Portland Observer Section II Thursday, February 23, 1978 Page 17
tfie voice of
of the Chicago Defender readers
were told of the benefits to be
found in living in the North and
they took Abbott's invitation and
headed for Chicago.
The Defender did more than
just talk about the North, it led
in the formation of clubs that
could avail themselves of railroad
group rates for the trek from the
South. In a short space of time
the Black population had nearly
tripled to 111,000. The Defender
could not. of course, have done
this by itself, but given the
choice of living in the hell of the
South, or chasing a dream up
North, there is little wonder that
so many people chose to chase
the dream.
At its peak, in 1971, the De
fender was selling 230,000 copies
a week. The decline set in during
the Depression of the 30s when
circulation dropped to about
73.000 and Abbott, now grown
old, was never able to regain the
commanding position the paper
once held.
The Pittsburgh Courier, the
Baltimore
Afro-American,
ehr
f/T /• <*
bilization, the postmaster order
ed all copies of the issue contain
ing the article held at the Rich
mond Post Office and threatened
to revoke the second-class mail
ing privileges of the Planet.
Eventually, the copies were re
leased, but a clear warning had
been sounded as to what could
happen to dissenters.
The irony of how freedom of
the press was being interrupted
by the government was not lost
on the Black press and in its
August 11, 1917 edition, the
Afro-American
commented:
“There would be little difference
between democratic America
and autocratic Europe if citizens
should feel themselves obligated
to remain silent under real or
fancied injustices.”
In 1918, a Black magazine. The
Messenger, actually lost its se
cond-class mailing privilege for
three years for publishing a
satirical article, “Pro Germanism
Among Negroes”. The May-June
issue of the same magazine was
denied the use of the mails
entirely for what the govern
ment considered its radical con
tent.
There was never any question
that Blacks did not have reasons
to complain - the lynching total
was 50 in 1916, 36 in 1917 and 60
in 1918 - but the government
wanted criticism kept to a mini
mum during wartime.
The year 1919 was the worst of
all.
James Weldon Johnson
called it “The Red Summer” and
red it was - red with blood. As
Black servicemen began to re
turn home, 26 race riots broke
out in the country with the
largest occurring in Washington,
D.C., Chicago, Omaha, Knoxville,
Longview, Texas, and Phillips
County, Arkansas. Six persons
were killed and 150 wounded in
the nation's Capital; 15 whites
and 23 Blacks were killed in
Chicago and 537 injured, and in
Omaha, a mob lynched and burn
ed a Black man, attempted to
hang the mayor who tried to
intervene and set fire to the
county courthouse.
Against this background of
violence, the Black press pro
tested mightily. The govern
ment responded by issuing a
report - “Radicalism and Sedi
tion Among The Negroes, As
Reflected in Their Publications".
The report ignored the riots and
lynchings and, in effect, charged
the Black press with stirring
things up.
The report was
prepared by the Justice Depart-
Here 's to your health:
and
other Black newspapers became
organs of influence during this
period. At the same time, under
the brilliant editorship of W.E.B.
DuBois, the NAACP had begun
publication of The Crisis Maga
zine, which was to become one of
the most powerful voices in Black
America.
Accustomed as it was to hear
ing only muted Black voices,
white America found these new
strident tones somewhat difficult
to adjust to and the time for
testing whether these new publi
cations could survive the displea
sure of the government and
certain segments of the white
power structure was not long in
coming. The First World War
served as its initial testing
ground.
There was a basic contradic
tion in America's participation in
an overseas war to save demo
cracy while at the same time
Black people were subjected to
intolerable treatment at home.
When this issue was first raised
in the Black press there were
forces in the government who
viewed such heresay as close to
sedition or treason. Example: In
1971, the following article by one
of its correspondents, Uzziah
Miner, appeared in the Richmond
Planet:
“Unless President (Woodrow)
Wilson speaks out like Colonel
(Theodore) Roosevelt, unless I
am assured that the flag will
offer protection to the 12,000,000
colored people in the country,
and unless I am convinced that
world democracy includes Black
men as well as white men, I shall
consider myself a disgrace to
my race and country by freely
volunteering to fight for a demo
cracy across the seas, because I
firmly believe and maintain that
democracy like charity should
begin at home and spread
abroad."
Acting on the premise that
nothing should be allowed to
interfere with the country’s ma
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