For Country, Culture, and Respect: The Bennett Banner’s Use of Journalism to Promote Equality from a Black Feminist Perspective

Abstract

ABSTRACT This study examines articles published in the Bennett Banner, the student-run newspaper on the campus of Bennett College for Women in Greensboro, North Carolina, from 1931 to 1959. This exploration focuses on how the Banner covered race, politics, and community building during the decades of economic instability and racial unrest leading to the civil rights movement of the 1960s. Findings indicate that the Banner, founded on the campus of one of the country’s oldest historically Black colleges, distinguished itself as a place where Black women empowered other Black women to assert their collective voices to rally for racial equality. The student editors and writers embraced a mission to engage the paper’s audience by delivering news about race, politics, and community building from a Black feminist perspective. The Banner embraced the traditional role of the Black press—that of being the champion for the race and a source of intentional agitation.