African-American reporter at the Washington Post. After moving to new offices in 1959, the Call and Post began to publish with offset printing and it was one of the first newspapers in Ohio to use the new technique. The Call and Post filed for bankruptcy in 1995, but was purchased in 1998 by boxing promoter Don King, the Call and Post covers local news in Cleveland, Columbus, and Cincinnati, along with arts and entertainment in its CP2 tabloid. African American newspapers Cleveland Call & Post, case Western Reserve University, Western Reserve Historical Society. Mobilizing the Masses, The Cleveland Call and Post and the Scottsboro Incident The Journal of Negro History, v.84, no.1
13.
The Chicago Defender
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The Chicago Defender is a Chicago-based weekly newspaper founded in 1905 by Robert S. Abbott for primarily African-American readers. Historically, The Defender is considered the most important paper of what was known as the colored or negro press. Abbotts newspaper reported and campaigned against Jim Crow era violence and urged blacks in the American South to come north in what became the Great Migration. Under his nephew and chosen successor, John H. Sengstacke, in 1919–1922 the Defender attracted the writing talents of Langston Hughes. Later, Gwendolyn Brooks and Willard Motley wrote for the paper and it was published as The Chicago Daily Defender, a daily newspaper, from 1956 to 2003, when it returned to a weekly format. The rhetoric and art exhibited in the Defender demanded equality of the races, Abbott published articles that were exposés of southern crimes against blacks. The Defender consistently published articles describing lynchings in the South, with descriptions of gore. Legislatures dominated by conservative white Democrats established racial segregation and Jim Crow, Abbott openly blamed the lynching violence on the white mobs who were typically involved, forcing readers to accept that these crimes were systematic and unremitting. The newspapers intense focus on these injustices implicitly laid the groundwork upon which Abbott would build his explicit critiques of society, at the same time, the NAACP was publicizing the toll of lynching at its offices in New York City. The art in the Defender, particularly its political cartoons, explicitly addressed race issues, after the movement of southern blacks northward became a quantifiable phenomenon, the Defender took a particular interest in sensationalizing migratory stories, often on the front page. Abbott positioned his paper as an influence of these movements before historians would, for he used the Defender to initiate and advertise a Great Northern Drive day. Abbott used the Defender to promote Chicago as a destination for southern blacks. Abbott presented Chicago as a promised-land with abundant jobs, as he included advertisements clearly aimed at southerners, the Defender was filled with advertisements for desirable commodities, beauty products and technological devices. Abbotts paper was the first black newspaper to incorporate a full entertainment section, the Defender featured letters and poetry submitted by successful recent migrants, these writings served as representative anecdotes, supplying readers with prototype examples. To supplement these first-person accounts, Abbott often published small features on successful blacks in Chicago, in 1923, founding publisher Robert Sengstacke Abbott and editor Lucius Harper created the Bud Billiken Club and later organized parades to promote healthy activity among black children in Chicago. In 1929 the organization began the Bud Billiken Parade and Picnic, in the 1950s, under Sengstackes direction, the Bud Billiken Parade expanded and emerged as the largest single event in Chicago. Today, it more than one million attendance with more than 25 million television viewers. He urged integration of the armed forces, in 1948, he was appointed by President Harry S. Truman to the commission to study this and plan the process, which was initiated by the military in 1949
14.
Omaha Star
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The Omaha Star is a newspaper founded in 1938 in North Omaha, Nebraska, by Mildred Brown and her husband S. Edward Gilbert. It may be the newspaper in the United States started by an African-American woman. The first issue of the Omaha Star was published on July 9,1938 at their offices at 2216 N. 24th Street in North Omaha, five thousand copies were printed and sold for ten cents each. With the banner Joy and Happiness, the Star featured positive news about the community in North Omaha. Celebrating positive African-American families, role models and accomplishments, the Star quickly became a pillar of the North Omaha community, by 1945 it was the only black newspaper remaining in Omaha, the states largest city. In the 1950s the Omaha Star won national respect by reporting the Omaha African-American communitys perspectives on local and national news, readers were encouraged to vote and run for office. The DePorres Club, an early youth-led Omaha-based civil rights group founded in 1947, as publisher, Brown used pressure to persuade advertisers to accept blacks in more positions. Her coverage of civil rights and riots in the 1960s earned her commendations from President Lyndon Johnson, after Brown died in 1989, her niece, Marguerita Washington, took leadership. Today the Stars circulation is approximately 30,000 and is distributed to 48 states, a 2001 survey found each copy of the paper is read six times before being discarded. In its 66-year history, The Omaha Star has never missed an edition, Omaha jazz legend Preston Love worked as an advertising specialist for the Star before his death. In spring 2006 the papers building was designated an Omaha Landmark by the City of Omaha, in January 2007, the Omaha City Council awarded a community development grant to the Omaha Star for remodeling purposes. The Star building is located in the North Omaha Neighborhood Revitalization Strategy Area, metro students will begin landscaping on the Mildred Brown Strolling Park this spring. 1996 - The Star was inducted into the Omaha Chamber of Commerce Business Hall of Fame Received the Golden Spike Award presented by the Greater Omaha Chamber of Commerce, established in 1979, the award recognizes businesses that have made outstanding contributions to the Omaha economy. Marguerita Washington has founded the non-profit Mildred D. Brown Study Center in honor of her aunt and it will be located at the Omaha Star building. The Omaha Star is a member of the National Newspapers Publishers Association, in 2008 the Omaha Star building was listed on the National Register of Historic Places for its important association with the civil rights movement. History of North Omaha, Nebraska List of newspapers in the United States Forss, black Print With a White Carnation, Mildred Brown and the Omaha Star Newspaper, 1938-1989241 pages, scholarly study of the cofounder Omaha Star Website. 1953 editorial about Omaha school segregation, Omaha Star
