“The News with Community Views”
19
organizations or explicitly used their writings to further
anti-racist political agendas in other media outlets. For
example, Lester Granger was a regular contributor to the
Amsterdam News while he worked as executive secretary of
the National Urban League (1957; 1959; 1961). Educator
Marguerite Cartwright wrote about Ghanaian independence for
the black press while she conducted a study that exposed
and condemned the racist Africa curricula taught in New
York City public schools (Cartwright 1952). Editor and
journalist John Woodford remembered that the work of his
mentor, Afro contributor Charles Howard, “consistently
analyzed events as they affected the interests of the
oppressed” (Woodford 1990). In addition to performing as
an advocate, this institution also fosters a sense of
collective identity within the African American community
that is conducive to the resistance of white supremacist
practices.
The black press has helped shaped African American
group consciousness by serving as a vehicle for racial
solidarity. As early as 1922, scholar Frederick Detweiler
observed:
now, on the printed page, not only does a man's name
appear before his fellows, but the whole race seems to
become articulate to mankind. Instead of merely
reflecting 'life', the newspaper, in setting themes
Convention