As entombed as most of our stories have been throughout American
history, many of us know about the Civil Rights movement and Martin
Luther King Jr., or slavery and Harriet Tubman and Frederick Douglass.
Lesser known are Robert Abbot, Ida B. Wells, Charlotta Bass, and
the others who were pioneers of the Black press. They told our stories
when no one else would.
Now producer/director Stanley Nelson tells their stories in her new
video documentary The Black Press: Soldiers without Swords.
The video, which is almost ninety minutes long, chronicles the
history of the Black press from Freedom’s Journal, the first paper to
be published by African Americans, to the California Eagle, Bass’s
“for-the-people” Los Angeles publication.
Combining striking stills that capture the essence of the time and
the comments of sagacious scholars who put the movement in perspective,
Nelson creates a dynamic documentary and tribute to our publishing
progenitors.
Richly researched, the film contains a wealth of information on not
only the papers that were published but the stories they contained and
their significance to the community.
Black newspapers introduced former slaves to the printed word.
Robert S. Abbot’s Chicago Defender, perhaps the most successful Black
paper in history, convinced hordes of southern Blacks to migrate north.
The Pittsburgh Courier, published by Robert S. Vann, launched its
“Double V” campaign during World War II to enlighten America’s
consciousness about the inequalities African Americans continued to
endure at home despite their achievements in the war.
