Race News

Abstract

Race News examines the political and professional evolution of black journalism in the twentieth century. In particular, Fred Carroll explores the commercial black press’ contentious working relationship with the alternative black press and its thorny interactions with a repressive federal government and hostile white media to explain how shifting toleration of progressive politics reconfigured how black journalists wrote and covered the news. From World War I to World War II, leading newspapers crafted a progressive newswriting template influenced by the racial militancy of the New Negro Movement, modernist sensibilities of the Harlem Renaissance, and communist critiques of the American political economy. Such newswriting established the parameters of acceptable political discourse for millions of African Americans. This style of reportage also coincided with staggering circulation increases that established newspapers of national and international significance, including the Baltimore Afro-American, Chicago Defender, and Pittsburgh Courier. However, this newswriting template unraveled during the Cold War as publishers distanced themselves from progressive influences to protect their businesses from the anticommunism movement. Commercial publishers confronted numerous competitive challenges in the postwar period. They witnessed circulation declines as the white press began to cover the Civil Rights Movement, and a revitalized alternative black press emerged to endorse the Black Power Movement. The fitful integration of white newsrooms eventually led to the U.S. media's fairer but imperfect coverage of minority concerns.