DANIEL McCLOUD
– Chuck D (Public Enemy), “Welcome to The Terrordome”
In recent years there has been a war raging against the press. For the most part, this war appears to have been politically motivated. As with most wars, there are casualties, and often, depending on how long the battle rages, people forget the reasons they fight and the reason for the cause.
Throughout history, there have been attacks on the press and efforts to control the news cycle. Wars also include collateral damage. Often for the most vulnerable populations. For many, the power is the press and who owns the press and thus the messaging. While much is known about the mainstream press, less is known about the Black press. The 1999 Stanley Nelson documentary, “The Black Press, Soldiers Without Swords,” chronicles the history of the Black press and the crucial role that these newspapers and their founders played in American history.
According to the film, even before the end of the Civil War, the Black press was Black Americans’ first opportunity to tell their stories and shed light on the continued atrocities they were being subjected to. Early newspapers such as Freedom’s Journal (1827-1851, founded by Samuel Cornish and John B. Russwurm, and Frederick Douglass’s North Star(1847-1851), focused their attention on African Americans’ achievements as well as the fight for equality and social justice.
In viewing the film, two things were apparent following the Civil War; (1) there were now millions of freed Blacks who longed for newfound freedoms. One such freedom denied them was the freedom to learn. Therefore education became a central part of the post-civil war Reconstruction era. However, the war’s end did not mean that Blacks were truly free or removed from harm. Following Reconstruction, the period of Jim Crow was ushered in. Domestic terrorism and the act of lynching, became widespread. (2) The White press continued its efforts to portray Blacks as mindless, violent brutes were further ramped up, with a continued focus of portraying Blacks in the most damaging and stereotypical light.
The early forms of the Black press focused on providing Blacks something to read and information that would allow Blacks to dream of distant lands and better opportunities. It is of little surprise that the establishment of the Northern Black press was instrumental in the start of the Great Migration, which saw upwards of six million Blacks move from the South to the North, West, and Midwest. Not surprisingly, as more Blacks moved from the South, more Black newspapers were established, including The Baltimore Afro-American, Cleveland Gazette, Philadelphia Tribune, New York Age, and Savannah Tribune emerged in the late 1800s. By 1910 the New York Amsterdam News, Chicago Defender, and Pittsburgh Courier also commenced publication.
The Chicago Defender was particularly influential because its founder, Robert S. Abbott, initiative to circulate the Defender in the Jim Crow south. Because the Defender was published in Chicago, Abbott was not concerned with Blacks’ inevitable retribution for standing so forcefully against the KKK and lynching. Regarding lynching, the newspaper highlighted the fact that over 4,700 people were lynched between 1882 and 1968. The Black press was for that period what the television would later become for the Civil Rights movement.
The lasting legacy of the Black press, social justice, education, and the counter-narrative to the White press, was also the hope and pride given to a people who for so long were not allowed to experience hope and who were taught that they were less than human and therefore had nothing of which to be proud. Those men and women who were instrumental in establishing the Black press should be hailed as heroes for seeking to restore humanity through words and pictures. And for that reason, perhaps the pen is mightier than the sword. Their influence on today’s press regarding truth and justice at all costs goes beyond race and ethnicity.
The Black Press Soldiers Without Swords: https://youtu.be/Wo8Pvr7TyP4.