Type | Weekly newspaper |
---|---|
Owner(s) | Real Times |
Publisher | Rod Doss |
Editor | Rod Doss |
Founded | 1966 |
Headquarters | 315 East Carson Street, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, United States |
Circulation | 3,480(as of 2012) [1] |
ISSN | 1047-8051 |
Website | newpittsburghcourier.com |
The New Pittsburgh Courier is a weekly African-American newspaper based in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, United States. It is owned by Real Times.
The newspaper is named after the original Pittsburgh Courier (1907–1966), which in the 1930s and 1940s was one of the largest and most influential African-American newspapers in the country, with a nationwide circulation of more than 350,000. [2] [3]
After circulation declines in the 1950s and 1960s, the original Courier was purchased by John H. Sengstacke, publisher of The Chicago Daily Defender, in 1965. He reorganized the paper under a new name—the New Pittsburgh Courier—to avoid paying several outstanding tax bills and invoices. [4] He later commented:
"The Courier had a great history. The loss would not only be a big loss for the city of Pittsburgh, but a devastating loss for the entire country. The Black press is the only true voice Black people have. I've worked tireless to make sure that it is heard loud and clear throughout this country.
— John H. Sengstacke [4]
He re-opened it in 1967 under the new name. The New Pittsburgh Courier joined Sengstacke's three other newspapers in a chain of prominent African-American publications, including the Defender. In 1974, Sengstacke appointed Hazel B. Garland as the new editor-in-chief of the New Pittsburgh Courier, making her the first African-American woman in history to be editor of a national newspaper. When asked about his decision, Sengstacke replied: "I have supreme confidence in Hazel, and believe that she will continue to do a great job as editor-in-chief as she did as city editor. She has proven herself over the many years of dedication to the Courier and the Negro cause. She will be a guiding force in leading this paper to bigger and better things in the future." [5] Two years later, the paper won the John B. Russwurm Award for the best national African-American newspaper. [6]
Following Sengstacke's death in 1997, what was then a four-paper chain was held in a family trust until 2003. It was sold that year for nearly $12 million to Real Times, a group of investors with several business and family ties to Sengstacke. [7]
Among the new owners was Sengstacke's nephew Thomas Sengstacke Picou, who said in 2002 that his plans for the New Pittsburgh Courier include more emphasis on in-depth features and arts, creating a web presence—which neither it nor the Defender had at the time—and a change in its political outlook from liberal to "conservative independence". [8]
Robert Sengstacke Abbott was an American lawyer, newspaper publisher and editor. Abbott founded The Chicago Defender in 1905, which grew to have the highest circulation of any black-owned newspaper in the country.
The Post and Courier is the main daily newspaper in Charleston, South Carolina. It traces its ancestry to three newspapers, the Charleston Courier, founded in 1803, the Charleston Daily News, founded 1865, and The Evening Post, founded 1894. Through the Courier, it brands itself as the oldest daily newspaper in the South and one of the oldest continuously operating newspapers in the United States. It is the flagship newspaper of Evening Post Industries, which in turn is owned by the Manigault family of Charleston, descendants of Peter Manigault.
The Michigan Chronicle is a weekly African-American newspaper based in Detroit, Michigan. It was founded in 1936 by John H. Sengstacke, editor of the Chicago Defender. Together with the Defender and a handful of other African-American newspapers, it is owned by Detroit-based Real Times Inc. Its headquarters are in the Real Times offices in Midtown Detroit.
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.
Real Times Media LLC is the owner and publisher of the Chicago Defender, the largest and most influential African American weekly newspaper, as well as five other regional weeklies in the eastern and Midwestern United States. Its headquarters are in Midtown Detroit.
John Herman Henry Sengstacke was an American newspaper publisher and owner of the largest chain of African-American oriented newspapers in the United States. Sengstacke was also a civil rights activist and worked for a strong black press, founding the National Newspaper Publishers Association in 1940, to unify and strengthen African-American owned papers. Sengstacke served seven terms as president of the association, which by the early 21st century had 200 members.
Louisville Defender is a weekly newspaper in Louisville, Kentucky.
The Pittsburgh Courier was an African American weekly newspaper published in Pittsburgh from 1907 until October 22, 1966. By the 1930s, the Courier was one of the leading black newspapers in the United States.
Robert Lee Vann was an African American newspaper publisher and editor. He was the publisher and editor of the Pittsburgh Courier from 1910 until his death.
The Michigan FrontPage is a weekly African-American newspaper based in Detroit, Michigan, serving the African-American community. It was founded in 2000 by a former publisher of the Michigan Chronicle and has been owned by the Chronicle's parent company, Real Times Inc., since 2003. Its headquarters are in the Real Times offices in Midtown Detroit.
Percival Leroy (P.L.) Prattis was an American journalist. He was the city editor of the Chicago Defender, the most influential African-American weekly newspaper in the U.S. at the beginning of World War I. Later, he spent 30 years at the Pittsburgh Courier, another influential black paper, rising up to become executive editor.
Hazel B. Garland was a journalist, columnist and newspaper editor. She was the first African-American woman to serve as editor-in-chief of a nationally circulated newspaper chain. Born into a farming family, she was the eldest of 16 children. Although a bright and capable student, she dropped out of high school at her fathers instigation, and spent time working as a maid in order to provide financial assistance to her family.
The Atlanta Daily World is the oldest black newspaper in Atlanta, Georgia, founded in 1928. Currently owned by Real Times Inc., it publishes daily online. It was "one of the earliest and most influential black newspapers."
The Chicago Defender is a Chicago-based online African-American newspaper. It was founded in 1905 by Robert S. Abbott and was once considered the "most important" newspaper of its kind. Abbott's newspaper reported and campaigned against Jim Crow-era violence and urged black people in the American South to settle in the north in what became the Great Migration. Abbott worked out an informal distribution system with Pullman porters who surreptitiously took his paper by rail far beyond Chicago, especially to African American readers in the southern United States. Under his nephew and chosen successor, John H. Sengstacke, the paper dealt with racial segregation in the United States, especially in the U.S. military, during World War II. Copies of the paper were passed along in communities, and it is estimated that at its most successful, each copy was read by four to five people.
The Tri-State Defender is a weekly African-American newspaper serving Memphis, Tennessee, and the nearby areas of Arkansas, Mississippi and Tennessee. It bills itself as "The Mid-South's Best Alternative Newspaper". The Defender was founded in 1951 by John H. Sengstacke, owner of the Chicago Defender. In 2013, the paper was locally purchased from Real Times Media by the Tri-State Defender Board of Directors
Gertrude Schalk, also known as Toki Schalk Johnson, was a twentieth-century African-American writer, columnist, clubwoman, and newspaper editor. Although she lived and worked outside of New York City, her early fiction is sometimes considered as part of the broader Harlem Renaissance literary movement.
Robert Abbott Sengstacke, also known as Bobby Sengstacke, was an African-American photojournalist during the Civil Rights Movement for the Chicago Defender in Chicago, Illinois. Sengstacke was well known for his famous portraits of Martin Luther King Jr. and other prominent civil rights leaders. Sengstacke inherited the family–owned Sengstacke Newspaper Company. After retiring from journalism in 2015, Sengstacke moved to Hammond, Indiana where he lived until his death due to a respiratory illness in 2017 at age 73.
Mary Dudley, known as Mary Dee, was an American disc jockey who is widely considered the first African-American woman disc jockey in the United States. She grew up in Homestead, Pennsylvania, and then studied at Howard University for two years. After having her family, she attended Si Mann School of Radio in Pittsburgh, and on August 1, 1948, went on the air at WHOD radio. Gaining national attention, Dee broadcast from a storefront, "Studio Dee", in the Hill District of Pittsburgh from 1951 to 1956. She moved her show, Movin' Around with Mary Dee, to Baltimore and broadcast from station WSID from 1956 to 1958. In 1958, she moved to Philadelphia and hosted Songs of Faith on WHAT until her death in 1964.
Phyllis "Phyl" T. Garland was an academic, journalist and music critic known for her contributions to the formalization of arts journalism and for becoming the first Black and first female member of faculty to earn tenure at the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism.
Frank L. Stanley Sr. was an American newspaper publisher and editor. Stanley co-founded and became sole publisher of The Louisville Defender, the city's leading Black newspaper that he led for 38 years. The Louisville Defender published in the face of regular threats and attacks, persevering under Stanley's belief that "racism is not insoluble." Stanley was general president of Alpha Phi Alpha and a civil rights activist. He drafted the resolution that led to desegregation of higher education in Kentucky, and chaired desegregation committees for the U.S. Secretary of War. Stanley was selected twice as a juror for the Pulitzer Prize Award committee.