Publishing
TIMOTHY THOMAS FORTUNE (b. Oct. 3, 1856, Marianna, Fla., U.S.–d. June 2, 1928, Philadelphia, Pa.), the leading black American journalist of the late 19th century.
The son of slaves, Fortune attended a Freedmen’s Bureau school for a time after the Civil War and eventually became a compositor for a black newspaper in Washington, D.C. Moving to New York City about 1880, he soon began a career in journalism as editor and publisher of a newspaper first called the New York Globe (1882-84), then the New York Freeman (1884-87), and finally the New York Age, editing the latter (with interruptions) from 1887 until he sold it in 1907. In his well-known editorials in the Age, Fortune defended the civil rights of both Northern and Southern blacks and spoke out against racial discrimination and segregation. He also wrote the book Black and White (1884), in which he condemned the exploitation of black labour by both agriculture and industry in the post-Reconstruction South.
Fortune was the chief founder in 1890 of the Afro-American League, which, though it collapsed in 1893, was an important forerunner of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP). Though always a militant defender of black rights, Fortune had by 1900 allied himself with the more moderate Booker T. Washington, a move that would eventually compromise Fortune’s reputation and lead to a decline in his influence. From 1923 until his death he edited the Negro World, the journalistic organ of the movement led by Marcus Garvey.
Politics
The interracial organization was created to work for the abolition of segregation and discrimination in housing, education, employment, voting, and transportation; to oppose racism; and to ensure blacks their constitutional rights. The NAACP was created in 1909 with the merging of the Niagara Movement, a group of young blacks led by W.E.B. Du Bois, and a group of concerned whites.
Since its founding, the NAACP has been most successful in the areas of legal redress. Other areas of activity have included political action to secure enactment of civil-rights laws, programs of education and public information to win popular support, and direct action to achieve specific goals. In 1939 the NAACP Legal Defense and Education Fund was established independently of the NAACP to act as the legal arm of the Civil Rights Movement, and it was the NAACP’s legal council that carried to the Supreme Court the case (Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka) that resulted in the high court’s 1954 school-desegregation decision. The organization moved its headquarters from New York City to Baltimore in 1986.
Firsts
b. Trenton, N.J. After graduating (1956) from Brooklyn Law School, he went into private law practice. Active in Democratic politics in New York City, he held the office of Manhattan borough president from 1986 to 1989. In 1989 he became the first African American to be elected mayor of New York City; he served for one term (1990?93).
Education
1867?1940. b. Amelia co., Va., grad. Hampton Institute, 1890. He was commandant (1890?1915) of Hampton Institute, then principal and president of Tuskegee Institute until 1935. A successor of Booker T. Washington, he raised Tuskegee to college level and was important in national and international racial affairs. He received the Harmon award (1930) and Spingarn medal (1932).
Government
Secretary of Housing and Urban Development (1966?68), b. Washington, D.C. He was successively adviser to the Secretary of the Interior (1933?37), special assistant with the Housing Authority (1937?40), and an administrative assistant with the National Defense Advisory Commission (1940). During World War II he held several offices concerned with mobilizing black labor. After holding various teaching assignments and working with the John Hay Whitney Foundation, Weaver was (1955?59) New York state rent commissioner. In 1961, President John F. Kennedy appointed him to the post of administrator of the Housing and Home Finance Agency. In 1966, President Lyndon B. Johnson appointed him head of the newly created Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD); he was the first black to hold a cabinet post. After leaving HUD he was (1969?70) president of Bernard M. Baruch College and professor of Urban Affairs at Hunter College (1970?78). His works include Negro Labor: A National Problem (1946), The Negro Ghetto (1948), The Urban Complex: Human Values in Urban Life (1964), and Dilemmas of Urban America (1965).
The Arts
1909?1959. b. Woodville, Miss. He played the tenor saxophone with various bands (1929?40), including those of Fletcher Henderson and Count Basie, with whom he first recorded in 1936. Young and Coleman Hawkins are considered the major influences on tenor-saxophone playing, and Young’s style was important in the development of progressive, or cool, jazz, which arose in the late 1940s. He won several jazz polls and made a number of records, including a series with Billie Holiday, who gave him his nickname, ?President,? later shortened to ?Pres? or ?Prez.?
