Putting the Black Ink Back into Print: Black Newark/Black New Ark

Abstract

This essay makes the case for the 1968 community newspaper Black Newark as an archival site that provides an alternative account of the growth of the Black Power movement in the city of Newark. The issues written about in this radical publication are an abundant resource for historians and researchers of New Jersey culture and Black cultural production in the United States. This essay contests the fact that no books devoted to the history of the Black press in the United States or surveys of African American newspapers make mention of Black Newark. It is the aim of this essay to examine both the 1968 edition of Black Newark and the later 1972–1974 edition of Black New Ark with the express goal of including the publications in the archive of both the history of Newark, New Jersey, and the Black press in the United States.