Pittsburgh Courier facts for kids
Masthead of The Pittsburgh Courier
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| Type | African-American newspaper |
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| Format | Weekly newspaper |
| Owner(s) | John H. Sengstacke (1965–1966) |
| Founder(s) | Edwin Nathaniel Harleston, Edward Penman, Hepburn Carter, Scott Wood Jr., Harvey Tanner |
| Founded | May 10, 1910 |
| Ceased publication | October 22, 1966 |
| Relaunched | New Pittsburgh Courier |
| City | Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania |
| Country | United States |
| Circulation | 357,000 (as of 1947) |
The Pittsburgh Courier was an important African-American newspaper published every week in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, from 1907 to 1966. By the 1930s, it became one of the most popular Black newspapers in the United States.
In 1965, John H. Sengstacke, a big publisher of Black newspapers, bought the Courier. He also owned Chicago Defender. In 1967, he reopened the paper as the New Pittsburgh Courier. It became one of his four newspapers for African-American readers.
Contents
How the Newspaper Started
The Pittsburgh Courier was first started by Edwin Nathaniel Harleston. He worked as a guard at the H. J. Heinz Company in Pittsburgh. Harleston was a poet and began printing the paper himself in 1907. It was usually two pages long and mostly showed his own writings. He printed about ten copies and sold them for five cents each.
In 1909, Edward Penman, Hepburn Carter, Scott Wood Jr., and Harvey Tanner joined Harleston. They helped run the paper but did not put in money. They named it Pittsburgh Courier after a newspaper in Charleston, South Carolina, which was Harleston's hometown. They printed 500 copies of the first official Courier issue in Philadelphia. The five men sold most of these copies in the Hill District on January 5, 1910. During this time, the Courier was four pages long.
In March 1910, Robert Lee Vann, a lawyer, helped make the Courier an official company. He also started writing articles. Harleston began to run out of money for the paper. But Vann helped the paper find rich investors, like Cumberland Willis Posey Sr.. On May 10, 1910, the Pittsburgh Courier officially became a company. That summer, the paper grew from four to eight pages. However, it was hard to sell enough copies and get advertisers because the market was small. In the fall of 1910, Harleston left the paper. Vann then became the editor, and he stayed in that job until he died in 1940.
Robert L. Vann's Time as Editor
Under Robert L. Vann, the Courier often featured his work as a lawyer and public figure. In the early 1910s, only four people worked for the paper: Vann, a secretary, a sports editor, and an errand boy. They worked from a small room above a funeral home. But in 1914, the Courier moved to proper offices. As editor, Vann wrote articles that encouraged readers to support businesses that advertised in the Courier. He also held contests to get more people to buy the paper. In 1914, Vann wrote that the paper wanted to "abolish every bit of Jim Crowism in Pittsburgh." Jim Crow laws were unfair rules that treated Black people differently and kept them separate from white people.
In the 1920s, Vann worked to make the news in the paper even better. In 1925, the Courier joined the Associated Negro Press. This was a group that shared news among African-American newspapers.
The "Local News" section of the Courier covered the social lives of wealthy and middle-class Black families in the Hill District. It shared news about their vacations, weddings, and parties. Vann also caused a stir by hiring George Schuyler in 1925. Schuyler's writings were very strong and made him famous. The paper also had special articles by writers like Joel Augustus Rogers and published novels in parts, like Fire in the Flint. Sports were well covered by writers such as Chester L. Washington and Wendell Smith. The sports news focused on African-American leagues, sometimes even more than white sporting events.
The Courier also worked to bring about social change. For example, the paper wrote a lot about the unfair treatment of African Americans by the Pullman Company. This company hired many Black workers as porters on trains. The Courier supported the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters, a union that fought for better rights for these workers. Vann wrote to get support for better housing in the Hill District, better education for Black students, and equal job chances.
Vann sometimes disagreed with the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) and W. E. B. Du Bois about how to fight for civil rights. But they later made up. In 1938, Vann's Courier again disagreed with the NAACP. Vann wanted African-American units to be included in the United States Armed Forces. He saw this as a step towards integrating the military. However, the NAACP leaders, like Walter White, disagreed with this idea. Because of the Courier's influence, a law was passed in 1940 that stopped racial discrimination in choosing and training men for the draft.
In 1932, Vann officially told Courier readers to change their political support. He told them to vote for Democrats instead of Lincoln's Republican Party.
In 1927, the Courier started a weekly radio show in New York City called the "Pittsburgh Courier Hour." By 1928, the Courier had four different versions (local, northern, eastern, and southern). These were sent to all 48 states and other countries. By 1938, the paper was the biggest American Black weekly, selling 250,000 copies. Vann made the Courier a very professional newspaper with a dedicated printing place and many readers.
Later Years and What It Left Behind
After Vann died in 1940, his friend Ira Lewis became the president and editor. The Courier kept growing, reaching its highest number of copies sold, 357,000, in 1947. When Lewis died in 1948, Vann's wife, Jessie Mathews Vann, took over as president.
When the United States entered World War Two, the Pittsburgh Courier chose African-American journalist Frank E. Bolden to be a war correspondent. He was one of only two African-American war correspondents accepted. Bolden became a well-known journalist and was the city editor of the Courier from 1956 to 1962.
In 1953, the Courier printed sixteen different regional versions, selling 250,000 copies in total. This shows that the number of copies sold had started to drop. The Courier's decline happened partly because of the Civil Rights Movement. As white newspapers started to include more news about African Americans, fewer people bought Black newspapers. The paper also struggled without Ira Lewis's financial skills.
P.L. Prattis, a journalist, became the executive editor of the Pittsburgh Courier in 1956. In 1947, he became the first African-American journalist allowed to enter the United States Congress press galleries. He stayed executive editor until 1965. In 1965, Prattis retired after John H. Sengstacke bought the struggling paper.
Some other important people who worked for the Courier were Joel Augustus Rogers, a journalist in the 1920s, and Sam Milai, an artist who drew cartoons for the paper for 33 years. The Courier was also the first to see the talent of William Gardner Smith, who was hired while still in high school. Trezzvant Anderson wrote about the early years of the civil rights movement for the paper.
Courier Comic Strips
The Pittsburgh Courier also published comic strips. Some of these were even sent to other Black newspapers. One important strip was Sunny Boy Sam, which started in 1928 and continued for many years.
The Courier also published Your History, written by Joel Augustus Rogers. This comic strip looked like Ripley's Believe It or Not and shared short facts about African Americans from Rogers' research. Your History ran from 1934 to 1937, and then returned in 1940. Later, it was renamed Facts About The Negro. Jackie Ormes' Torchy was the first comic strip by a Black woman to be sent to many newspapers.
Other famous comic strips in the Courier included Jay Jackson's As Others See Us and Jackie Ormes' Patty-Jo 'n' Ginger (1945–1956).
From 1950 to 1954, the Courier worked with the Smith-Mann Syndicate to publish a weekly color comics section called Carousel. This section had many comic strips for an African-American audience, such as:
- Chisholm Kid by Carl Pfeufer (1950–1956)
- Don Powers by Sam Milai (1950–1958)
- Funtime by Edo Anderson (1951–1954)
- Guy Fortune by Edd Ashe (1950–1955)
- Kandy by A. C. Hollingsworth (1954–1955)
- Lohar by Bill Brady (1950–1958)
- Mark Hunt by Michael Tam and/or Edd Ashe (c. 1950–1955)
- Neil Knight of the Air by "Carl and Mac" (c. 1950–1955)
- Sunny Boy Sam by Wilbert Holloway (c. 1950–c. 1958)
- Torchy in Heartbeats by Jackie Ormes (1950–1954)
- Woody Woodenhead by Edo Anderson (1950–1956)
Many of these strips continued as daily, black-and-white comics after Carousel stopped.
The New Pittsburgh Courier
John H. Sengstacke, who published The Chicago Defender, closed the Courier in 1966. He reopened it in 1967 as the New Pittsburgh Courier.
