"Black newspapers were the 'dominant means of communication of black culture.' These papers functioned as the conduit through which black news moved at a time when white America virtually ignored everything of real concern to blacks. Because black problems and interests were remarkably similar nationwide, but access to information from distant communities was extremely difficult to obtain, important black newspapers such as the Pittsburgh Courier, the Chicago Defender, New York City's Amsterdam News, and the Baltimore/ Washington-based Afro-American carried extensive national news, and the Defender and the Courier grew into truly national newspapers."
(Rogosin, 1983, pp. 86-87)

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"There is a common thread running through these pages- talented journalists pursuing their work with professionalism and a kind of folksy humor rare on today's sports page. Baseball was a refuge from the often blaring headlines in black newspapers of the day, which, in true tabloid fashion, seldom shied from the truly horrendous toll of misfortune generated by the concept of 'separate but equal' and other forms or racism."
(Reisler, 1994, p. 6)

"The sportswriters- and the black press in general- worked along with churches and the YMCAs in trying to help the peasant southerners adapt to city ways. The black newspapers helped to ease the transition by publishing job opportunities, train schedules, and available housing. The sportswriters tried to ease the discrimination by prescribing public behavior for players and fans that white middle-class would find acceptable. As a corollary, sportswriters vigorously worked for full citizenship for blacks. They hoped that baseball could be a common meeting ground where whites would accept them as peers... Finally, baseball gave sportswriters a chance regularly to assert the race's worth. The sports world furnished many examples of achievements, which offered a direct challenge to the notion of black inferiority."
(Bruce, 1985, p. 52)

"Black baseball, on the other hand, was relevant to our lives. We read about it in the Chicago Defender or the Amsterdam News or the Pittsburgh Courier; my father subscribed to those weekly papers mostly so I could learn about the Negro baseball teams. When the mail arrived on Monday, all the kids were at my house, reading about Dick Lundy, who was from Jacksonville and was a great shortstop with the Bacharach Giants of Atlantic City. Or the legendary John Henry Lloyd, another fantastic shortstop from Palatka, Florida."
(O'Neil, 1996, pp. 22-23)

"The Chicago Defender and the Pittsburgh Courier, two nationally known papers that were located in hotbeds of baseball, provided the black community with much of its baseball knowledge."
(Bruce, 1985, p. 53)