This work examines both predominately black newspapers in general and four in particular--the Chicago Defender, the Pittsburgh Courier, the Black Dispatch (Oklahoma City), and the Jackson (Mississippi) Advocate--and their coverage of national events. The beginnings of the black press are detailed, focusing on how they reported the anti-slavery movement, the Civil War and the Reconstruction era. Their coverage of the migration of blacks to the industrial north in the early twentieth century and World War I are next examined, followed by the black press response to World War II and the civil rights movement. The survival techniques used by the editors, how some editors reacted when faced with threats of physical harm, and how the individual editorial policies affected the different newspapers are fully explored. Instructors considering this book for use in a course may request an examination copy here.

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Critics often chastised the twentieth-century black press for focusing on sex and scandal rather than African American achievements. In Pleasure in the News, Kim Gallon takes an opposing stance—arguing that African American newspapers fostered black sexual expression, agency, and identity. Gallon discusses how journalists and editors created black sexual publics that offered everyday African Americans opportunities to discuss sexual topics that exposed class and gender tensions. While black churches and black schools often encouraged sexual restraint, the black press printed stories that complicated notions about respectability. Sensational coverage also expanded African American women’s sexual consciousness and demonstrated the tenuous position of female impersonators, black gay men, and black lesbians in early twentieth African American urban communities. Informative and empowering, Pleasure in the News redefines the significance of the black press in African American history and advancement while shedding light on the important cultural and social role that sexuality played in the power of the black press.

Included in the examples are works from the Charleston and Old Slave Mart museums and the ironwork of Philip Simmons.