Afro-American Press Association

Organizing Black America: An Encyclopedia of African American Associations

The Afro-American Press Association (AAPA) represented the various attempts to organize African American newspaper publishers during the later half of the nineteenth and the beginning of the twentieth centuries. The AAPA sought to improve the black press morally and materially and to increase the influence of black newspapers as effective tools for racial advancement. The association had varying degrees of success and different names during this time. On August 4, 1875, the Louisiana politician P.B.S.Pinchback brought together delegates from various African American newspapers in Cincinnati for the National Convention of Colored Newspaper Men. The convention delegates discussed the possibility of forming a press organization and a business affiliate in order to assist each other with newspaper operations. The convention did not yield any concrete results, but it paved the way for a more durable organization to emerge.

There were various calls during the 1880s for a black press association. In 1882, the American Press Association, at the time known as the National Colored Press Association, emerged out of these calls. During the group’s 1886 convention, members of the American Press Association addressed concerns about blacks’ loss of rights in the South after Reconstruction. The convention also called for a national news bureau in Washington, D.C. In addition, the organization changed its name from American Press Association to Colored Press Association of the United States; during this year, it represented fourteen newspapers. The association soon embodied the crusading tradition of the black press. In 1894, Virginia’s governor refused to address the groups convention in Richmond because the association supported the anti-lynching efforts of the journalist and activist Ida B.Wells.

By 1894, the association was undergoing more change. It began to be known as the National Afro-American Press Association.

The association did not survive into the twentieth century. Its elder leaders, who had lived through Reconstruction and the advent of Jim Crow, began to retire or die. As a result, the association gave way to a new generation of black press leaders such as Robert S. Abbott of Chicago and Henry Allen Boyd of Nashville. These young enthusiastic men moved to form a new organization. In 1909, they formed the National Negro Press Association in Louisville, Kentucky, with Henry Allen Boyd as its corresponding secretary. This new organization continued to pursue the goals of the old Afro-American Press Association and in addition undertook recruitment efforts from the array of black periodicals existing at the time, planned fundraisers, and discussed forming a cooperative news service. It also worked on improving standards for advertising, circulation, and news agents. By 1921, the association was discussing the implementation of a National Negro Press Service, the enlargement of the central advertising office, and the appointment of standing committees. However, member dissatisfaction with the association’s operational methods led to the group’s decline in the 1940s. Meetings became infrequent during that decade, and by 1953, the organization had ceased to exist. By 1940, a new and stronger association had emerged—the National Newspaper Publishers’ Association.

Pride, Armistead S., and Clinton C.Wilson II. A History of the Black Press. Washington, D.C.: Howard University Press, 1997.

Angel R.Rivera