Washington Afro American Newspaper

Black History month 2012 kicks off a year of activities for the AFRO-American Newspapers celebrating 120 years of continuous publishing as the oldest African American family-owned news media company that has chronicled local, national and international events and provided a voice for a community often ignored or not considered worthy of reporting their views, interests or participation. As one of the nation’s oldest news organizations dedicated to covering the Black community, the AFRO compiled a comprehensive collection of over a million articles that captures the African American experience in business, civil rights, education, health, law, and sports throughout the 20th century. At the turn of the 20th century, John H. Murphy Sr., who served as a sergeant in the Civil War, had been working nearly 8 years to establish what was initially called The Afro-American into a central voice for Blacks in Baltimore that could not be marginalized or dismissed. Its advocacy required that it continue expanding to become one of the beacons for the civil rights struggle as well as the source to know what transpired in the community. Today, its rich archives are an important source for exploring life as it happened through the pages of its 13 editions that included the Baltimore, Washington, Richmond, New Jersey, Philadelphia, and 6 National papers reporting on news in North Carolina, South Carolina, Florida and Georgia.