Historically Speaking: Pioneers of America’s Black Press

Since the early 19th century, African-American publications have built community and challenged injustice.

June 18, 2020

The Wall Street Journal

It isn’t enough to have a voice, it must also be used and heard. “Too long have others spoken for us,” announced the first issue of Freedom’s Journal, the first black-owned and operated newspaper in the U.S. Founded by Samuel Cornish and John Russwurm in 1827, the weekly New York City paper published news and opinions; almost equally important, it provided an advertising platform for black businesses, charities and organizations. During its two-year run, Freedom’s Journal reached 50,000 households in 11 states, helping to foster a sense of community and pride among the free but disenfranchised African-Americans of the North.

Journalist Ida B. Wells, ca. 1893.
PHOTO: ALAMY

Black-owned newspapers multiplied in the decades before the Civil War. Some were abolitionist, such as Frederick Douglass’s The North Star, founded in Rochester, N.Y., in 1847. Others were religious: The Christian Recorder, the official periodical of the African Methodist Episcopal Church, was founded in 1848 and is still published today, making it the longest-running African-American periodical.

Black journalists were often targeted for violence by whites. In 1892, the lynching of three black men in Memphis, Tenn., prompted the young Ida B. Wells to begin an anti-lynching crusade in the Memphis Free Speech and Headlight, the newspaper she co-owned and edited. Her courageous reporting brought international attention to the atrocities taking place with impunity in the South. But it also made her a marked woman: The newspaper’s staff was attacked and its office burned down. Wells left Memphis and urged her readers to do the same: “There is, therefore, only one thing left to do; save our money and leave.”

In the early 20th century, the Chicago Defender was one of the most influential papers in the U.S., black or white. Its aggressive championing of what would become known as “The Great Migration” helped persuade many African-Americans to move to Chicago and other Northern cities. Literature and the arts were nourished by The Crisis, the monthly magazine of the NAACP. Founded in 1910 by W.E.B. DuBois, it featured up-and-coming black writers such as Langston Hughes and Countee Cullen.

The influence of black-owned newspapers sometimes incurred the wrath of the U.S. government. During World War II, the Pittsburgh Courier campaigned for equal rights for black soldiers, leading FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover to try to charge its publishers with treason. The effort was thwarted by other members of the Roosevelt administration, and black newspapers continued to play a vital role in the civil-rights movement of the 1950s and 60s.

But barriers remained. In 1968, Coretta Scott King had to demand that the press pool covering her husband’s funeral include a black photographer. Moneta Sleet of Ebony magazine was selected and his photograph of Mrs. King and her daughter went on to win a Pulitzer Prize, making him the first African-American man to receive the award.

The Pulitzer confirmed Ebony’s status as the leading black publication in the U.S. Founded by John H. Johnson in 1945, by the early 2000s it was read by almost 40% of all African-American adults, giving it a clout that corporate America couldn’t afford to ignore.

The black press is continually evolving and expanding, from the women’s magazine Essence, which celebrated its 50th birthday this year, to Blavity, a web magazine for millennials launched in 2014. The current Black Lives Matter protests show just how vital these voices continue to be.

WSJ Historically Speaking: With Big Prizes Often Comes Controversy

It’s not just the Nobel: Award-giving missteps have a long history

ILLUSTRATION: THOMAS FUCHS

This spring, controversies have engulfed three big prizes.

The Swedish Academy isn’t awarding the Nobel Prize for Literature this year while it deals with the fallout from a scandal over allegations of sexual assault and financial impropriety.

In the U.S., the author Junot Díaz has stepped down as Pulitzer Prize chairman while the board investigates allegations of sexual misconduct. In a statement through his literary agent earlier this month, Mr. Díaz did not address individual accusations but said in part, “I take responsibility for my past.” Finally, the organizers of the Echo, Germany’s version of the Grammys, said they would no longer bestow the awards after one of this year’s prizes went to rappers who used anti-Semitic words and images in their lyrics and videos.

Prize-giving controversies—some more serious than others—go back millennia. I know something about prizes, having served as chairwoman of the literary Man Booker Prize jury.

The ancient Greeks gave us the concept of the arts prize. To avoid jury corruption in their drama competitions, during the Festival of Dionysus, the Athenians devised a complicated system of votes and lotteries that is still not entirely understood today. Looking back now, the quality of the judging seems questionable. Euripides, the greatest tragedian of classical Greece, habitually challenged his society’s assumptions in tragedies like “Medea,” which sympathetically portrayed female desperation in a society where men ruled absolutely. In a three-way competition, “Medea,” which still holds the stage today, placed last.

Controversy surrounding a competition can be a revitalizing force—especially when the powers that be support the dissidents. By the 1860s, France’s Academy of Fine Arts, the defender of official taste, was growing increasingly out of touch with contemporary art. In 1863, the jury of the prestigious annual Salon exhibition, which the academy controlled, rejected artists such as Paul Cézanne, Camille Pissarro and Édouard Manet.

The furor caused Emperor Napoleon III to order a special exhibition called the Salon “of Rejects” to “let the public judge” who was right. The public was divided, but the artists felt emboldened, and many scholars regard 1863 as the birthdate of modern painting. The Academy ultimately relinquished its control of the Salon in 1881. Its time was over.

At other times, controversies over prizes are more flash than substance. As antigovernment student protests swept Paris and many other places in 1968, a group of filmmakers tried to show solidarity with the protesters by shutting down the venerable Cannes Film Festival. At one point, directors hung from a curtain to prevent a film from starting. The festival was canceled but returned in 1969 without the revolutionary changes some critics were hoping for.

In contrast, a recent dispute at the festival over its refusal to allow in its competition Netflix films that bypass French theaters for streaming was relatively quiet but reflects the serious power struggle between streaming services and theatrical movie distributors.

As the summer approaches and the beleaguered festivals around the world take a breather, here’s some advice from a survivor of the prize process: Use this time to reflect and revive.

WSJ Historically Speaking: How to Fake It in America

Peter Arkle

Peter Arkle

The philosopher Gilbert Ryle coined the term “ghost in the machine” to make fun ofDescartes’ influential idea that the human mind (“the ghost”) is utterly separate from the body. But it was the English rock band The Police who popularized the expression, making it the title of their classic 1981 album. Today “ghost in the machine” shows up everywhere. It has become a metaphor for the assorted forms of fakery that are constantly revealed in the mashup of modern culture.

The anger directed at Beyoncé for lip-syncing the national anthem during President Barack Obama’s inauguration in January reflected the country’s disgust with performers who fake it. The mere hint that a singer is no more than a dancing puppet can create a scandal—or even end a career. As the disgraced front men of the 1980s pop act Milli Vanilli will attest, you can’t pretend to perform and keep your Grammy. Continue reading…