BLACK PRESS: SWS DISCUSSION QUESTIONS:
TOO LONG HAVE OTHERS SPOKEN FOR US
1. What social and political factors contributed to the founding of the ante-bellum black press in cities of the northern United States?
2. During Reconstruction, what changes led to the growing importance of the black press in African American communities?
3. How did the black press in northern cities differ from the black press in southern cities? Try to describe the conditions under which black newspapers operated in the North and the South after the Civil War.
4. Consider that even in the free northern states, few African Americans owned property, and that the privileges of citizenship, such as voting rights, were denied to the black population. Under these conditions, what role could the black press play in the political process?
STANDING UP FOR THE RACE
5. What is advocacy journalism? How does it differ from other journalistic models?
6. What major developments in transportation and communications, of which black newspapers were a part, occurred in the late 19th and early 20th century?
7. Discuss the evolution of the black press as an activist tool. Give examples of both protests led by the papers and how they helped build black communities in cities of the North and West.
8. What was the role of women in the black press of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries?
A SEPARATE WORLD
9. In the early and mid-twentieth century, many black newspapers struggled financially. How did some publishers achieve economic success? How and why did some of their strategies for building up their businesses differ from those used by mainstream newspapers?
10. What role did visual representations of African Americans play in the black press?
11. How does the press benefit its readers by serving as a platform for a variety of political opinions, even radically opposing views?
TREASON?
12. What was the role of the black press in influencing black public opinion about foreign policy?
13. Why were some black newspapers seen as a threat to the war effort?
14. How did the war contribute to the increasing visibility of the black press?
PUTTING ITSELF OUT OF BUSINESS
15. What was the role of the black press in the civil rights movement?
16. How did gains resulting from the civil rights movement have a deleterious effect on the black press?
17. Despite the declining visibility of the black press, many vital African American newspapers continue publishing today. What has been the role of the black press in the post-civil rights movement era?
18. Do African American communities need an independent advocacy press today? Why or why not?
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