As entombed as most of our stories have been throughout American history, many of us know about the Civil Rights movement and Martin Luther King Jr., or slavery and Harriet Tubman and Frederick Douglass.
Lesser known are Robert Abbot, Ida B. Wells, Charlotta Bass, and the others who were pioneers of the Black press. They told our stories when no one else would.
Now producer/director Stanley Nelson tells their stories in her new video documentary The Black Press: Soldiers without Swords.
The video, which is almost ninety minutes long, chronicles the history of the Black press from Freedom's Journal, the first paper to be published by African Americans, to the California Eagle, Bass's "for-the-people" Los Angeles publication.
Combining striking stills that capture the essence of the time and the comments of sagacious scholars who put the movement in perspective, Nelson creates a dynamic documentary and tribute to our publishing progenitors.
Richly researched, the film contains a wealth of information on not only the papers that were published but the stories they contained and their significance to the community.
Black newspapers introduced former slaves to the printed word. Robert S. Abbot's Chicago Defender, perhaps the most successful Black paper in history, convinced hordes of southern Blacks to migrate north. The Pittsburgh Courier, published by Robert S. Vann, launched its "Double V" campaign during World War II to enlighten America's consciousness about the inequalities African Americans continued to endure at home despite their achievements in the war.
And Nelson provides engaging sidebars on the people behind the papers as well. We find out that the somewhat eccentric Abbot required everyone -- even his first and second wives -- to call him "Mr. Abbot" and that he was the first Black publisher to become a millionaire.
Journalist Abie Robinson earned a mere five dollars a week as a reporter for the California Eagle. And he wrote copy, edited it, aligned the presses, and cleaned the bathrooms as well.
