Boston Guardian

Last updated
Boston Guardian
Owner(s)William Monroe Trotter, George Forbes
PublisherWilliam Monroe Trotter
EditorWilliam Monroe Trotter
Founded1901
Ceased publication1957
HeadquartersBoston, Massachusetts

The Boston Guardian was an African-American newspaper, co-founded by William Monroe Trotter and George W. Forbes in 1901 in Boston and published until the 1950s.

Contents

In April 2016, an unrelated publisher launched its own Boston Guardian, a neighborhood weekly newspaper serving the Back Bay, Beacon Hill, Downtown, Fenway, South End, and North End/Waterfront districts of Boston, despite criticism that it had appropriated a historic journalistic name for purely commercial reasons.

History

The Guardian, Vol I No 38, July 26 1902 Masthead of The Guardian.jpg
The Guardian, Vol I No 38, July 26 1902

The Guardian was founded in November 1901 and published in the same building that had once housed William Lloyd Garrison's Liberator. In March 1901, Trotter helped organize the Boston Literary and Historical Association, a forum for militant race opinion.

The paper enjoyed broad appeal with readers outside of Massachusetts, featuring news of interest to people of color from across the nation, as well as social notes, church news, sports, and fiction. Within its editorial opinion columns, Trotter often assailed the conservative accommodationist ideology of Booker T. Washington, founder of the Tuskegee Institute. [1]

The Guardian reached the peak of its circulation and prestige about the year 1910, roughly coinciding with the establishment of the National Association of Colored People, of which Trotter was a co-founder along with W. E. B. DuBois, et al. Trotter and Du Bois had previously joined with others in the formation of the Niagara Movement, immediate predecessor to the NAACP.

Within the pages of the Guardian, Trotter criticized the slow progress in Negro social advancement in the face of institutional racism, discriminatory practices, and de jure segregation. When Thomas Dixon's 1905 play The Clansman (based on Dixon's novel of the same name) was performed in Boston, the Guardian mounted a campaign that forced it from the stage. The stage production was adapted in 1915 into the film The Birth of a Nation by D. W. Griffith, which also faced a boycott campaign organized by the NAACP in Boston. [2]

With high circulation and substantial advertising revenue, the Guardian enjoyed financial success in addition to crusading for civil rights. However, when William Monroe Trotter died in 1934 of an apparent accident at his home, the Guardian had already seen its best years.[ citation needed ] The newspaper eventually ceased publication in the 1950s.[ citation needed ]

Reception

W. E. B. Du Bois attests to the influence and effectiveness of the Boston Guardian. In reference to W. M. Trotter's opposition to B. T. Washington, he wrote:

This opposition began to become vocal in 1901 when two men, Monroe Trotter, Harvard 1895, and George Forbes, Amherst 1895, began the publication of the Boston Guardian. The Guardian was bitter, satirical, and personal; but it was earnest, and it published facts. It attracted wide attention among colored people; it circulated among them all over the country; it was quoted and discussed. I did not wholly agree with the Guardian, and indeed only a few Negroes did, but nearly all read it and were influenced by it. [3]

2016 publication

In 2016, the name was taken up by a new weekly title, published in Boston on Fridays by Guard Dog Media Inc. The publication is a neighborhood newspaper serving the Beacon Hill, Back Bay, Fenway, South End, and North End/Waterfront districts of Boston. The publisher had previously produced the Boston Courant from 1995 to 2016. The new publication's name stirred up some controversy over the alleged appropriation of a historic journalistic name. [4] [5] [6]

See also

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">W. E. B. Du Bois</span> American sociologist and activist (1868–1963)

William Edward Burghardt Du Bois was an American sociologist, socialist, historian, and Pan-Africanist civil rights activist.

<i>Hartford Courant</i> Daily newspaper in Connecticut, US

The Hartford Courant is the largest daily newspaper in the U.S. state of Connecticut, and is advertised as the oldest continuously published newspaper in the United States. A morning newspaper serving most of the state north of New Haven and east of Waterbury, its headquarters on Broad Street in Hartford, Connecticut was a short walk from the state capitol. It reports regional news with a chain of bureaus in smaller cities and a series of local editions. It also operates CTNow, a free local weekly newspaper and website.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Niagara Movement</span> African-American civil rights organization founded in 1905

The Niagara Movement (NM) was a civil rights organization founded in 1905 by a group of activists—many of whom were among the vanguard of African-American lawyers in the United States—led by W. E. B. Du Bois and William Monroe Trotter. The Niagara Movement was organized to oppose racial segregation and disenfranchisement. Its members felt "unmanly" the policy of accommodation and conciliation, without voting rights, promoted by Booker T. Washington. It was named for the "mighty current" of change the group wanted to effect and took Niagara Falls as its symbol. The group did not meet in Niagara Falls, New York, but planned its first conference for nearby Buffalo. The Niagara Movement was the immediate predecessor of the NAACP.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">William Monroe Trotter</span> American newspaper editor, businessman, and civil rights activist

William Monroe Trotter, sometimes just Monroe Trotter, was a newspaper editor and real estate businessman based in Boston, Massachusetts. An activist for African-American civil rights, he was an early opponent of the accommodationist race policies of Booker T. Washington, and in 1901 founded the Boston Guardian, an independent African-American newspaper he used to express that opposition. Active in protest movements for civil rights throughout the 1900s and 1910s, he also revealed some of the differences within the African-American community. He contributed to the formation of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP).

<i>The Crisis</i> Official magazine of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People

The Crisis is the official magazine of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP). It was founded in 1910 by W. E. B. Du Bois (editor), Oswald Garrison Villard, J. Max Barber, Charles Edward Russell, Kelly Miller, William Stanley Braithwaite, and Mary Dunlop Maclean. The Crisis has been in continuous print since 1910, and it is the oldest Black-oriented magazine in the world. Today, The Crisis is "a quarterly journal of civil rights, history, politics and culture and seeks to educate and challenge its readers about issues that continue to plague African Americans and other communities of color."

William Henry Ferris was an American author, minister, and scholar.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Archibald Grimké</span> American lawyer and diplomat (1849–1930)

Archibald Henry Grimké was an African-American lawyer, intellectual, journalist, diplomat and community leader in the 19th and early 20th centuries. He graduated from freedmen's schools, Lincoln University in Pennsylvania, and Harvard Law School, and served as American Consul to the Dominican Republic from 1894 to 1898. He was an activist for the rights of Black Americans, working in Boston and Washington, D.C. He was a national vice-president of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), as well as president of its Washington, D.C. chapter.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Bay Village, Boston</span> Neighborhood of Boston in Suffolk, Massachusetts, United States

Bay Village is the smallest officially recognized neighborhood of Boston, Massachusetts, United States. As of 2010, its population was approximately 1,312 residents living in 837 housing units, most of which are small brick rowhouses.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">William Monroe Trotter House</span> Historic house in Massachusetts, United States

The William Monroe Trotter House is a historic house at 97 Sawyer Avenue, atop Jones Hill in the Dorchester neighborhood of Boston. It was the home of African-American journalist and civil rights activist William Monroe Trotter (1872–1934). He and his wife Geraldine Louise Pindell moved into the two-story wood-frame home when they were married in June 1899. The house was designated a National Historic Landmark in 1976 for its association with Trotter, whose activism was influential in the founding of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">National Afro-American Council</span> US civil rights organization

The National Afro-American Council was the first nationwide civil rights organization in the United States, created in 1898 in Rochester, New York. Before its dissolution a decade later, the Council provided both the first national arena for discussion of critical issues for African Americans and a training ground for some of the nation's most famous civil rights leaders in the 1910s, 1920s, and beyond.

What came to be known as the Atlanta Compromise stemmed from a speech given by Booker T. Washington, president of the Tuskegee Institute, to the Cotton States and International Exposition in Atlanta, Georgia, on September 18, 1895. It was first supported and later opposed by W. E. B. Du Bois and other African-American leaders.

The Boston Courant was a weekly newspaper in Boston, whose coverage focused on issues of local interest to the Back Bay, Beacon Hill, Downtown, Fenway, South End, and Waterfront neighborhoods. It had a circulation of over 40,000. The Boston Courant announced its closure in February 2016 after losing a wrongful termination lawsuit. In April 2016, the former publisher debuted the Boston Guardian, with similar editorial content and neighborhood coverage.

<i>Baltimore Afro-American</i> Newspaper in Baltimore, Maryland

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.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Lafayette M. Hershaw</span> American civil rights activist (1863–1945)

Lafayette M. Hershaw was a journalist, lawyer, and a clerk and law examiner for the United States General Land Office of the United States Department of the Interior. He was a key intellectual figure among African Americans in Atlanta in the 1880s and in Washington, D.C., from 1890 until his death. He was a leader of the intellectual social groups in the capital such as Bethel Literary and Historical Society and the Pen and Pencil Club. He was a strong supporter of W. E. B. Du Bois and was one of the thirteen organizers of the Niagara Movement, the forerunner to the NAACP. He was an officer of the D.C. Branch of the NAACP from its inception until 1928. He was also a founder of the Robert H. Terrell Law School and served as the school's president.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Geraldine Pindell Trotter</span> American civil rights activist and editor

Geraldine Pindell Trotter (1872–1918) was an American civil rights activist and editor. Pindell Trotter was an integral fixture of Boston's African-American upper class at the turn of the 20th century. Pindell Trotter is most known for her role as the associate editor of the Boston Guardian, which was founded by her husband William Monroe Trotter.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Freeman H. M. Murray</span> Civil rights activist, and journalist in Washington D.C

Freeman H. M. Murray was an intellectual, civil rights activist, and journalist in Washington D.C. and Alexandria, Virginia. He was active in promoting black home-ownership, opposing Jim Crow laws and lynching, and supporting positive representation of African Americans in public art. He was a founding member of the Niagara Movement and was an editor of its journal, the Horizon, along with W. E. B. Du Bois and Lafayette M. Hershaw. Alongside his other work, Murray was an important intellectual leader and wrote an influential book of art criticism. In this, Murray was one of the first historians of African American art. His work expressed a desire that art take seriously the representation of African Americans and that slavery not be overlooked in favor of representation of heroes and glory in public art.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Butler R. Wilson</span> American attorney

Butler Roland Wilson (1861–1939) was an attorney, civil rights activist, and humanitarian based in Boston, Massachusetts. Born in Georgia, he came to Boston for law school and lived there for the remainder of his life. For over fifty years, he worked to combat racial discrimination in Massachusetts. He was one of the first African-American members of the American Bar Association. Wilson was a founding member and president of the Boston branch of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP).

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Clement G. Morgan</span> American lawyer

Clement Garnett Morgan (1859-1929) was an American attorney, civil rights activist, and city official of Cambridge, Massachusetts. Born into slavery in Virginia and freed by the Emancipation Proclamation, he trained as a barber before moving to Massachusetts to pursue his education. He was the first African American to earn degrees from both Harvard University and its law school; the first African American to deliver Harvard's senior class oration; and the first black alderman in New England. As an attorney he handled many civil rights cases, in one instance closing down a segregated school. He was a founding member of the Niagara Movement and of the Boston branch of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">George W. Forbes</span> American journalist

George W. Forbes (1864-1927) was an American journalist who advocated for African-American civil rights in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. He is best known for co-founding the Boston Guardian, an African-American newspaper in which he and William Monroe Trotter published editorials excoriating Booker T. Washington for his accommodationist approach to race relations. He also founded and edited the Boston Courant, one of Boston's earliest black newspapers, and edited the A. M. E. Church Review, a national publication.

The National Independent Political League (NIPL) was an American political organization that sought racial and social justice in the early 20th century. Considered a militant group, NIPL was founded by William Monroe Trotter in 1908 as the NationalNegro American Political League and operated until around 1920 as the National Independent Equal Rights League. In contrast to its more successful contemporary, the NAACP, NIPL was led and funded by African Americans. Historian Mark Schneider notes that NIPL "foreshadowed the militant organizations of the 1950s and 1960s that bypassed the NAACP."

References

  1. Rudwick, Elliott M. (Winter 1962). "Race Leadership Struggle: Background of the Boston Riot of 1903". The Journal of Negro Education. 31 (1): 16–24. doi:10.2307/2294533. JSTOR   2294533.
  2. ""The Birth of a Nation" Sparks Protest". Mass Moments. Retrieved 2013-07-03.
  3. Excerpt from Dusk of Dawn: An Essay Toward an Autobiography of a Race Concept, New York, 1940, pp. 72–73. ISBN   0-87855-917-5
  4. Conti, Katheleen (April 25, 2016). "Boston Guardian publisher criticized for using the name of a former African American weekly". Boston Globe. Retrieved 2016-07-18.
  5. Leung, Shirley (April 22, 2016). "Publisher of shuttered Boston Courant launches new paper". Boston Globe. Retrieved 2016-07-18.
  6. Hoover, Amanda (26 April 2016). "Boston weekly comes under fire for taking name of former paper". Boston.com. Retrieved 2016-07-18.

Further reading