Special Edition
February 2, 2010
Pittsburgh, PA
The following story about the Pittsburgh Courier is taken from the official Centennial Edition dated August 17, 1963.
Published by:
The Pittsburgh Courier Publishing Company,Inc.
ABC
The Pittsburgh Courier
(National-Georgia-Ohio-City)
The Chicago Courier
The Detroit Courier
The New York Courier
The Florida Courier
The Philadelphia Courier
The Courier Story
1910-1963
Over a Half Century of Dedication
and Determination.
The success story of this nation's largest Negro weekly is encompassed in the vision and faith of its founders-in its dedication to public service -in its never-ending fight for complete equality for All Americans.
An autonomous enterprise. The Courier is completely unionized from the reporters, who initiate our stories to the truckers, who carry these stories to the newsstands.
Branch offices and correspondents in major cities across the country submit an unending flow of editorial and advertising copy to the home office in Pittsburgh. This material is edited and prepared for inclusion in one of some nine different editions giving our more than-500,000 readers the news-all the news-and the stories behind that news.
Personnel are employed on the basis of ability and judged on their individual merits. This policy,developed through years of experience ,is exemplified by the company's interracial hiring program.
Crusading journalism , a trademark at The Courier, is evidenced by the timely and significant campaigns and stories developed and/or uncovered over years.
The Self-Respect Campaign...Double V Campaign,( Victory at Home, Victory Abroad).......Campaign to End Segregation in Washington,D.C....Educational Equality Campaign....Dollars for Dignity.There was also the Joe Louis crusade , the fight for integration in the armed services, the battle for integration in major league baseball, professional football, golf and tennis;there was the Ghana Story and the Emmett Till case.
This is The Courier Story. Both management and labor are resolved to carry out the fundamental credo of the institution's founders : "You can buy the people's time, perhaps their skill, but never their enthusiasm and good-will.
That you have to earn.
Mrs. Beatrice Saunders Robinson
*Blogger Black Buzz's Mother, Mrs. Beatrice Saunders Robinson, in 1948 was the first African American female in the country to be appointed as treasurer to a National Union, the American Newspaper Guild Pittsburgh local. She went on to serve for 15 years on the local Newspaper Guild's Executive Board.
Mrs. Saunders Robinson was also chairman of the Courier Unit of the American Newspaper Guild. Black Buzz says he remembers Jimmy Hoffa pulling up to the Courier in two big Black Cadillac Limousines to have a meet and discuss with Mrs. Vann. Hoffa represented Teamsters Local 21 and all the Courier pressmen were members of Local 21. My mother informed me that Hoffa was very disrespectful towards Mrs. Vann and very intimidating and outright nasty. My mother further stated that Mr. Hoffa was very polite and respectable towards her and the Newspaper Guild of America whom she represented.
Black Buzz traveled with his mother throughout the United States and Canada as she represented the Courier Unit at the Annual American Newspaper Guild Conventions in such places as San Jose, Boston, New York, St. Louis, Albany and Toronto.
I remember in 1956 staying at the Royal York Hotel in Toronto, Canada and having lunch with the Mayor of Toronto on an island where many of the people were playing croquette and golf. The thing that I found strange about Toronto is that my mother and I were always waited on before the Caucasians in our party in all the phases of public accommodations.
We rode to Canada in a car owned by David Welty and were also accompanied by Dave Minneham, Ethel Cobb and Jeanie O'Toole.
David Welty would later become Pittsburgh Mayor Caliguiri's Press Secretary. Ethel Cobb retired from the Post Gazette after 37 years of service.
My mother and I traveled to California with the Secretary of the Pittsburgh local of the American Newspaper Guild, Helen M. Minear, her son Gary O'Malley, Ethel Cobb of the Post Gazette Unit, and Jeanie O'Otoole who represented the Guild for the Pittsburgh Sun Telegraph employees.
We traveled in Mrs. Minear's brand new 1958 Plymouth Belvedere Station Wagon. It was a nine passenger wagon and was quite large as were most of the cars back in 1958.
I also remember visiting Knots Berry Farm and Disneyland in Anaheim, California. And I remember going up on the Ski-Lift in the Rockies and traveling on that horrible U.S. Route 40 where there were no guard rails in the Rockies. We visited Fisherman's Wharf, China Town in San Francisco and the Hearst Castle off route 1 in California. We also visited the Painted Desert in Arizona and the Petrified Forest in Arizona. We got caught in a terrible rainstorm on the famous route 66 in New Mexico.
My mother and I were Jim Crowed in Reno, Nevada where one motel owner in Reno told my mother that she was "glad that God didn't make her Black". My mother responded to this bigoted women by saying: "I think it is a blessing to be Black and you have a very good day ". Also none of the motels in Tulsa, Oklahoma would allow us to stay in them except there was one that was located off the Turner Turnpike. But the motel owners insisted that we had to leave by six a.m. in the morning. The employee at this motel said that we were light enough to stay and perhaps her Southern guests wouldn't think we were Black. Note my mother was very light and had green/gray/blue eyes more commonly called "cat eyes" among Blacks. My Mother's father, Thomas Marion of Charlotte, North Carolina was a Quadroon and her mother's mother, Mama Dicie was a full bloodied Cherokee Indian from Pee Dee River, South Carolina. My Mother's grandfather, Papa Wolfe's father was from Liberia and his tribe is unknown to the family. We are presently not in a position to do any DNA testing on Papa Wolfe for an exact match with any of the 28 main tribes that make up present day Liberia. These assertions about Papa Wolfe's tribe in Liberia are inconclusive and but the jury is still out on this subject.. as we uncover new facts and records about our vast extensive family history that covers four major continents.
Blogger Black Buzz was 15 years of age at the time of this trip to California. All the Caucasians with whom we were traveling witnessed these Jim Crow incidents firsthand.
Black Buzz says he didn't see any other Blacks at said Guild Conventions.
Most of the daily and weekly corporate white owned newspapers in the USA employed very few Blacks as reporters, editorial writers, clerks, cashiers, etc. in 1958.
The New York Post employed a Black reporter by the name of Ted Poston at the time but he was not an official or officer in the Newspaper Guild as was my mother. Mr. Poston also wrote a weekly column titled "Harlem Shadows" for the Pittsburgh Courier.
I have learned through my research, that in 1935, Mr. Poston led a strike for union recognition at the Amsterdam News. The campaign was successful. Thus the Black employees got their first signed contract between Black employees and their Employers. However Mr. Poston later said proudly that it cost him his job with the paper because they found a way to fire him.
Eventually Mrs. Beatrice Saunders Robinson became the Courier's office manger. She worked for the Courier from 1941 until her retirement in 1980. What a true pioneer.
*In 1973, blogger Black Buzz worked for the Governor's Office of the Pennsylvania Human Relations Commission, Pittsburgh Regional Office. I had a case against the ABC Motel in Ligonier, PA for a refusal to accommodate a Black couple from Colorado. The Black couple had made their reservation with said ABC Motel but after they arrived, the motel owners informed the couple that there were no accommodations available.
To make a long important story short, I found reasonable cause (discrimination to credit the allegations of the complaint of the Black couple) and a very appropriate remedy was obtained for the Black couple in question.
I also had a refusal to accommodate case for a group of Blacks from New York against the largest Motel in Grove City, PA. After the group had made reservations for said motel they were told upon arrival that no rooms were available. This case occurred in 1974 and reasonable cause was found in this complaint to credit the allegations of said charge. We entered into a consent order and decree with damages etc.
I had other cases of a similar nature at the Commission which are too numerous to go into at this moment. But the driving force throughout my adulthood in fighting discrimination has been as a result of those horrible nefarious experiences I had with those Jim Crow incidents back in 1958 and because of the other pervasive discrimination and racism that still exist in many forms.
Just last year in the "Windy City"(Chicago), a night club/bar refused to service a group of Black students from Washington University (St. Louis) while serving 200 of their fellow White classmates. The club in question was not private and therefore was open to the public. The owners claimed that the Black students were not dressed appropriately. There are many such incidents as the one in Chicago all around the good Old USA and enforcement on the local, federal and state levels is virtually non-existent. It is a known fact that many of these Local, State, Federal Civil Rights and Human Relations Agencies and Commissions suffer from bureaucratic inertia.
There is more to the rest of the story !
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