Movie Reviews for Writers: The Black Press -- Soldiers Without Swords

 

Writing and reading have always been important, and not just for entertainment. Words have long been a powerful tool for achieving social and cultural goals, and the history of the black press is just one story that highlights that legacy.

But, as crucial as that history is, this wonderful documentary isn't just a dry presentation of information but also offers something to say to contemporary writers.  

The Importance of Public Words

The early black press took away the invisibility of African-American citizens, both slaves in the South and freemen in the North. Says Vernon Jarrett: 

"We didn't exist in the other papers. We were neither born, we didn't get married, we didn't die, we didn't fight in any wars, we never participated in anything of a scientific achievement. We were truly invisible unless we committed a crime. And in the BLACK PRESS, the negro press, we did get married. They showed us our babies when born. They showed us graduating. They showed our PhDs."

In the same way, your words, no matter how small or large your readership, destroy your invisibility. It shows that you have opinions, thoughts, and ideas that matter. 

And those ideas are targeted, not just the typical who, what, where, when associated with the notion of an unbiased press we often hear about today. According to Phyl Garland: 

"The black press was never intended to be objective because it didn't see the -- the white press being objective. It often took a position. It had an attitude. This was a press of advocacy. There was news, but the news had an admitted and a deliberate slant."

Jane Rhodes echoes that idea: 

"Their whole idea behind Freedom's Journal was to have a voice, an independent voice, an autonomous voice for African Americans. The opening editorial on the front page of Freedom's Journal says, "We mean to plead our own cause ..."

Or, put in other words, "No longer shall others speak for us" (Vernon Jarrett). 

Not only was it important to hear their own voices and see their own faces in the news, it was equally important to train a new generation of writers of color to continue that representation into the next generation. Frederick Douglas probably said it best in his speech on December 3, 1847:

"In the grand struggle for liberty and equality now waging, it is (Unintell.), right, and essential that there should arrive in our ranks authors and editors as well as orators, for it is in these capacities that the most permanent good can be rendered to our cause."

All those new writers, editors, and orators created an interconnected sense of national community that had been limited to disconnected local communities prior. 

Christopher Reed: I would rank the 19th-century African American press as one of the major forces in producing one of the major miracles of that century, pulling African Americans together after slavery into cohesive communities. Whether you're talking about Kansas or Mississippi, ah, New York, it doesn't make any difference -- Washington, these newspapers informed people, elevated morale, built a sense of racial consciousness. You can't, ah, overstate the importance of newspapers.

The Importance of Reading

The rise of the black press highlighted not only the importance of representation in writing but also the crucialness of reading. With the arrival of the black press, reading became a new sort of national pastime for black citizens.

Narrator: As slaves, African Americans were forbidden to read, but after the Civil War, reading became one of the sweetest fruits of freedom. For many, black newspapers were an introduction the power and the magic of the written word.

It surprises me how often people take the gift and miracle of reading so lightly, more as a chore than a privilege. That goes for writers too. I can't tell you how many writers I've talked with who tell them they're too busy writing and don't have time to read. To mean, that's like saying you're too busy driving to fill up the tank with gas. 

I know that as a reader I'm biased -- I get that -- but we have such a wealth of knowledge, wisdom, and yes, entertainment available to us that so many simply disregard. 

So, clearly, even today, the importance of the act of reading hasn't changed. 

The Guts to Keep Writing

Perhaps the biggest takeaway we can get from this excellent documentary is that community gives us the courage to keep writing. A living, vibrant group of other creators as the balm the author's soul needs to keep going. 

Just like the Douglases influenced and encouraged the Ida B. Wellses and the Robert Abbotts. 

Christopher Reed: America had to change and the vehicle to express this would be the newspaper.

And, today, while the issues may be different, America still needs to hear new voices and change and grow with each new generation of writers. Maybe, just maybe, something you write, may have a bearing on that and influence someone in the next generation.