Black Newspapers of 1922 NYC


Our tenth February 1922 post to mark Black History Month 2022

One hundred years ago today… Numerous weekly Black newspapers were published in NYC. Here at NY1920s, we have frequently featured the New York Age (and found important materials within its pages); the Age was joined by at least seven other weeklies, a bi-weekly and a daily.

That these newspapers are hard to research, and harder to find digitized, is testimony to the historically racist treatment of Black culture within official archives.. 

One such paper, The New York Amsterdam News, founded in 1909, is still in publication, though its run was interrupted from 1941 to 1943. James H. Anderson started the paper from his home on Amsterdam Ave and 65th Street, in the San Juan Hill neighborhood. By 1922 Anderson had moved to 2293 Seventh Avenue, off 135th Street in Harlem.

The New York Amsterdam News, 23 November 1922, p. 1. Proquest Historical Newspapers. (Earliest known extant issue.)

Other weeklies included:

  • The Business World, started in 1921 (Danky 170)

  • The Brooklyn-L.I. Informer, edited by William S. McKinney, published at 21 Grand Avenue, Jamaica, Queens (Work 122), started in 1921 (Danky 162)

  • The New York Dispatch, edited by John Lyon, published at 21 W. 134th St. (Work 423), started in 1920 and published by Community Publishing Company (Danky 460)

  • The New York News, edited by George W. Harris (New York’s first Black Alderman), published at 135 W. 135th Street (Work 423)

  • The Pictorial News, started in 1921, edited by Ben Curly (Danky 507)

  • The Tattler, started in 1922, edited by Floyd G. Snelson, published by Hotel Tattler Publishing Company, specifically a service industry paper (Danky 507)


The one daily, The Daily Star, started in 1914, was edited by Arthur B. Craig and published by the Pan-Leader Publicity Company (Danky 228).

Perhaps more famous than these was The Negro World, because of the notoriety of its editor, Marcus Garvey. An organ of U.N.I.A. Garvey and Amy Ashwood Garvey had founded the bi-weekly in 1917 at 56 W. 135th Street offices. (Danky 403)

The Negro World,  31 July 1920, p. 1. Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, Jean Blackwell Hutson Research and Reference Division, The New York Public Library. 

Most Black newspapers were printed on or near West 135th Street, which clearly served as the center for Black journalism.

[Note: the above list does not include monthly journals, and is likely not comprehensive of more frequently published papers. Do you know of other weekly or daily Black newspapers active in 1922, printed in NYC? Let us know!) 


References / Further reading:

Danky, James Philip, and Maureen E. Hady, Ed. African-American Newspapers and Periodicals: a National Bibliography. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1952.

Work, Monroe N., Ed. Negro Year Book and Annual Encyclopedia of the Negro 1921-22. Tuskegee Institute, 1922.


– Jonathan Goldman, Feb 21, 2022


TAGS: Black history, African American history, journalism, media, news, print culture