‘You can make them liars’ – the world war two funny pages of the Pittsburgh Courier, American's leading African American weekly newspaper

Abstract

The Pittsburgh Courier, the leading African American-produced newspaper of the segregation era, had a double mission: to show the American normality of African American life and culture and to show the injustice of mainstream America. The tension between the conservative former and the progressive latter informs all parts of the paper. With America's entry into World War II, this tension becomes acute. Reviewing the comics page at the end of each issue, this essay hopes to introduce a neglected area of comics history and show its relationship to the larger world of the Courier and African American experience.