Publishing
Fredrick Augustus Washington Bailey was born in 1818 to a slave family in Talbot County, Maryland. When Douglass was a young man, he moved to Baltimore to work as a house servant for a family. Douglass was educated by the wife of the family. When Douglass turned 21, he escaped into the North by impersonating a sailor. While in the North, Douglass married Anne Murray, an aqaintance from his days in Baltimore. As an educated man, Douglass traveled Great Britain speaking on abolition. The British were so receptive of Douglass’s ideas that they started a fund to buy his freedom in America.
Douglass founded The North Star on December 3, 1847 as a vehicle to promote his political views. One of Douglass’s friends was John Brown, whose name became infamous at Harper’s Ferry. Athough Douglass was a supporter of Brown’s, he denounced his actions in John Brown, an Address. During the Civil War, Douglass’s sons were part of the 54th Massachusetts Regiment, which was composed of only African-American soldiers. Frederick Douglass was the father of five children, all by his first marriage to Anne Murray. After her death, he remarried his secretary, Helen Pitts. Douglass took a job as a publisher for the New National Era in Washington D.C, but was soon out of work due to a lack of funding. Three short year later Douglass would pass away.
Publishing
Mary Ann Shadd was the first Black women editor of a newspaper in North America. She worked for racial integration in the United States. With the passage of the fugitive slave act in 1850, she decided that the future of Blacks looked better outside of the United States. Her conviction to the struggle for the rights of Blacks must have been inspired by her father Abraham Shadd, who was an abolitionist and opponent to the American Colonization Society.
Mary Ann Shadd was committed to the education of people of color. At the age of sixteen she went to Wilmington, Delaware to organize a school for children of color. Over the course of eleven years, Shadd taught in schools for black youth in New York, Pennsylvania and Delaware. In 1851, she joined the emigrationist movement and with her brother Isaac moved to Toronto, Canada.
Once in Canada, Shadd found herself locked in battle with Henry Bibb. Bibb was a staunch supporter of segregation in contrast to Shadd Ann who sought racial integration. Bibb published a newspaper called the Voice of the Fugitive in which he frequently attacked Shadd’s desire to assimilate. With the motto “Self reliance is the fine road to independence.” Shadd founded the paper Provincial Freeman where she in turn challenged Bibb’s desire for separation. Shadd used the paper to discuss all aspects of Black life in Canada. The paper exposed all aspects of segregation and discrimination in Canada.
In 1855 Shadd was the first woman to speak at the National Negro Convention. Frederick Douglass said that she gave one of the most convincing and telling speeches in favor of Canadian emmigration. Shadd would eventually abandon her belief in emmigration but would maintain a strong desire for Black autonomy and maintain her belief in Black self help. During the Civil War she worked as an enlistment officer.
Shadd eventually obtained a Law degree and continued to write letters and articles for newspapers. She increasingly turned attention to gender equality and actively participated in supporting rights for women. Shadd testified before Congress on women’s suffrage.
During her life she lectured extensively to many groups on subjects including race pride, the Klu Klux Klan, the Republican Party and women’s rights. Frederick Douglass spoke highly of Mary Ann Shadd.
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.
Publishing
A former slave named John Henry Murphy Sr. founded one of the most important African-American newspapers on the Atlantic coast when he combined his Sunday School Helper with two other church papers: The Ledger and The Afro-American. As the paper’s readership increased, it transformed from a one page weekly to a widely read African-American newspaper. John Murphy had five sons who took over the management of The Afro-American after his death. Under the editorial control of John Murphy’s son, Carl Murphy, The Afro-American’s circulation grew to a national scale. Carl Murphy used his editorial powers to fight for the rights of African-Americans. Murphy fought to get African-American’s jobs in Law Enforcement and Legislature, while petitioning in Maryland for a state funded African-American college. The Afro-American was also credited with starting The Clean Block, a yearly event dedicated to improving life in inner city neighborhoods.
During the World War II era, The Afro American gave its readers a first hand account of the fighting by sending several correspondents, including Carl Murphy’s daughter, into combat zones. As The Afro-American grew, Carl Murphy continued his father’s mission by collaborating with the NAACP to fight for equal rights for African-Americans. The Afro-American employed several high-profile black journalists similar to the Chicago Defender. Sports coverage was hadled by Lillian Johnson and Nell Dodson, the first female sports writers hired by a black paper, and Sam Lacy , who still writes a weekly sports column at age 94. The paper also featured artwork from Romare Bearden, the Social Realist painter. When Carl Murphy died in 1967, his daughter, Frances L. Murphy II, became chairman and publisher. She was replaced in 1974 by Carl Murphy’s nephew, John Murphy III. The paper is still maintained by Murphy family members to this day.
