The Baltimore Afro-American, commonly known as The Afro or Afro News, is a weekly African-American newspaper published in Baltimore, Maryland. It is the flagship newspaper of the AFRO-American chain and the longest-running African-American family-owned newspaper in the United States, established in 1892.[2][3]
Nameplate of The Afro-American Ledger, September 6, 1913
Initially the Afro-American was known as the Home Protector which was established and edited by Reverend William Alexander in 1889. With the help of a group of investors, including John R. Cole, Charles H. Richardson, James E. Johnson, and William H. Daly, the Home Protector became the Afro-American on August 13, 1892. In the spring of 1895, the Northwestern Family Supply Company (NFSC), assumed control of the Afro-American. Although this seemed to be a turn for the best, that prominent business firm went bankrupt leading to near end of the newspaper. In 1897, the machinery used to print the Afro-American went up for sale. John H. Murphy Sr., then the head of the printing press at the paper, purchased the newspaper's printing equipment for $200, which he borrowed from his wife, Martha Howard Murphy. Since then, the Afro-American has been owned and operated by the Murphy family.[4]
John H. Murphy Sr. was born into slavery and served in the Civil War in the United States Colored Troops, reaching the rank of sergeant (NCO). He worked a variety of jobs after the war. Active with the Bethel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Baltimore, a denomination founded in the early 19th century in Philadelphia as the first independent Black religion in the United States. Murphy merged his church publication, The Sunday School Helper, with two other church publications, The Ledger and The Afro-American. With The Afro-American, Murphy promoted unity in the Black community of Baltimore, as well as combating racial discrimination in the city and working for children's education. "He crusaded for racial justice while exposing racism in education, jobs, housing and public accommodations. In 1913, he was elected president of the National Negro Press Association."[5]
In 1905, the Afro-American urged its readers to vote against the Poe Amendment, a piece of legislation meant to disenfranchise black voters.[6] When the Strauss Amendment followed in 1908, the paper persisted, attacking advocates of the amendment.[7]
The publication began to grow to reach more cities and to rise in national prominence after his son Carl J. Murphy took control in 1922, serving as its editor for 45 years. He expanded the paper to have nine national editions, with papers published in 13 major cities. At its peak, the paper published two weekly editions in Baltimore[8] and regional weekly editions in cities including Washington, DC; Philadelphia; Richmond, Virginia; and Newark, New Jersey, the latter a destination northern city for many Blacks from the rural South during the Great Migration to the North in the first half of the 20th century. In the early 21st century, the AFRO-American has two city editions: one in Baltimore, and the other for Washington, D.C.[9]
During the 1924 presidential election, the Afro-American threw their support behind the Progressives established at the Baltimore Federation of Labor Offices and led by Elisabeth Coit Gilman and Broadus Mitchell.[10]
Through the summer of 1932, the Baltimore AFRO-American published revealing personal letters from prominent African-American scientist and Howard University professor Percy Lavon Julian.[11] This led to a scandal and the pressure forced Julian to resign from Howard.[12]
Carl Murphy used the editorial pages of The AFRO-American to push for the hiring of African Americans by Baltimore's police and fire departments; to press for Black representation in the legislature; and for the establishment of a state supported university to educate African Americans.[13]
In the 1930s The AFRO-American launched a successful campaign known as “The Clean Block” campaign which is still in existence today. The campaign developed into an annual event and was aimed at improving the appearance of, and reducing crime in, inner-city neighborhoods. The AFRO-American also campaigned against the Southern Railroad's use of Jim Crow cars, and fought to obtain equal pay for Maryland's Black schoolteachers.
During World War II, The AFRO-American deployed several of its reporters to Europe, the Aleutians, Africa, Japan, and other parts of the South Pacific, and provided its readers with firsthand coverage of the war. One of its reporters (and Carl Murphy's daughter), Elizabeth Murphy Phillips Moss, was the first Black female correspondent.
The AFRO-American collaborated with The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) on numerous civil rights cases. In the 1950s the newspaper joined forces with the NAACP in the latter's suit against the University of Maryland Law School for its segregationist admission policies. Their combined efforts eventually led to the U.S. Supreme Court's 1954 decision outlawing segregated public schools. The AFRO-American also supported actor/singer Paul Robeson and sociologist W.E.B. DuBois during the anti-Communist campaigns of the Joseph McCarthy era.
The AFRO-American has employed many notable Black journalists and intellectuals including Langston Hughes, William Worthy and J. Saunders Redding. In the mid 1930s it became the first Black newspaper to employ a female sportswriter when it hired Lillian Johnson and Nell Dodson to serve on its staff. Renowned artist Romare Bearden began his career as a cartoonist at The AFRO-American in 1936.
Sam Lacy, who was hired as the paper's sports editor in 1943 and who, at the age of 94, still wrote a weekly column for the paper, used his weekly ” A to Z” column to campaign for integration in professional sports. Using their writing to protest racial inequities in professional sports, Lacy and sports writers such as Wendell Smith of The Pittsburgh Courier helped to open doors for Black athletes. Following the death of Carl Murphy in 1967, his daughter Frances L. Murphy II served as chairman and publisher. In 1974, John Murphy III, Carl's nephew, was appointed chairman and eventually became the publisher.
Both John H. Murphy Sr. and his son Carl J. Murphy have been posthumously inducted into the MDDC Press Association's Hall of Fame in recognition of their contributions to journalism and publishing, in 2008[5] and 2015,[14] respectively.
Today the AFRO is led by 4th and 5th generation descendants of John H. Murphy Sr. It is in partnership with the Strategic Communications and Journalism Departments of Morgan State University's School of Global Journalism and Communication to provide real-time experience for those who would be journalists and/or public relations specialists.
University collaborative archival project
In November 2007, five students were selected from Baltimore institutions, Johns Hopkins University, Morgan State University and Goucher College, to begin work under an Andrew W. Mellon Foundation grant "to uncover and describe the content" of the newspaper's archives, held at its headquarters. These included manuscripts, articles, photographs, and clippings that date to the founding of the paper. "The objectives of the project are to identify important unprocessed collections at the newspaper, inventory and organize the collection, and ultimately create an online database for searching the material."[9]
Vashti Murphy McKenzie is the President and General Secretary of the National Council of Churches of Christ in the USA. She is also a retired bishop of the African Methodist Episcopal Church, and author of six books. In 2000, McKenzie became the first woman to be elected as bishop in the denomination's history. She later served as President of the Council of Bishops, becoming the first woman to serve as Titular head of the AME Church.
The Washington Afro-American newspaper is the Washington, D.C., edition of The Afro-American Newspaper.
African American newspapers are news publications in the United States serving African American communities. Samuel Cornish and John Brown Russwurm started the first African American periodical, Freedom's Journal, in 1827. During the Antebellum South, other African American newspapers sprang up, such as The North Star, founded in 1847 by Frederick Douglass.
The National Newspaper Publishers Association (NNPA), formerly the National Negro Publishers Association, is an association of African American newspaper publishers from across the United States. It was established in 1940 and took its current name in 1956. Its headquarters was in Louisville, Kentucky.
Carl Murphy was an African-American journalist, publisher, civil rights leader, and educator. He was publisher of the Afro-American newspaper chain of Baltimore, Maryland, expanding its coverage with regional editions in several major cities of the Washington, D.C., area, as well as Newark, New Jersey, a destination of thousands of rural blacks in the Great Migration to the North.
Madeline Wheeler Murphy was an African-American community activist, civil rights champion, advocate for the poor, and panelist on the Baltimore television show Square Off.
Lillie May Carroll Jackson, pioneer civil rights activist, organizer of the Baltimore branch of the NAACP. Invariably known as "Dr. Lillie", "Ma Jackson", and the "mother of the civil rights movement", Lillie May Carroll Jackson pioneered the tactic of non-violent resistance to racial segregation used by Martin Luther King Jr. and others during the early civil rights movement.
John Henry Murphy Sr. was an African-American newspaper publisher based in Baltimore, Maryland. Born into slavery, he is best known as the founder of the Baltimore Afro-American, published by the AFRO-American Newspaper Company of Baltimore, Inc. This newspaper is one of the oldest operating black family-owned newspapers in the U.S.A.
Not to be confused with Georgie Supreme Court judge Willis A. Hawkins
John Henry Murphy III, was a publisher and newspaper executive, head of the family-owned enterprise of the Afro-American newspaper based in Baltimore, Maryland. At its peak, it had nine national editions, published in 13 major cities. Murphy was the grandson of the paper's founder, former slave and Civil War veteran John H. Murphy Sr. After working from 1937 as manager of the paper's Washington, D.C., edition, and in other positions, Murphy succeeded his uncle Carl J. Murphy in 1967 as president of the Afro-American papers, and in 1974 as chairman of the board and publisher.
The Ethnic press in Baltimore, Maryland is press directed to a particular ethnic minority group or community in mind, including the non-English-language press. While English-language newspapers have always served the general population, many of Baltimore's ethnic immigrant communities have had newspapers published in their native languages.
Paul Samuel Henderson was an African-American photojournalist for the Baltimore Afro-American newspaper from 1929 through c. 1960. He became well known for taking pictures of large groups and distant objects atop a ladder he carried. Henderson primarily photographed people, including church groups, politicians, graduations, local college and university groups, weddings, events during the Civil Rights Movement, and more. He was a member of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, a vestryman at St. James Church, charter member of the Druid Hill Avenue Neighborhood Club, assistant treasurer of a local Frontiers International club, and supported The Salvation Army.
Der Deutsche Correspondent was a German-language newspaper in Baltimore, Maryland. It was the most influential newspaper among Germans in Baltimore, lasting longer than any of the other German newspapers in Maryland.
Gertrude Louise Poe was an American journalist, lawyer, real estate agent, insurance agent, and radio broadcaster who served as the editor of Laurel Leader in Laurel, Maryland from 1939 to 1980. She was known as "Maryland's First Lady of Journalism."
The Civilian & Telegraph was a Unionist newspaper published weekly in Cumberland, Maryland, from 1859 to 1905. It was created on March 17, 1859, from the merger of two newspapers, the Civilian and Telegraph. William Evans and John J. Maupin were the first editors.
Elizabeth B. Murphy Moss (1917–1998) was an American journalist. She was the first black woman to be certified as an overseas war correspondent in World War II.
Kent County News is a weekly newspaper published in Chestertown, Maryland. The paper is published once a week on Thursday. The first publication was in 1947, but the paper can be traced back to the Chestertown Spy which was established in 1793. It is one of the nation's oldest newspapers. The paper serves Kent County and the city of Chestertown on the Eastern Shore of Maryland.
The history of African Americans in Baltimore dates back to the 17th century when the first African slaves were being brought to the Province of Maryland. Majority white for most of its history, Baltimore transitioned to having a black majority in the 1970s. As of the 2010 Census, African Americans are the majority population of Baltimore at 63% of the population. As a majority black city for the last several decades with the 5th largest population of African Americans of any city in the United States, African Americans have had an enormous impact on the culture, dialect, history, politics, and music of the city. Unlike many other Northern cities whose African-American populations first became well-established during the Great Migration, Baltimore has a deeply rooted African-American heritage, being home to the largest population of free black people half a century before the Emancipation Proclamation. The migrations of Southern and Appalachian African Americans between 1910 and 1970 brought thousands of African Americans to Baltimore, transforming the city into the second northernmost majority-black city in the United States after Detroit. The city's African-American community is centered in West Baltimore and East Baltimore. The distribution of African Americans on both the West and the East sides of Baltimore is sometimes called "The Black Butterfly", while the distribution of white Americans in Central and Southeast Baltimore is called "The White L."
Frances Murphy Draperalso known as Toni, is an American teacher, newspaper executive and pastor. She was President of the Baltimore Afro-American from 1988 to 1999, and subsequently pastor of Freedom Temple African Methodist Episcopal Zion Church in Baltimore. In 2018 she became chairman of the board and publisher of AFRO-American Newspapers.
↑ Walsh, Richard; Fox, William Lloyd (1983). Maryland, a history. Annapolis, Md: Hall of Records Commission, Dept. of General Services. p.614. OCLC10691842.
↑ Walsh, Richard; Fox, William Lloyd (1983). Maryland, a history. Annapolis, Md: Hall of Records Commission, Dept. of General Services. p.648. OCLC10691842.
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