West Virginia’s Black press began in 1881, when the West Virginia Freeman published its inaugural issue in Parkersburg. With this first leap into journalism, the state’s African-American press began a publication chronicle that now spans nearly 150 years. This record of reporting can be divided into three eras. The first period, 1881-1926, saw the development of over a dozen Black newspapers across the state. During the second, the 1930s-1940s, Black newspapers were scarce and struggled to survive. The third is the modern era, 1950 to the present, in which several Black papers were established with varying degrees of longevity and success.

Population was the major driving force behind these newspapers. The state’s Black population at the turn of the 20^th century was nearly 44,000 (increasing to 115,000 by 1930), concentrated in larger cities and in the southern coalfield counties of McDowell, Mercer, Raleigh, Fayette, Kanawha, Mingo, and Logan. Likewise, most Black newspapers were also in this region.

Most failed to thrive. Beset with a fluctuating subscriber base, the constant need for funds, and personnel shortages, Black newspapers struggled. Some papers shut down production for weeks or even months at a time, waiting for subscribers and advertisers to provide enough funding to begin publishing again. Funding problems were perennial. A May 1920 issue of the Huntington Times made a direct call to its subscribers: “On the first day of June, your paper will be cut off unless you send in your subscription.”

Black newspapers advocated for education, community pride, and party alliances that would benefit African-Americans. Cultural activities, including church and social events, filled their pages as did advertisements and articles provided by wire services, such as the Associated Negro Press and the Scott Newspaper Syndicate.

Newspaper editors were also community leaders; many were ministers, attorneys, educators, and politicians who took strong stands in their pages on racism, political events, Jim Crow laws, mine labor practices, civil rights, and the military, which often limited a Black soldier’s rank and duties.

These double roles helped editors support their communities and promote their newspapers at the same time. J. McHenry Jones was a member of the editorial board for The Advocate and president of the West Virginia Colored Institute (now West Virginia State University). The Rev. Dr. C. H. Payne, founder and editor of three newspapers, was a minister, an educator, and the first African-American elected to the state legislature; C. H. Barnett, educator and principal of Frederick Douglass High School in Huntington, was editor of the West Virginia Spokesman; and T. G. Nutter, editor of the Mountain Leader, was a Charleston attorney, state legislator, and civil rights activist known for his fight against the silent film The Birth of a Nation, which denigrated African-Americans and favorably depicted the Ku Klux Klan.

Among the earliest Black newspapers was J. R. Clifford’s Pioneer Press, first published in Martinsburg in 1882. The paper lasted over 30 years, and its subscription base was nationwide and international in scope.

Fayette County published four Black papers in three towns. The most significant was the Sentinel, edited by Milton S. Malone and published in Red Star. A Baptist paper, it came out weekly on Saturdays from 1904 to 1923 and had a significant subscriber base of 1,500.

Huntington was home to nine Black newspapers from the late 1880s through the early 1920s. As the Black epicenter of the state, this progressive community led to a Black Renaissance of culture, education, and increased property ownership.

Founded in Keystone in 1904, the McDowell Times served as a leading newspaper when coal was king. The driving force behind the McDowell Times was its editor, Matthew Thomas (M. T.) Whittico. Published weekly, the Times offered a unique glimpse into the state’s laboring Black communities, Republican politics, and the intersection of race and class in the coalfields.

Four papers are known to have been published in Parkersburg. The Rev. George Fountain, a prolific founder of at least six newspapers throughout the state, published Fountain’s Digest for approximately eight years. The West Virginia Freeman, believed to be the state’s first Black newspaper, later simplified its name to Freeman. Its name notwithstanding, it was a temperance paper totally dedicated to the prohibition of alcohol.

Black newspapers proliferated throughout West Virginia in both small towns and larger cities until the state’s African-American population declined in the late 1900s. When Charleston’s West Virginia Beacon Digest ceased publication in 2006, it was the state’s last surviving Black newspaper until 2020, when Crystal Good founded Black By God, The West Virginian, which strives to offer “a more nuanced portrayal of the Black Experience” in Appalachia. As a result, even though its numbers are greatly reduced, the Black press continues to serve the African-American population of West Virginia.