Finding and Using African American Newspapers

Finding and Using African American Newspapers
Author: Timothy N. Pinnick
Publisher:
Total Pages: 71
Release: 2008
Genre: African American newspapers
ISBN: 9780944619858

Finally a book has come along that addresses the difficult topic of African American newspaper research. Are there actually black newspapers out there? How do I locate them? Is there much in them aside from obituaries? Finding and Using African American Newspapers demystifies the process of locating these newspapers and provides researchers with a plethora of tips and strategies on how to track down those genealogically rich social columns.

African-American Newspapers and Periodicals

African-American Newspapers and Periodicals
Author: James Philip Danky
Publisher: Cambridge, Mass. : Harvard University Press
Total Pages: 794
Release: 1998
Genre: Reference
ISBN:

The authentic voice of African-American culture is captured in this first comprehensive guide to a treasure trove of writings by and for a people, as found in sources in the United States, Canada, and the Caribbean. This bibliography contains over 6,000 entries.

Black Newspapers and America's War for Democracy, 1914-1920

Black Newspapers and America's War for Democracy, 1914-1920
Author: William G. Jordan
Publisher: Univ of North Carolina Press
Total Pages: 256
Release: 2003-01-14
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 080787552X

During World War I, the publishers of America's crusading black newspapers faced a difficult dilemma. Would it be better to advance the interests of African Americans by affirming their patriotism and offering support of President Wilson's war for democracy in Europe, or should they demand that the government take concrete steps to stop the lynching, segregation, and disfranchisement of blacks at home as a condition of their participation in the war? This study of their efforts to resolve that dilemma offers important insights into the nature of black protest, race relations, and the role of the press in a republican system. William Jordan shows that before, during, and after the war, the black press engaged in a delicate and dangerous dance with the federal government and white America--at times making demands or holding firm, sometimes pledging loyalty, occasionally giving in. But although others have argued that the black press compromised too much, Jordan demonstrates that, given the circumstances, its strategic combination of protest and accommodation was remarkably effective. While resisting persistent threats of censorship, the black press consistently worked at educating America about the need for racial justice.

The African American Newspaper

The African American Newspaper
Author: Patrick S. Washburn
Publisher: Northwestern University Press
Total Pages: 281
Release: 2006-12-21
Genre: History
ISBN: 0810122901

Winner, 2007 Tankard Award In March of 1827 the nation's first black newspaper appeared in New York City—to counter attacks on blacks by the city's other papers. From this signal event, The African American Newspaper traces the evolution of the black newspaper—and its ultimate decline--for more than 160 years until the end of the twentieth century. The book chronicles the growth of the black press into a powerful and effective national voice for African Americans during the period from 1910 to 1950--a period that proved critical to the formation and gathering strength of the civil rights movement that emerged so forcefully in the following decades. In particular, author Patrick S. Washburn explores how the Pittsburgh Courier and the Chicago Defender led the way as the two most influential black newspapers in U.S. history, effectively setting the stage for the civil rights movement's successes. Washburn also examines the numerous reasons for the enormous decline of black newspapers in influence and circulation in the decades immediately following World War II. His book documents as never before how the press's singular accomplishments provide a unique record of all areas of black history and a significant and shaping affect on the black experience in America.

The African American Press

The African American Press
Author: Charles A. Simmons
Publisher: McFarland
Total Pages: 205
Release: 2006-01-17
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 0786426071

This work examines both predominately black newspapers in general and four in particular--the Chicago Defender, the Pittsburgh Courier, the Black Dispatch (Oklahoma City), and the Jackson (Mississippi) Advocate--and their coverage of national events. The beginnings of the black press are detailed, focusing on how they reported the anti-slavery movement, the Civil War and the Reconstruction era. Their coverage of the migration of blacks to the industrial north in the early twentieth century and World War I are next examined, followed by the black press response to World War II and the civil rights movement. The survival techniques used by the editors, how some editors reacted when faced with threats of physical harm, and how the individual editorial policies affected the different newspapers are fully explored. Instructors considering this book for use in a course may request an examination copy here.

Help Me to Find My People

Help Me to Find My People
Author: Heather Andrea Williams
Publisher: Univ of North Carolina Press
Total Pages: 264
Release: 2012-06-01
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 0807882658

After the Civil War, African Americans placed poignant "information wanted" advertisements in newspapers, searching for missing family members. Inspired by the power of these ads, Heather Andrea Williams uses slave narratives, letters, interviews, public records, and diaries to guide readers back to devastating moments of family separation during slavery when people were sold away from parents, siblings, spouses, and children. Williams explores the heartbreaking stories of separation and the long, usually unsuccessful journeys toward reunification. Examining the interior lives of the enslaved and freedpeople as they tried to come to terms with great loss, Williams grounds their grief, fear, anger, longing, frustration, and hope in the history of American slavery and the domestic slave trade. Williams follows those who were separated, chronicles their searches, and documents the rare experience of reunion. She also explores the sympathy, indifference, hostility, or empathy expressed by whites about sundered black families. Williams shows how searches for family members in the post-Civil War era continue to reverberate in African American culture in the ongoing search for family history and connection across generations.

Finding and Using African American Newspapers

Finding and Using African American Newspapers
Author: Timothy N. Pinnick
Publisher:
Total Pages: 71
Release: 2008-01-01
Genre: African American newspapers
ISBN: 9780944619896

Finally a book has come along that addresses the difficult topic of African American newspaper research. Are there actually black newspapers out there? How do I locate them? Is there much in them aside from obituaries? Finding and Using African American Newspapers demystifies the process of locating these newspapers and provides researchers with a plethora of tips and strategies on how to track down those genealogically rich social columns.

Pleasure in the News

Pleasure in the News
Author: Kim Gallon
Publisher: University of Illinois Press
Total Pages: 0
Release: 2020-05-25
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 9780252043222

Critics often chastised the twentieth-century black press for focusing on sex and scandal rather than African American achievements. In Pleasure in the News, Kim Gallon takes an opposing stance—arguing that African American newspapers fostered black sexual expression, agency, and identity. Gallon discusses how journalists and editors created black sexual publics that offered everyday African Americans opportunities to discuss sexual topics that exposed class and gender tensions. While black churches and black schools often encouraged sexual restraint, the black press printed stories that complicated notions about respectability. Sensational coverage also expanded African American women’s sexual consciousness and demonstrated the tenuous position of female impersonators, black gay men, and black lesbians in early twentieth African American urban communities. Informative and empowering, Pleasure in the News redefines the significance of the black press in African American history and advancement while shedding light on the important cultural and social role that sexuality played in the power of the black press.

The Defender

The Defender
Author: Ethan Michaeli
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
Total Pages: 884
Release: 2016-01-12
Genre: History
ISBN: 0547560877

This “extraordinary history” of the influential black newspaper is “deeply researched, elegantly written [and] a towering achievement” (Brent Staples, New York Times Book Review). In 1905, Robert S. Abbott started printing The Chicago Defender, a newspaper dedicated to condemning Jim Crow and encouraging African Americans living in the South to join the Great Migration. Smuggling hundreds of thousands of copies into the most isolated communities in the segregated South, Abbott gave voice to the voiceless, galvanized the electoral power of black America, and became one of the first black millionaires in the process. His successor wielded the newspaper’s clout to elect mayors and presidents, including Harry S. Truman and John F. Kennedy, who would have lost in 1960 if not for The Defender’s support. Drawing on dozens of interviews and extensive archival research, Ethan Michaeli constructs a revelatory narrative of journalism and race in America, bringing to life the reporters who braved lynch mobs and policemen’s clubs to do their jobs, from the age of Teddy Roosevelt to the age of Barack Obama. “[This] epic, meticulously detailed account not only reminds its readers that newspapers matter, but so do black lives, past and present.” —USA Today