Black Newspapers and Sportswriters



old newspaper article with headline Coming! Famous Colored Teams

Article from The Union, April 30, 1921, Vol. 16, No.
22, p.1. Retrieved online from The Ohio Historical
Society, The African-American Experience in Ohio,
1850-1920.

 

Back buttonNext button

Home buttonResources button

Historical Perspective button

 

Reisler (1994) described reporters who covered the Negro leagues as "forgotten giants of black journalism." (p.1)

These included the following:
• Frank Young of The Chicago Defender
• Dr. W. Rollo Wilson of The Pittsburgh Courier and The Philadelphia Tribune
• Sam Lacy of The Baltimore Afro-American
• Joe Bostic of The People's Voice of Harlem
• Ed Harris of The Philadelphia Tribune
• Wendell Smith of The Pittsburgh Courier
• Dan Burley of The Amsterdam News
• Chester "Ches" Washington of The Pittsburgh Courier

Reisler (1994) stated that Wendell Smith was "generally acknowledged as the best black sportswriter of his generation and recently enshrined in the Writers' Wing of the Hall of Fame." (p. 2)

"When the writers traveled, they were subject to the same racial prejudice as the players."
(Reisler, 1994, p. 3)