AFRO-American Newspapers

The Afro-American Newspaper was founded in 1892 by John Henry Murphy Sr., a former slave, when he combined his church newspaper "The Sunday School Helper" with two other Baltimore newspapers. Murphy led his newspaper to national fame by the time of his death in 1922, when it was led by his son Carl Murphy, who headed the paper for 45 years. The AFRO is the longest-running African-American family-owned newspaper in the United States. At one time there were as many as 13 editions circulated across the country. The Afro-American's status as a black paper circulating in several predominantly black communities endowed it with the ability to profoundly affect social change on a national scale.
The Afro-American has employed many notable black journalists and intellectuals including Langston Hughes, William Worthy and J. Saunders Redding. In the mid 1930s it became the first black newspaper to employ a female sportswriter when it hired Lillian Johnson and Nell Dodson to serve on its staff. Renowned artist Romare Bearden began his career as a cartoonist at The Afro-American in 1936. Sam Lacy, who was hired as the paper's sports editor in 1943 and who, at the age of 94, wrote a weekly column for the paper, used his weekly " A to Z" column to campaign for integration in professional sports. Using their writing to protest racial inequities in professional sports, Lacy and sports writers such as Wendell Smith of The Pittsburgh Courier helped to open doors for black athletes.
Following the death of Carl Murphy in 1967, his daughter Frances L. Murphy II served as chairman and publisher. In 1974, John Murphy III, Carl's nephew, was appointed chairman and eventually became the publisher. Fourth generation members of the Murphy family, John J. Oliver, Jr. and Frances M. Draper, continue to manage the paper in recent years.
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