WW II: loyalty, or democracy at home? continued from page 8 claimed 275,000 copies sold each week, The "old days," when Abbott 200,000 of its National edition, 75,000 became the first black publisher to of its local edition. Mrs. Robert L. Vann establish national circulation by who said she'd rather be known as soliciting Pullman car porters and din- Robert L. Vann's widow than any other ing car waiters to get his paper out, man's wife reported that the 17 were gone. Once, people had been so various editions of the Pittsburgh V a of anxious about getting the Defender that lW5 Yt POWBCX I IT A CMCK WA KIMo) Courier had circulation 300,000. Pf.Sl5 Jm happened out ACtw mE Other women leaders of they just sent Abbott money in the mail iVl n HtZx&Vif7JWaP rjr prominent the NNPA were Miss Olive . . .coins glued to cards with table numerous. syrup. Abbott just dumped all the Diggs was business manager of Anthony money and cards in a big barrel to Overton's Bee. She was elected separate the syrup and paper from the th& phone? I wbuWfi in 1942 as an executive committee cash. What Abbott sold his readers was w,S,75ods PFKvSi member, while Mrs. Vann was elected an idea catch the first train and come eastern vice president. They were the out of the South. first women to hold elected office in the n New publishers with new ideas were I NNPA. coming to the fore. W.A. Scott owned a The current NNPA secretary is Mrs. press, and he didn't believe his plant Ophelia DeVore Mitchell, publisher of should ever stop running. He was the the Columbus Times, and the group's first to pioneer the printed-away-from-ho- treasurer is now Mrs. Marjorie Porter edition for the World papers in Parham, publisher of the Cincinnati Birmingham and Memphis. His Bir- Herald. These women succeeded to the mingham World had a unique and in- L. leadership of their deceased husbands' f0H,;uE Iflf' TOLD HIM TO 2jlGO&H My OWN IW THF THE-- YEPITS dependent publisher. PETE ffcID rillS&iVE IT TOME' WE'D 1 tTWvRENTt, ... HELPlNCn H newspapers, as did current NNPA V (JFW6EEAT0R 'TIL 6W TORX&eTM&J 6ET RID OP IT THE -- A MURDERER board-membe- W.O. Emory gave up teaching school d Mrs. Jane Woods, McADV of St. Louis Sentinel. to be the meanest man in Birmingham LT WOPT publisher the as the publisher of the World. Talk Other NNPA officers and board about being militant ... he was one of members fit this category Mrs. the early militants. Dorothy Leave!!, publisher of the At that same time, a number of black Chicago and news- Mrs. Lenora publicists for government agencies and papers, and Carter, pub- lisher of the Forward Times. private corporations got into sensitive Mrs. Mildred an NNPA positions. At the Agriculture Depart- Brown, active ment Sherman Briscoe who came out member, founded her own newspaper, of retirement in 1971, and served until the . Notable black women his death Oct. 27, 1979 as NNPA execu- publishers Mrs. C.A. Franklin, Kansas (ive ear TCvraBf Mrs. Houston tive director ws such a veteran THE HOUSEtdgT Lvmy' n tr7f City Call; Carter Wesley, just B&fCCe JU&& a 1 black reporter. .Tk1 Informer, and Mrs. Lancie M. Thomas, Briscoe was from Greenville, in Mobile Beacon, succeeded their late Mississippi's Delta, and he often spoke publisher husbands. editor of two general classes of black people Mrs. Almena Davis Lomax was ante-bellu- Los the late that were successful in the m of The Angeles Tribune; south. There were heirs, mulattoes or Mrs. Charlotta Bass was editor-publish- er other generally fair-skinn- benefactors of The California (Los Angeles) Eagle; of white bequests. And there were the late Mrs. Mary E. Potter, The Tampa Ruth still mean, very dark, militant niggers who (Fla.) Bulletin. Mrs. Wshington heads The Los were generally left alone by white peo- Angeles Sentinel, and or at least wide berth them. Miss Lucile Bluford has been editor of ple given by Syndicated services to black papers were pioneered by Continental Features published W.O. was one of the militants The Kansas City (Mo.) Call for many Emory by National Scene publisher L.H. Stanton. coming to the forefront in black pub- years. group has lishing when the NNPA was in its Harvard-educate- DuBois edited the chen Cabinet" rendered to Eleanor had two women as chief of its former Bureau the late Mrs. infancy. NAACP's Crisis magazine. On the Roosevelt and her husband's presidency Washington The first test of viability and surviv- whole, DuBois wrote, the Black Press it was an outlet, to vent black frustra- Venice Spraggs and Miss Ethel Payne who was an associate editor and cor- ability of the upstart NNPA came dur- did not deserve most of the criticism tion, and allow official black expres ing World War II, that's when the wrath made on it at that time. "It is not guilty sion. respondent CBS Spectrum Commen- Mrs. of criticism came down on the Black of stirring up Negroes to revolt. Negro 11 through the years the Black taries on radio and television. Alice entered the White Press. There were always foes of the public opinion has stirred the news- Press was in opposition to what Dunnigan Black Press, contending that it wasn't papers to voice revolt. A;ever was seen as detrimental to House as Associated Negro Press cor- first of her loyal, because the black papers were "On the whole, the Negro press is not black interests. It covered everything, respondent, and woman the race in 1947. Weaver was the fighting foes of democracy at home guilty of misrepresenting the condition the churches, social organizations. . . Audrey first black to edit a news- so that the United States could honorably of Negroes. It does play up crime and and the social life. The day Billy woman daily fight the foes of democracy abroad. Still scandal but not nearly as much as the Eckstine, Earl "Fatha" Hines, Cab paper, when she served as managing of the until the Black Press pushed War Bonds and white press. It does emphasize and often Calloway were hanging out in Chicago editor Chicago Defender The a Civil Defense, but they insisted that if exaggerates Negro accomplishment; with Louis Armstrong, for example. 1978. Defender now employs we fight the foe abroad, we should fight but even here it has not approached the The frontier for black publisher white woman Joy Darrow a former it at home as well. boastfulness of the national press. Prob- activism turned to the advertising staff member as its wide-readin- also a first of The Black Press was defended on all ably by and large a g of the arena. At that time (and sadly in 1980 as managing editor, likely fronts. U.S. Attorney General Francis Negro press would reflect a most accu- well), the presumption of white adver- which publisher Sengstacke is proud. Biddle, defended protest in black rate picture of present conditions tisers was that all blacks read white There were people who attended the papers and commmended their war ef- among Negroes than any other source." publications anyway maybe even more founding session of the NNPA who fort, the Feb. 14, 1943 Atlanta Daily Briscoe and other black reporters and faithfully than their own black were not publishers, and were left off World reported. In observance of Na- government media professionals were weeklies, so why advertise in both, the early official convention photo- tional Negro Newspaper Week, Feb. 27 predictably denied membership in the since both are printed in English? The graphs. But by 1941, '42 and '43, they through March 4, 1944, the Chicago e, all-ma- National Press Club only ads being placed then even in too began appearing in official goings Defender printed an article written the of Washington, D.C.. In 1944 they newspapers with circulations of on. Many who were at those first ses- year before by militant NAACP-founde- r, formed the Capital Press Club. It ren- 200,000-300,00- 0 readers were skin sions are still standing tall, some as and st scholar, dered to the journalism world, the same whiteners and hair straighteners. publishers, others in government and Dr. W.E.B. DuBois. service Mary McLeod Bethune's "Kit- - In 1947 Sengstacke's Defender civil rights. continued on page 1 1 10