A DIGITAL HISTORY PROJECT
ABOUT THE BLACK PRESS
AND THE BUILT ENVIRONMENT
Negro Newspapers and Periodicals in the United States
US Commerce Bureau, 1937
US Commerce Bureau, 1937
A DIGITAL HISTORY PROJECT
Building the Black Press explores the publishing plants, corporate offices, and production spaces used by Black periodicals and their contributors from the nineteenth century to the present day.
This project posits that Black press buildings matter - as sites of historic protest and identity formation, as symbols of Black pride and business success, and as windows into the fluid and often fraught relationship between race, space, and media production in the modern American city.
This project understands the term "Black Press" in a broad sense - one centered on weekly Black "legacy" newspapers, but which also includes Black consumer magazines, alternative, radical or dissident Black periodicals, and born-digital publications.
This project posits that Black press buildings matter - as sites of historic protest and identity formation, as symbols of Black pride and business success, and as windows into the fluid and often fraught relationship between race, space, and media production in the modern American city.
This project understands the term "Black Press" in a broad sense - one centered on weekly Black "legacy" newspapers, but which also includes Black consumer magazines, alternative, radical or dissident Black periodicals, and born-digital publications.
This project is curated by Dr. E. James West. It was formed as part of a Leverhulme Trust fellowship focusing on the Black press and the built environment in Chicago.
Building the Black Press expands this research beyond Chicago to explore the building history of the Black press throughout the United States. It includes photo-essays, interactive maps, walking tours, and other resources.
Building the Black Press expands this research beyond Chicago to explore the building history of the Black press throughout the United States. It includes photo-essays, interactive maps, walking tours, and other resources.
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AVAILABLE NOW!"A House for the Struggle breaks new ground by assessing Chicago's Black newspapers and magazines together, and by connecting them to the buildings and neighborhoods where they operated. West helps us to understand Chicago as the true capital of the twentieth-century Black press" - Julia Guarneri
"West's compelling narrative takes us inside the newsrooms of the Defender, Ebony, and other rival publications; from their humble origins to the height of their power. But what makes this book extraordinary is how West examines these shifting Black spaces of journalism as crucial sites of intellectual labor, ideological debate, and enterprise that profoundly shaped Chicago urban history, Black identity, and protest politics" - Eric Gellman |
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