Last weekend, members of the Black Press gathered in the District to celebrate the 198th anniversary of African American media and to consider the steps required to ensure their future for the next 200 years.
From humble beginnings, the Black Press, under the umbrella of the National Newspaper Publishers Association (NNPA), has grown from the New York-based Freedom’s Journal, first published March 16, 1827, to about 258 publications across multiple media platforms.
During Black Press Day, March 13, NNPA President and CEO Benjamin Chavis Jr. addressed his colleagues on the campus of Howard University, reminding them about the importance of remaining “on the front lines of authentic journalism, reporting factual news.”
“Since 1827, the Black Press has continued to be an active advocate for freedom, justice, equality, empathy and empowerment,” Chavis said. “[But] the pseudo-ideology of white supremacy has not changed. We have to represent and touch our people, our communities and they have to know that when we’re out there on the front line, we represent their interests.”
And while Chavis noted that even in this digital age, print media remains the foundation and the heart of the Black Press, he added that as a collective source for news, “the value of the Black Press cannot and should not be understated or underestimated.”
The celebration continued several days later during Black Press Sunday, at Metropolitan A.M.E. Church on March 16, coinciding with the actual date Freedom’s Journal first went to press 198 years ago. When the publication was founded by a journalist and faith leader, Freedom’s Journal served as a response to white-owned newspapers who adamantly refused to report on the lives of African Americans with any kernel of truth or humanity.
The event was hosted in collaboration with The Washington Informer, Afro-American Newspapers and the Washington Association of Black Journalists (WABJ).
Like Chavis, who was present for Black Sunday, the Rev. William H. Lamar IV, pastor of D.C.’s historic Metropolitan AME Church, emphasized the continued importance of Black media today and collaborating with the Black church to further justice work.
“At such a time as this, when truth is under assault and the voices of the marginalized are often silenced, the Black Press remains a prophetic force for justice,” said Lamar, pastor of the same house of worship, famed abolitionist Frederick Douglass, publisher of The North Star, attended. “The same faith that sustained Frederick Douglass and Ida B. Wells (two prominent Black journalists in the 19th and early 20th centuries) fuels our commitment today to speaking truth to power.”
Washington Informer Publisher Denise Rolark Barnes, the mastermind of Black Press Sunday, said the Black Press not only remains “steadfast in our demands for justice” but that they understand, as did the publishers of Freedom’s Journal, the strength which African Americans can secure when the have access to the truth.
“Information is power, and truth is sacred,” said Rolark Barnes, who is also marking 60 years of The Informer with a gala at the Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial Library on March 28.
She emphasized that “journalism is not a profession – it’s a purpose.”
Since the founding of the Freedom’s Journal in 1827, The Washington Informer in 1964, and many other organizations, the Black Press has “pleaded our cause.”
We vow to continue in the path laid out by our founders, for ours is both a mission and a ministry.