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Black Journalists oral history collection, 1971-1972.

Project: Black Journalists oral history collection,
(see all project interviews)
Phys. Desc. :Transcripts 3840 pages Sound recordings 118 audiocassettes
Location: Columbia Center for Oral History
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Biographical Note

Henry "Henk" G. La Brie III undertook the interviews in the Black Journalists oral history collection as research for his dissertation "A Profile of the Black Press: Old Guard Black Journalists Reflect on the Past, Present and Future." A motivating factor for La Brie to conduct the interviews was that the subject had not been documented as much as he anticipated when he started investigating. He began his research with telephone interviews with George Schuyler, Arna Bontemps, J. Saunders Redding, and Eric Roberts, who offered suggestions and bibliographic sources to pursue. In April of 1971, he received funding from the Ford Foundation to travel the country and conduct the collection's interviews. As he spent the summer interviewing, he gradually developed four lists of questions to pose to narrators. La Brie completed his doctoral studies at the University of Iowa's School of Journalism in April of 1972. His research also informed a published bibliography of the black press in the United States and "Perspectives of the Black Press: 1974", a collection of essays and reflections that La Brie edited and to which he contributed multiple pieces.

Scope and Contents

The Black Journalists oral history collection's ninety-three interviews document the history of the African American press from the late nineteenth century to the time that the interviews were taken in the early 1970s, with a particular focus on the 1930s-1960s. Narrators include publishers, editors, writers, sportswriters, photographers, cartoonists, businesspeople, and journalism professors. The interviews address both the broader social context in which the black press operated, as well as the practicalities of running a newspaper. Narrators discuss the relationship of the black press to the fight for civil rights, including coverage of events of the Civil Rights era, coverage of politics, school desegregation, and philosophies of journalistic activism. In terms of operations, narrators discuss the economics of publishing, advertising, management strategies, printing technology, and competition with radio and television. Interviewer Henry La Brie III conducted interviews from lists of prepared questions, so many narrators address the same themes across the collection. These topics include: assessments of the state of the black press; the future of the black press; whether a national black newspaper is necessary; the perception of the reporting of the black press as "sensational"; the idea of objectivity in media, more generally; the successes and failures of the black press; trust of African American press and mainstream media by readership; and coverage of African American issues, particularly following the 1968 Kerner Commission report. Narrators also speak about their life histories more generally, including youth, education, other careers, and military service. La Brie interviews individuals involved with papers that had a range of circulation numbers. Geographical scope of narrators is quite diverse, and cities where their respective newspapers are based include: Atlanta, Georgia; Baltimore, Maryland; Birmingham, Alabama; Chicago, Illinois; Cleveland, Ohio; Dallas, Texas; Detroit, Michigan; Durham, North Carolina; Greensboro, North Carolina; Indianapolis, Indiana; Jackson, Mississippi; Kansas City, Missouri; Louisville, Kentucky; Los Angeles, California; Memphis, Tennessee; Minneapolis and Saint Paul, Minnesota; New Orleans, Louisiana; Newark, New Jersey; Norfolk, Virginia; Omaha, Nebraska; Orlando, Florida; Philadelphia, Pennsylvania; Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania; Phoenix, Arizona; Raleigh, North Carolina; Saint Louis, Missouri; San Antonio, Texas; San Francisco, California; Shreveport, Louisiana; Tampa, Florida; Tulsa, Oklahoma; and Waco, Texas. The following narrators were interviewed for the project: C. Blythe Andrews, Jr.; U.J. Andrews; Lodius M. Austin; Eloise Banks; Lionel C. Barrow; Jacques A. Beauchamp; Lerone Bennett Jr.; Reuben Benton; Lucile Bluford; Arna Bontemps; Simeon Booker; J. Lawrence Bowden Jr.; Mildred Brown; Melvin Collins; Chester Commodore; Russell J. Cowans; Thomas L. Dabney; E. A. (Elbert Allen) Daly; Daniel Day; Connie Dejoie, Jr.; Alice Allison Dunnigan; W. Leonard Evans, Jr.; Ada C. Franklin; William Fowlkes; Eustace Gay; D. Parke Gibson; Carlton B. Goodlett; E. L. Goodwin, Sr.; E. L. Goodwin, Jr.; Percy Greene; Ben Holman; William Hubbard; Emory O. Jackson; Calvin Jacox; Paul R. Jervay, Sr.; F. M. Johnson; J.F. Johnson; John Q. Jordan; Harold L. Keith; David Kellum; Theophilus Lewis; Charles H. Loeb; Jack Lyle; Gilbert Maddox; Louis Martin; Ralph Matthews; Margaret E. McCall; Cullen McCoy; George McElroy; Charles Moore; Carl Morris; James Morris, Sr.; Howard H. Murphy; John H. Murphy III; Cecil B. Newman; Moses J. Newson; Herbert Nipson; Charles H. Parrish; Lawrence "Pat" Patterson; Norman Powell; Percival Leroy Prattis; Armistead S. Pride; Robert C. Queen; Longworth Quinn; Robert M. Ratcliffe; L.J. Rhone; Eric Roberts; John E. Rousseau, Jr.; William Rowe; George Schuyler; C.A. Scott; W.A. Scott III; John Herman Henry Sengstacke; Whitter Alexander Sengstacke; Joel Smith; Frank L. Stanley; John Stevens; Marcus C. Stewart, Sr.; Al Sweeny; O.C.W. Taylor; Vincent Tubbs; Nannie Mitchell Turner; Jesse Walker; William O. Walker; J. Hugo Warren; Chester L. Washington; Ruth Washington; Doris Wooten Wesley; Nathaniel Williams; C.R. Wise; Florence Fields Wood; Paul Wyche; and Andrew Sturgeon "Doc" Young. The collection is comprised of transcripts in digital and paper-based format, compact cassettes, and digital surrogates of the audio from the compact cassettes.

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