What is it about?
"Smoketown," nickname for Pittsburgh's black Hill district, included the nationally circulated Pittsburgh Courier newspaper, two Negro League baseball teams, and the community was saturated with jazz and pop talent, including Lena Horne, Billy Eckstein, and Erroll Garner.
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Why is it important?
"Smoketown's" substantial chronicling of the Pittsburgh Courier substantially adds to recent biographies/histories of the 20th century black press such as "The Defender" [Chicago] by Ethan Michaeli; "Eyes on the Struggle" [Ethel Payne] by James McGrath Morris, and "Lucille Bluford" [Kansas City Call] by Sheila D. Brooks.
Perspectives
"Smoketown" was a community rich in sports, music and journalism. Of those choices I focused on the journalism. The Pittsburgh Courier in its prime circulated 10 editions coast to coast, included sports journalists such as Wendell Smith [who chaperoned Jackie Robinson], photographer Teenie "one shot" Harris, and the paper sent a dozen correspondents overseas to cover World War II, notably Frank Bolden. Evelyn Cunningham excelled as a Southern-based civil rights correspondent in the 1950s. The Pittsburgh Courier was a significant 20th century newspaper deserving of more recognition and I cherished the opportunity to write.
Wayne Dawkins
Morgan State University
Read the Original
This page is a summary of: The Untold Story of Smoketown, the Other Great Black Renaissance, American Journalism, October 2018, Taylor & Francis,
DOI: 10.1080/08821127.2018.1529489.
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