Ethel Lois Payne was an American journalist, editor, and foreign correspondent. Known as the "First Lady of the Black Press," she fulfilled many roles over her career, including columnist, commentator, lecturer, and freelance writer. She combined advocacy with journalism as she reported on the Civil Rights Movement during the 1950s and 1960s. Her perspective as an African American woman informed her work, and she became known for asking questions others dared not ask.
Charlotta Amanda Spears Bass was an American educator, newspaper publisher-editor, and civil rights activist. She also focused on various other issues such as housing rights, voting rights, and labor rights, as well as police brutality and harassment. Bass is believed to be the first African-American woman to own and operate a newspaper in the United States; she published the California Eagle from 1912 until 1951. In 1952, Bass became the first African-American woman nominated for Vice President, as a candidate of the Progressive Party.
The California Eagle (1879–1964) was a newspaper in Los Angeles for African Americans. It was founded as The Owl in 1879 and later The Eagle by John J. Neimore. Charlotta Bass became owner of the paper after Neimore's death in 1912. She owned and operated the paper, renamed the California Eagle, until 1951. Her husband, J. B. Bass, served as editor until his death in 1934. In the 1920s, they increased circulation to 60,000. Bass was also active as a civil rights campaigner in Los Angeles, working to end segregation in jobs, housing and transportation.
Alice Dunbar Nelson was an American poet, journalist, and political activist. Among the first generation of African Americans born free in the Southern United States after the end of the American Civil War, she was one of the prominent African Americans involved in the artistic flourishing of the Harlem Renaissance. Her first husband was the poet Paul Laurence Dunbar. After his death, she married physician Henry A. Callis; and, lastly, was married to Robert J. Nelson, a poet and civil rights activist. She achieved prominence as a poet, author of short stories and dramas, newspaper columnist, women's rights activist, and editor of two anthologies.
Beatrice Morrow Cannady was a renowned civil rights advocate in early 20th-century Oregon, United States. She was editor of the Advocate, the state's largest African-American newspaper. She was also co-founder and vice president of the Portland, Oregon chapter of the NAACP.
Littig is a small unincorporated community in eastern Travis County, Texas, United States. According to the Handbook of Texas, the community had a population of 37 in 2000. It is located within the Greater Austin metropolitan area.
Mercedes Deiz was an American lawyer. She became the first black woman admitted to the Oregon State Bar, and was also the first black woman to serve as a district court judge and the first to be elected as a county circuit court judge.
The Houston Defender (Network) is a Black digital information source that originated from the African American newspaper of the same name based in Houston, Texas. Established in 1930 by C.F. Richardson Sr., the newspaper has been a strong voice for the African American community for over 90 years. During its founding, African Americans faced significant challenges, such as racism, discrimination and limited access to education, employment and political power. Today, the Houston Defender Network is pivotal in advocating for social, economic, environmental and political justice for the African American community.
The Portland Observer is one of the oldest African-American newspapers in Oregon. Established in 1970, it is published weekly, in Portland, Oregon. Rev. Alfred L. Henderson founded the paper in the 1970s, in the tradition of the People's Observer, a 1940s publication that had ceased publication in 1950. That paper also originally went by the name of "Portland Observer."
Pacific Appeal was an African-American newspaper based in San Francisco and published from April 1862 to June 1880.
The New Age, later known as the Portland New Age, was the first African American newspaper published in Oregon.
Jessie Coles Grayson was an American singer and actress, known for The Little Foxes (1941), Cass Timberlane (1947) and Homecoming (1948).
America Waldo Bogle was a pioneer in the Oregon Territory. She and her husband, Richard Arthur Bogle, were among the first Black settlers in Walla Walla, Washington.
William McClendon (1915–1996) was an American journalist, newspaper editor, educator, activist, jazz musician, and prominent member of Portland's civil rights community. He was born in 1915 in Atlanta, Georgia. He died at the age of 81 in 1996 in Portland, Oregon. He founded the Portland Observer, a newspaper focused on Portland's African American community before and during World War II.
The Clarion Defender was an African American run newspaper in Portland, Oregon. It operated from 1966 until around 1973 and was founded by Jimmy "Bang Bang" Walker. Its motto was, "Oldest Negro Publisher in the Northwest."
Freedom was a monthly newspaper focused on African-American issues published from 1950 to 1955. The publication was associated primarily with the internationally renowned singer, actor and then officially disfavored activist Paul Robeson, whose column, with his photograph, ran on most of its front pages. Freedom's motto was: "Where one is enslaved, all are in chains!" The newspaper has been described as "the most visible African American Left cultural institution during the early 1950s." In another characterization, "Freedom paper was basically an attempt by a small group of black activists, most of them Communists, to provide Robeson with a base in Harlem and a means of reaching his public... The paper offered more coverage of the labor movement than nearly any other publication, particularly of the left-led unions that were expelled from the CIO in the late 1940s... [It] encouraged its African American readership to identify its struggles with anti-colonial movements in Africa, Asia, and the Caribbean. Freedom gave extensive publicity to... the struggle against apartheid."
The People's Voice, also known as Voice, was a newspaper based in Harlem, New York City to serve the African American community. Adam Clayton Powell Jr., a New York politician and pastor, founded the newspaper in 1942. Voice mainly focused on racial issues, local events and investigative news, but it also covered entertainment and sports. Many activists and writers contributed to Voice, including Ann Petry, Fredi Washington, and Marvel Cooke. The paper stopped publication in 1948 partly due to accusations that Voice was circulating Communist propaganda.
African Americans in Oregon or Black Oregonians are residents of the state of Oregon who are of African American ancestry. In 2017, there were an estimated 91,000 African Americans in Oregon.
