Howard University Hosts Black Press Week

By Sabrina McCrear

Howard University’s Moorland-Spingarn Research Center (MSRC) and the National Newspaper Publishers Association (NNPA) celebrated Black Press Week by honoring the 197th anniversary of the Freedom’s Journal founding and the Black Press Archives Digitization Project.

Freedom’s Journal is the first Black-owned publication founded in the U.S. by John Brown Russworm and Samuel Eli Cornish. “We are reminded about the enormous game-changing happening back on March 16, 1827 in New York City with the courage, the intellect, and sheer self-determination of John Brown Russworm and Samuel Eli Cornish,” stated Dr. Benjamin Chavis Jr., NNPA CEO and President.

On March 14, 2024, Howard University MSRC and NNPA hosted a ceremony, luncheon, and tour of the MSRC Black Press Archives Digitization Project. The project began as a collaboration between NNPA and MSRC in 1973. MSRC is housed in Howard’s Founders Library.

NNPA Chair Bobby R. Henry Sr. said, “NNPA filled the need to have our newspapers archived and to highlight our publishers from a Black perspective and have a Black university, an HBCU to tell our story.”

“The Moorland Spingarn Library is the number one library in all of the world for the deposit of Black history and Black literature,” Dr. Chavis said.

Opening remarks on the first day of Black Press Week March 14 were given by Dr. Chavis followed by MSRC Director, Dr. Benjamin Talton.

The day concluded with a tour of the MSRC. In celebration of 197 years of the Black Press and Howard University’s Hilltop Newspaper, the oldest continuously printed HBCU publication, NNPA members also participated in the enshrinement of Zora Neale Hurston into the distinguished gallery of Black Publishers at MSRC. Zora Neale Hurston co-founded the Hilltop 100 years ago.

The following day, NNPA hosted its annual luncheon titled “The State of the Black Press: Getting Out the Black Vote” at The National Press Club in Washington D.C. The luncheon began with a film that coincided with this year’s theme, “Getting Out the Black Vote.” Clips of the Black Lives Matter protests accompanied a speech given by the late John Lewis at the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom held on August 28, 1963.

After giving tribute to the first Black-owned newspaper in America (Freedom’s Journal),

Dr. Chavis gave a brief history of Black injustices and our fight for freedom.

Dr. Chavis spoke with emotion and pride: “Fighting for freedom… it’s about trying to articulate and lift up a vision that’s inspired by the knowledge and the affirmation that we’re all created equally in the image of God. Our cause is to speak truth and power. We will not bow down to the reappearance of the flags of the Confederacy or the flags of Nazism, racism or anti-Semitism.”

The Black Press Archives Digitization Project began as a collaboration project between NNPA and MSRC in 1973. NNPA Chair Bobby R. Henry Sr. said, “NNPA filled the need to have our newspapers archived and to highlight our publishers from a Black perspective and have a Black university, an HBCU to tell our story.”

Howard’s candidacy for the project included their proximity to NNPA headquarters, The National Press Club, and the generous donation they received in 2021 from The Jonathan Logan Family Foundation. Dr. Talton said, “[It] provided the seed for the project,” and that, “It was a “$2 million grant that laid the foundation for what we do.”

Furthermore, “Under the guidelines from the Jonathan Logan Family, we actually [have to] make available 60 percent of our collection on an online platform,” said Senior Project Manager, Brandon Nightingale. “So, at the end of our project, everything will be on a website, particularly an HU website to [which] anyone from across the world can go and access the collection.”

The funding allowed MSRC to equip its program with the necessary tools to digitize the Black Press archives. Nightingale said he decided to work with Crowley: Digital Preservation Solutions. He said, “If we’re gonna do a digitization project here at Howard University, if we’re gonna set the standard, we want to make sure that it’s top quality.”

During his presentation, Nightingale added, “We currently have in our inventory over ten thousand microfilm reels ranging from any kind of material on the African American press.”

Since beginning the project in 2021, “We have about 250 reels scanned and…we have about 500 individual issues scanned,” Nightingale said. “There can be anywhere from a year’s worth of newspaper issues all the way up to maybe 10 years of newspaper issues, all on a single microfilm reel.”

Dr. Talton assured members that although they “[stood] at the 8 percent digitization mark, it [looks] like we’re not making progress but we’re making very good progress.”

Dr. Chavis Jr. reminded publishers of the founding virtues of the Black Press by quoting the front page of the first edition of Freedom’s Journal: “We must plead our own cause! We must plead our own cause!”