This newspaper — your Indianapolis Recorder — celebrates a milestone this week: 120 years of service to this city, region and state.
When the Recorder began publishing in 1895, Marion County’s population was roughly 190,000. Its “colored” or “negro” community was some 14,000 — just 7.4 percent.
Today, Marion County’s population is 934,234, 4.9 times larger. Today, our Black community’s population is 29.7 percent of the county and 19.8 times larger than in the late 1800s.
There are very few Black-owned institutions in Indianapolis that have surpassed a century of service, much less a century of service plus 20 years like the Indianapolis Recorder.
The Recorder survived Depressions, Great Recessions, the cruelty of Indiana and Indianapolis openly ruled by Klu Klux Klan white supremacists.
The Recorder endured legalized Jim Crow and open hostility of Indianapolis’ business and civic leaders.
The Indianapolis Recorder has persevered and survived it all because of YOU — readers — and this community.
In our 120th year, the mission of a Black newspaper is needed more than ever!
Black newspapers like the Recorder lift up issues the mainstream media ignores (either by choice or out of ignorance).
The role of the Black newspaper, whether it’s the printed version or electronically on your computer, tablet or phone, is an institution created to present a Black perspective on today’s news, an institution from the bosom of our community, concerned with issues and interests that the mainstream media ignores.
Today, the biggest challenge to Black newspapers and Black media isn’t changing technology, but the feeling among many African-Americans that they can live without the Black newspapers and magazines.
It’s insulting when someone Black charges racism and goes and tells the story to the TV stations and ignores Black newspapers.
It’s insulting when a major Black institution like Indiana Black Expo, which this newspaper supported from day one when many others wouldn’t, turned its back on the Recorder because their board members (listening to hostile white voices) tried to defile a core Black institution.
Even though by profession I’m a broadcaster, I’m in my 22nd year writing a column for this historic newspaper. That’s a little more than a sixth of the Recorder’s 120 years of service.
It continues to be an honor and privilege to follow in the footsteps of the many columnists and journalists whose writings graced these pages for 120 years.
As an “elder” on this staff, I remember the Stewart family, especially Marcus Stewart Sr., who shepherded the Recorder in its glory days while enduring much sacrifice to keep this newspaper open, independent and available to cover issues as they needed to be covered.
People ask me where the younger generation of African-American leaders is. Well, they’re here in the Indianapolis Recorder’s leadership and newsroom and staff. Their perspective on our community and its future is reflected in the stories about Indianapolis African-American issues and life you read here every week.
The success and longevity of the Indianapolis Recorder rests in its ability to adapt with the growth and complexity of our African-American community and adapt and adjust to the changing technology of presenting information to you.
Whether on paper or on a glass screen, there will always be the need for institutions like the Indianapolis Recorder to, as America’s first Black newspaper Freedom’s Journal wrote in its inaugural issue, “We wish to plead our own cause. Too long have others spoken for us.”
What I’m Hearing in the Streets
In a candidate forum sponsored by the Indianapolis Urban League and 100 Black Men, Indy’s mayoral candidates Chuck Brewer and Joe Hogsett talked issues and answered some great focused questions from nearly 200 people.
Hogsett spoke to the emotions and passions of the African-American audience. Talking about recent violence, Hogsett came across as a potential mayor who wants to enlist Indianapolis to come together to make Indy a better city.
Brewer impressed many with his poise as he talked key issues. But Brewer hasn’t yet understood the importance of reaching African-Americans, not just on a cerebral level, but also on an emotional one.
Brewer was passionate talking about hiring ex-offenders in his downtown restaurants, but he didn’t tie that passion into his other points about crime, jobs and neighborhoods.
With three weeks left, Brewer hasn’t yet made the emotional connection with our Black community, something he must do if he stands any chance of receiving the normal GOP mayor candidate share of Black votes.
The two candidates will meet in a debate on Oct. 30 at 2 p.m. on “Afternoons with Amos” on WTLC-AM (1310). Why doesn’t Indianapolis Public Schools have goals in their purchasing practices for utilizing minority, women and veteran-owned businesses? It’s a subject IPS better be prepared to answer for next week’s column!
Another of our community’s lions has been called home.
Gilbert Taylor, the longtime IPS educator who co-founded and was curator of the Crispus Attucks Museum, died Sept. 29. He was 78.
A true Renaissance man with interests in history, the arts and more, Taylor not only taught some 25 years in IPS, but also was a consultant and contributor to a wealth of organizations in Indy, America and worldwide.
But his dedication to creating a physical memorialization of Attucks’ contributions, in sports and academics, is Gilbert’s Taylor’s greatest legacy.
My deepest sympathies to his family. And with his death, our community needs to be hyper-vigilant that the insensitive school reformists controlling IPS don’t try to eradicate the Attucks Museum and whitewash IPS and our community’s history!
See ya next week!
You can email Amos Brown at acbrown@aol.com.
