Black newspapers, maybe covered baseball

[Paul Wendt]

Is there a standard reference list of "black" city newspapers. Weeklies do count if some weeklies may be sources for baseball research.

I suppose that many were established in the 1900s-1910s with ongoing urbanization and black migration. But Cleveland Gazette seems to be one weekly already in the 1880s.
(I'm interested in the 19th century and very early 20th but even a reference list for the Negro Leagues era may be useful to others.)

[Bench 5]

I happen to have John Holway's "Complete Book of Baseball's Negro Leagues" out from the library. Here are the papers that he used for his book. This includes many "black" newspapers.

[disgrig]

The Richmond Afro-American and the Baltimore Afro-American are available on paperofrecord.com for free.

Also, the People's Voice (Harlem)from the 1940s has some good baseball coverage but I think it's a little rare in microfilm form.

In St. Louis, MO, the St Louis Argus and the St Louis American are two good sources for St Louis-related blackball info.

[KJOK]

A couple of more that carried some Negro League baseball:

Birmingham News
Cleveland Plain Dealer

[Paul Wendt]

The Negro Leagues Book (SABR 1995), edited by the research committee co-chairs Dick Clark & Larry Lester, includes a short section "Newspapers and Writers", pages 371-75.

The call Atlanta Daily World "the first successful black daily" (1928). I infer that the Chicago Defender (1905) and Pittsburgh Courier (1910) were weeklies.

Most of this section is "a geographical listing of daily and weekly papers, some white but mostly black, that carried regular information about the Negro Leagues. Before the listing they credit Pittsburgh C and Chicago D with "the most detailed information". They call New York Amsterdam News, Indianapolis Freeman, Baltimore Afro-American, and Kansas City Call "other papers with extensive coverage."

The main listing, alphabetical by state and city, is more than five columns, almost 300 titles.

Finally they credit two sources.
American Newspapers, W. Gregory.
Union List of Newspapers, available in many academic libraries.

[Paul Wendt]

The Harvard University libraries catalog is available to the public. If they have even one issue of a newspaper in their collection (which cannot be taken for granted but is common) then they normally have complete publication data.

Visit HOLLIS Journal Titles and search for a newspaper by title. The title commonly includes city name and the city name alone often works to find newspapers.

Example search: Cleveland Gazette
Select "The Cleveland Gazette" and continue to "Cleveland Gazette" if necessary (not necessary here).
The second of two records for "The Cleveland Gazette" reports there are 62 volumes 1883-1945 (and Harvard has all of them on 17 reels of microfilm).

[sturg1dj]

Pittsburgh Courier Journal and Wendell Smith excellent coverage if you are looking for hard hitting anti-segregation work

[Paul Wendt]

I should say, for my own research I am wondering which newspapers may be good for the first 20 years, 1885-1905 or so.

After asking the general question I am posting leads that may be useful to others. I see that most of these newspapers were founded after 1905 (Chicago Defender).