Building the Black Press is a digital history project about the Black press and the built environment in the United States. It focuses on the editorial offices, corporate headquarters and production spaces used by Black media outlets from the 19th century to the present day.

This project understands the term "Black Press" in a broad sense - one centered on Black newspapers and magazines, but which also includes alternative and radical Black periodicals, born-digital publications, and news-oriented Black radio and television.

Architectural Plans for Johnson Publishing Building , 820 South Michigan
David Hart. Stray Light. 2013

This project argues that Black press buildings matter - as sites of protest and identity formation, as symbols of Black pride and business success, and as windows into the fluid and often fraught relationship between space, place and race in the modern American city.

Negro Newspaper Listings
Negro Affairs Division, Washington, D.C., 1937

Building the Black Press is part of a 3-year research project funded by the Leverhulme Trust and led by Dr. E. James West.

For more information or to get involved please contect James by email (james.west@northumbria.ac.uk), on Twitter (@ejwestuk), or by using the Contact Form below

In addition to the Leverhulme Trust, support for this project has been provided by the Black Metropolis Research Consortium, the Arts and Humanities Research Council, Northumbria University Newcastle, and the Library of Congress