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Black man standing beside barbecue stand, Pittsburgh 1933.

Pittsburgh Reformers and the Black Freedom Struggle

Historian Adam Lee Cilli effectively illustrates the centrality of Black Pittsburgh within the larger Black Freedom Struggle.
A photograph of Marvel Cooke overlayed over The Crisis' newspaper office.

This Radical Reporter Dedicated Her Life to Fighting the System

"I idolized women like Marvel Cooke," Angela Davis tells Teen Vogue.
Linotype operators of the Chicago Defender

Reading Langston Hughes’s Wartime Reporting From the Spanish Civil War

Several years before the United States officially entered World War II, Black Americans were tracking the international spread of fascism.
Photo of two kids, on African American one white, at a computer ca. early 1980s.

Framing the Computer

Before social media communities formed around shared concerns, interests, politics, and identity, print media connected communities.
Cartoon illustration featuring Pauline Hopkins (center), Booker T. Washington (left), and John C. Freund (right)

Contending Forces

Pauline Hopkins, Booker T. Washington, and the Fight for The Colored American Magazine.
A row of brightly colored newspaper boxes.
partner

The Black Press Provides a Model for How Mainstream News Can Better Cover Racism

Digging deeper, offering historical context and going beyond official narratives will better serve the audience.
A cover of the newspaper Muhammad Speaks
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Muhammad Speaks for Freedom, Justice, and Equality

The official newspaper of the Nation of Islam—published from 1960-1975—combined investigative journalism and Black Nationalist views on racial uplift.
black and white photos of children

The Magazine That Helped 1920s Kids Navigate Racism

Mainstream culture denied Black children their humanity—so W. E. B. Du Bois created The Brownies’ Book to assert it.
John H. Johnson

The World-Class Photography of Ebony and Jet is Priceless History. It's Still Up For Sale.

There's a lot more than money at stake in the impending auction.

‘An Essential Force in American History,’ Chicago Defender to Stop Print Publication

The storied African American newspaper will switch to a digital-only platform starting July 11.

The Black Radical You’ve Never Heard Of

T. Thomas Fortune changed Black History, and seems to have been forgotten.

Roller Skating Socials and a Black Rosie the Riveter

Uncovering black newspapers from the 19th and 20th centuries can open up new possibilities for teaching African American history.

Though The Heavens Fall, Part 1

The Texan newspaperman who was born into slavery and helped shape the history of civil rights.
Freedom's Journal front page, Vol. 1 No. 1, March 16, 1827

The First African American Newspaper Appears, 1827

A letter from the creators of Freedom's Journal to their initial patrons.
Two images: Lajpat Rai (left) and W.E.B. Du Bois (right).
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Black Freedom and Indian Independence

Activists including W. E .B. Du Bois in the United States and Lajpat Rai in India drew connections between Black American and Indian experiences of white rule.
Lucretia Howe Newman Coleman
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Finding Lucretia Howe Newman Coleman

Once a powerful voice in the Black press, Coleman all but disappeared from the literary landscape of the American Midwest after her death in 1948.
A white mob poses for a photograph in front of the charred remains of the Daily Record building they burned.

Majority-Black Wilmington, N.C., Fell to White Mob’s Coup 125 Years Ago

The 1898 Wilmington massacre overthrew the elected government in the majority-Black city, killed many Black residents and torched a Black-run newspaper.
Mural depicting Charlotta Bass and victims of Zoot Suit Riots.

The Untold Story of the Zoot Suit Riots: How Black L.A. Defended Mexican Americans

The unity of two long-neglected communities during trying times is a reminder of what we desperately need in Los Angeles.
Roi Ottley and other African American panelists on radio quiz program.

How African Americans Entered Mainstream Radio

For nearly 50 years, commercial radio companies only employed white broadcasters to target information and entertainment to mainstream America.
Illustration of Hubert Harrison by Joe Ciardiello.

Hubert Harrison, Giant of Harlem Radicalism

A two-volume biography tracks the life and times of one of Harlem’s leading socialists.
From left, Vincent Hallinan, Charlotta Bass and Paul Robeson in California in August 1952
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Black Internationalism Is the Antidote to America’s Love of War

How Charlotta Bass, a Black woman and peace activist, anticipated America’s path to militarism.
A cartoon by Thomas Nast, depicting Johnson as a king and the race riots that occurred at a Radical Republican convention in New Orleans.

‘The Failed Promise’ Review: The Mad King and the Lost Cause

Frederick Douglass and Republican legislators had high hopes for Andrew Johnson—but ended up impeaching him.
Diagram relating to Black population and diagram of Georgia occupations by race

The Color Line

W.E.B. Du Bois’s exhibit at the 1900 Paris Exposition offered him a chance to present the dramatic gains made by Black Americans since the end of slavery.
The Hussman School of Journalism and Media’s Carroll Hall at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
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The Irony of Complaints About Nikole Hannah-Jones’s Advocacy Journalism

The White press helped destroy democracy in the South. Black journalists developed an activist tradition because they had to.
African American mother and children in peach vignette, c. 1885.

A Mother’s Influence

How African American women represented Black motherhood in the early nineteenth century.
Newspapers

Skewed View of Tulsa Race Massacre Started on Day 1 With 'The Story That Set Tulsa Ablaze'

A Tulsa Tribune newspaper story of an alleged assault attempt helped instigate the Tulsa Race Massacre, leaving hundreds dead along Black Wall Street.
African American men in suits, sitting outside of a drugstore

The Game Is Changing for Historians of Black America

For centuries, stories of Black communities have been limited by racism in the historical record. Now we can finally follow the trails they left behind.
Robert E. Lee Monument in Richmond, Virginia.

Why Honor Them?

In the decades after the Civil War, Black Americans warned of the dangers of Confederate monuments.
Photograph of a newsstand selling magazines

What Are Magazines Good For?

The story of America can be told through the story of its periodicals.
A scrapbook of African American history

A Priceless Archive of Ordinary Life

To preserve Black history, a 19th-century archivist filled hundreds of scrapbooks with newspaper clippings and other materials.

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