The Amsterdam News was founded on December 4, 1909, and is headquartered in the Harlem neighborhood of Upper Manhattan. The newspaper takes its name from its original location one block east of Amsterdam Avenue, at West 65th Street and Broadway.[citation needed]
An investment of US$10 in 1909 (equivalent to $326in 2022) turned the Amsterdam News into one of New York's largest and most influential Black-owned-and-operated business institutions, and one of the nation's most prominent ethnic publications.[4][5] It was later reported that James Henry Anderson published the first copy: "...with a dream in mind, $10 in his pocket, six sheets of paper and two pencils."[5]
The Amsterdam News was one of about 50 black-owned newspapers in the United States at the time it was founded. It was sold for 2 cents a copy (equivalent to $1in 2022) from Anderson's home at 132 West 65th Street, in the San Juan Hill section of Manhattan's Upper West Side.[4] With the spread of Blacks to Harlem and the growing success of the paper, Anderson moved the Amsterdam News uptown to 17 West 135th Street in 1910. In 1916, it moved to 2293 Seventh Avenue, and in 1938, it moved again, to 2271 Seventh Avenue. In the early 1940s, the paper relocated to its present headquarters at 2340 Eighth Avenue (also known in Harlem as Frederick Douglass Boulevard).[5][6]
Not soon after the death of Edward Warren, one of the early publishers, Anderson sold his stock in the paper. On October 9, 1935, the paper's editorial employees went on strike. It was the first time the staff of a black-owned newspaper had gone on strike and led to the Amsterdam News becoming the first unionized black paper. The strike ended on December 24, 1935, when the paper's bankruptcy receiver Laurence H. Axman, Newspaper Guild president Carl Randau, and businessmen Dr. C. B. Powell and Dr. Phillip M. H. Savory reached an agreement that saw the locked-out employees receive a 10% wage increase, a five-day, 40-hour work week, two weeks of annual vacation time, three-month dismissal notices for employees with more than 10 years of service, the establishment of a guild shop, and the removal of strike-breaking staff.[7] The paper was taken over by Powell and Savory following bankruptcy proceedings by the paper's three largest creditors.[8] Dr. Powell assumed the role of publisher.[1][9] During Powell's stewardship, the Amsterdam News not only took on local news, but national news as well. Much of the paper's strength was based on its shaping the advancement and realization of Black aspirations. As a consequence, the paper is one of the most frequently quoted black newspapers in the world.[citation needed]
The Amsterdam News has had many significant innovations. It was the second black newspaper, after the Chicago Defender, to be admitted to the Audit Bureau of Circulation (ABC) in October 1930, of which it is still a member. In 1936, it became the first and, to this day, the only—black newspaper that was unionized in all departments by the Newspaper Guild of New York, Local 3. By 1961, the New York Amsterdam News had become the largest weekly community newspaper in the nation.[citation needed]
On May 1, 1971, Dr. C. B. Powell announced his retirement and sold the Amsterdam News to the AmNews Corporation, its present owner. Over the years, many important figures in journalism have been editors of the paper, including T. Thomas Fortune, George W. Harris, Obie McCollum, John Lewis Clarke, Earl Brown, Dan Burley, Julius J. Adams, Thomas Watkins, S. W. Garlington, Stanley Ross, T. J. Sellers, Dr. G. James Fleming, James L. Hicks, Jesse H. Walker, and Bryant Rollins.[1]
While the Amsterdam News is black-oriented, it has always been aware of the fact that it serves a multiracial community and recognized other ethnic groups. On November 26, 1963, The New York Times credited the Amsterdam News with inspiring a crackdown on vices and other ills in the village of Harlem:
"The Amsterdam News has always had a great deal of persuasive power in Harlem and other black communities."[10]
From 1972 to 1979, the newspaper began an art review column written by Gylbert Coker to cover African American art exhibitions and the African American artists.[citation needed]
In August 1982, Wilbert A. Tatum, chairman of the AmNews Corporation's board of directors and the paper's editor-in-chief, became publisher and chief executive officer. Under Tatum's leadership, the Amsterdam News broadened its editorial perspective, particularly in international affairs. This expanded thrust has produced considerable interest and readership from all sectors of the local, national and international communities.[citation needed]
In July 1996, Tatum bought out the last remaining investor, putting the future of the paper firmly in the hands of the Tatum family. In December 1997, Tatum stepped down as publisher and editor-in-chief and passed the torch to his daughter, Elinor Ruth Tatum, who at the age of 26 became one of the youngest newspaper publishers in the United States.[5]
Tatum died in 2009. Elinor Tatum currently serves as publisher, editor-in-chief, and CEO.[1] The newspaper launched a companion web site and online edition, amsterdamnews.com, in 2009.[citation needed]
Circulation
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In October 1930, it became the second Black newspaper to be admitted to the Audit Bureau of Circulation.[11] At its height in the 1940s, newspaper had a circulation of 100,000 and was one of the four largest African American newspapers in the United States. As of 2015, it circulates nearly 15,000 copies of the paper weekly.[12]
Its editor and publisher is Elinor Tatum, daughter of Wilbert "Bill" Tatum (1933—2009), who has served as the newspaper's editor, publisher, chairman and CEO.
The Oregonian is a daily newspaper based in Portland, Oregon, United States, owned by Advance Publications. It is the oldest continuously published newspaper on the U.S. West Coast, founded as a weekly by Thomas J. Dryer on December 4, 1850, and published daily since 1861. It is the largest newspaper in Oregon and the second largest in the Pacific Northwest by circulation. It is one of the few newspapers with a statewide focus in the United States. The Sunday edition is published under the title The Sunday Oregonian. The regular edition was published under the title The Morning Oregonian from 1861 until 1937.
Marvel Jackson Cooke was a pioneering American journalist, writer, and civil rights activist. She was the first African-American woman to work at a mainstream white-owned newspaper.
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The Oregon Journal was Portland, Oregon's daily afternoon newspaper from 1902 to 1982. The Journal was founded in Portland by C. S. "Sam" Jackson, publisher of Pendleton, Oregon's East Oregonian newspaper, after a group of Portlanders convinced Jackson to help in the reorganization of the Portland Evening Journal. The firm owned several radio stations in the Portland area. In 1961, the Journal was purchased by S.I. Newhouse and Advance Publications, owners also of The Oregonian, the city's morning newspaper.
The Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture is a research library of the New York Public Library (NYPL) and an archive repository for information on people of African descent worldwide. Located at 515 Malcolm X Boulevard between West 135th and 136th Streets in the Harlem neighborhood of Manhattan, New York City, it has, almost from its inception, been an integral part of the Harlem community. It is named for Afro-Puerto Rican scholar Arturo Alfonso Schomburg.
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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.
Elinor Ruth Tatum is the Publisher and Editor in Chief of the New York Amsterdam News, the oldest and largest black newspaper in the City of New York, and one of the oldest ethnic papers in the country.
Wilbert Arnold "Bill" Tatum was an American newspaper executive, who variously served as the editor, publisher, chairman and chief executive officer of the New York Amsterdam News, a weekly newspaper serving the African-American community of New York City. He was later a large investor in the Hooters franchise.
Black Issues Book Review was a bimonthly magazine published in New York City, U.S., in which books of interest to African-American readers were reviewed. It was published from 1999 until 2007.
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References
1 2 3 4 "About Us". New York Amsterdam News. Retrieved February 16, 2019.
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