The Black Press
In honor of Black History Month, the Illinois Newspaper Project (INP) is using the Illinois Digital Newspaper Collection (IDNC) to understand Black labor history (rights, unions, and movements) and Black-owned business in Illinois through historical newspapers. We’re highlighting the mastheads of (and people behind) Black newspapers as well as advertisements for Black-owned businesses found within newspapers. A special photograph issue (published December 5, 1943) of the Chicago Sunday Bee specifically highlights Willard S. Townsend, a Black labor leader and first African-American to hold office in a national union, and printed photographs of Black labor leaders present at a Congress of Industrial Organizations (CIO) meeting in Philadelphia.
Did you know that the Illinois Digital Newspaper Collections (IDNC) has a collection of Black newspapers? In order to preserve the cultural and print heritages of Black papers and their readers, the Illinois Digital Newspaper Project (IDNP) has centered past digitization projects around historical Black newspaper printed (primarily) in Illinois.
Continue reading “Using the IDNC: Researching Black newspapers, labor, and business”