 This is St. Tech Hawaii, Community Matters here. Hello. It's the clock. I am Marcia Joyner and this is the Ties that Bind. We are doing a series on the Ties that Bind because sometimes it doesn't make sense and other times it really does, but we have talked to lots of people about their experiences in America and all of the issues and problems that have arisen as we work toward democracy and equality for everyone. Today we are doing part two of the 125-year legacy of the Afro-American newspapers. We are talking with Jake Oliver, who is the publisher emeritus and chair of the board for 30-plus years, is it? Yes, former chair of the board for 31-plus years. Great. Well, welcome, Jake. Thank you for coming to part two. Now just so everybody understands, this gorgeous man is my cousin. We share grandparents, great-grandparents, and great-great-grandparents of long, long history of being sang-blood. Anyway, out of that all of those people came the Afro-American newspapers. We did talk about the beginning and so real quick, Jake, can we, for anyone that didn't see part one, can you bring us up to date? First of all, it's a pleasure and a privilege to be invited to be part of your program, Marcia. The Afro occupies a very important, prominent position in the history of the Afro-American community. And its position has reflected how that community has been subjected to, overcome, and involves, particularly during the decades of the 20th century. So as to give the current readers a sense of how that role of the Black press, as reflected by the Afro, continues to play such an important role as we continue to overcome the challenges in this century. In the last program, we talked about the first three decades and how the Black community involved from being totally occupied and controlled by a Jim Crow American society. But how that community, beginning in the first decade, started to develop its own voice and slowly began to air and begin to get a strength in voicing its objection to the injustices of a Jim Crow America that denied not only the entire community, particularly in the South, its right to vote, but also, as a result of sedition, denied any sentence of equality and justice in many other levels. So what most America accepts or takes for granted as the American way of life. It's been a struggle, but it's been very interesting to see how the community and how the Afro has highlighted the struggle. And where we ended the last program was, well, some of the things we highlighted was the dealing with the lynchings, how the paper had to deal with the fact that the Black vote really was never recognized, and when it was finally recognized how it was, in essence, violated how the community was led to by Woodrow Wilson, the president, in order to get him elected. But also there were how the Black soldiers who participated in World War I were indeed violated as well. We ended with the approach of the cloud of the Second World War and how the Black community indeed wanted to occupy a meaningful role in defending the country's interest. And how that was indeed itself a struggle. Black soldiers were not accorded any level of equality and segregated units was just a standard. It wasn't something that was even addressed until after the Second World War. And I believe, Marcia, we ended with the 1944. Yes, that's where we ended. It was 1944. And one of the articles that appeared in the Afro. Yes. And that's where I liked it. Thank you. Let's do that. The April 8, 1944 edition of the Afro was in me one of my, I guess, one of my favorite points because it reflects such a wide swath of major issues. And I think I think the first page of that edition was focused on racial discrimination. The big story was how their Supreme Court had eliminated, if you can believe it, a Texas decision that outlawed Blacks from participating in Texas primaries. They were white only primaries. Really? Oh, well, 1944. 1944, yeah. 1944. Yes. But in my opinion, the most interesting article was an article that was about, it was an interview, exclusive Afro interview of Albert Weinstein at his home in Princeton. And it was a discussion of getting his view of comparing his perception of what he was subjected to as being a member of the Jewish community in Germany during the war and compare his experiences with and perceptions with what he saw the Black community was exposed to here in America. And it's a riveting article because, first of all, not only did you get a real clear sense of, at that time, one of the world's most respected scientists, indeed, one of the most smartest men on the country on Earth at that time. But you also get a sense of what Albert Weinstein was like as a human being. And you get a sense of, he was a professor at Princeton. The interview occurred at his house. He answered the door with his slippers on and what looked like pajamas. He looked like an extreme intellect. And as the article shows, he enjoyed laughing at his own jokes. But his study was, as you would expect it, to be loaded with paper. This man was in constant thought. But the main quest of this article, as I indicated, was what message he could give to the Black community. And I have an excerpt from that article that I think is really telling of what he thought. The scientist said, the young American sees the colored man in a socially and economically undesirable role and assumed that such a role is designed for the colored citizen. In short, race prejudice is as traditional to Americans as movie stars, pumpkin pies, the two-party system, and radio crewments. Racial colonies will not be furthered by the war, Dr. Weinstein said. In general, war's retired civilization, he pointed out. The last war ended with the KKK. Why should you expect social achievement in a time of passion and hysteria? You should not expect positive help from this war. That was a fairly negative message. But unfortunately, it was true. It is true. The World War II did not end segregation, did not end Jim Crow, did not reduce Jim Crow until 1949, when Harry Truman eliminated segregation in the armed services. Even that, because the Air Force only complied in 1952. But since we're talking about this, Admiral Rick Over, who is the father of the nuclear power in the Navy, was at the Naval Academy, and he was segregated. They sent them to Covingtree, and that was where nobody could talk to them. The few Jews that were at the Naval Academy were totally isolated from everyone else. It was across the board, the way the Americans treated the Jews was horrible. We will do a program, we have already planned to do a program, to talk about what the Jews went through in America. It was talking about the segregation in the armed services. The AFRO did a series of articles in celebration of Barack Obama's second inauguration that reviewed and shared with the readers over a course of about six or seven weeks. A full-page article with photos of the AFRO coverage of each of the inaugurations, beginning with the inauguration of 1905, Teddy Roosevelt. It really gives a background in each of the inaugurations during the series of exactly how the segregation and how the black community was number one, totally segregated. How it basically accepted it during the first three to four decades, and how that began to evolve with the election of Franklin Delano Roosevelt. A lot of help from this one. Oh, yes. But how, in spite of Roosevelt, changes really did not really appear in the inauguration of our country's presidents until, surprisingly, the inauguration of Harry Truman, who really did not really hold out a whole lot of high expectations to the black community, but until his actions to integrate the armed services right after World War II. As a result of which, his inauguration really was something unlike anything else that the black community was being exposed to at that point. The integration, most of the events, there was almost total integration in all the events of the inauguration celebrations. But there was one item which was particularly interesting. That 1949 was the inauguration of Harry Truman's inauguration. And it was also the first inauguration that was televised on TV. And the Afro on January 29th, 1949 had a grand aid column by Charles Hamilton Houston, who was a hand legal counsel for the NAACP, a legal defense fund, but also most noted as the mentor of Thurgood Marshall. You have to add that Thurgood Marshall also worked for the Afro. Next, keep going. Just keep going. But what Charles Hamilton Houston wrote was, he was so impressed by the integration that was reflected in the inaugural events of celebrating the inauguration of Harry Truman that he wrote in his article, in his column. He said, last Thursday, I kept wondering whether the first color president of the United States was the mommy of the children looking at the inaugural parade in person or by television or listening to it over the radio or whether he has been born. Firstly, I think he's been born. And that if we can speed our rate of progress and self-discipline, some of us may live to see him inaugurate. Of course, when that day comes, it will not make any difference to the people what blood he has. The sole question is likely to be simply whether he is the best man or woman, why not, or the job. That was in 1949 and Brock wasn't born until 1960. But it was so overwhelmed by the integration that, in essence, his message was, God, we've arrived. We are now involved in a total, not a total, but the most integrated celebration of the inauguration of an American president that has ever been witnessed in the history of this country. And that was quite an accomplishment. We need to take a break. And we will come back in 60 seconds. This is Think Tech Hawaii, raising public awareness. I just walked by and I said, what's happening, guys? They told me they were making music. Welcome to Hawaii. This is Prince Dykes, your host of The Prince of Investing. Coming to you guys each and every Tuesday at 11 a.m. Right here on Think Tech Hawaii. Don't forget to come by and check out some of the great information on stocks, investments, your money, all the other great stuff. And I'll be your host. See you Tuesday. I'm Marcia and this, these are the ties that bind. And today we are doing part two of 125-year legacy of the Afro-American newspapers. And with us all the way from somewhere over there in Baltimore, Maryland is Jake Oliver, who is publisher emeritus and chair of the board of the Afro-American newspapers for... Past. Past. Okay. All right. So we were just up to 1949. 49. Okay. All right. Let's see how far we can go. Okay. Okay. So following the inauguration of Harry Truman, the community had a whole lot of hope that the Jim Crow limitations that have become such a fixture of the American society was going to begin to change. And opportunities were going to begin, equal opportunities were going to begin to emerge. The election of the first Republican president in 1952-53 was of white Eisenhower. And that sort of gave the community a certain degree of pause because primarily the community and the paper sort of held hope out of a new administration, mostly as a result of what the inaugural speech of the incoming president was going to be and whether or not there was going to be any reference to civil rights. And unfortunately, Dwight Eisenhower, who was really, primarily, terribly, justifiably so in many respects, focused on the Korean War and the looming threat of the new nuclear threat that had emerged in 1952 and even more so in the beginning of 53. So, unfortunately, Dwight Eisenhower didn't reference civil rights at all. And the community really had a, it was bleak. He didn't really have a whole lot of hope. But to his credit, President Eisenhower changed his stance when he made his first speech to Congress and he did reference the importance of civil rights. And suddenly, the events that were going to begin, that were beginning to emerge shortly thereafter with the decision in 1954 of Brown versus, Brown versus Board. And then shortly after that, the Alabama bus, Dwight, in the emergence of a new spokesperson, a young black Baptist minister from Atlanta, Reverend Martin Luther King, was going to really begin to change a lot of the black community's level of hope. Because Eisenhower began to recognize the importance of eliminating Jim Crow and started out by eliminating and making sure that Washington, D.C., would be at the capital of this country an example of total integration in the debt of Jim Crow that had been tolerated so long. But this was now the beginning of what most people do as the modern-day civil rights movement, modern-day of the 20th century. Let me just interject one thing here. I know most people say, oh, that was the beginning. But I always have to interject that, no, the beginning of the civil rights movement was when the first slave said, I ain't doing this. But go ahead. To me, that was the beginning. I know that in terms of modern-day thinking, and in most of what we read, they say 1950s and 60s as the modern-day civil rights movement. That's the age of King, and that's when the voice of the objection against Jim Crow, particularly in the South, began to shock the rest of the world and Jim Crow started to disappear. And it was an important part of the evolution of the 20th of the freedoms that we are so protective of today, but still have got to continuously expand even more so. But it was the emergence of Dr. King that really the paper started to really, among those other things, started to focus on the other things being the bus boycott in Alabama. And the integration of various higher education institutions, such as the University of Alabama and then Central High School in Little Rock, Arkansas. Those were some very dramatic and violent periods of time, but it was King's voice that rose above all the clamor and all the violence that really attracted a lot of attention. One of the frightening things that caught my attention was the 1958 article edition that talked about how King was continuously exposed to the violence. And there's two aspects of this edition of the Afro that I thought was notable. It started out talking about the racial hatred that Reverend King was frequently confronted with as a result of the various nonviolent campaigns against racial discrimination in 1958. That campaign was not expected in shocking clinical at a fixed time event. I think it absolutely foes everyone because that event took place in Harlem and it was, you know, he was giving autographs about his new book, Try Toward Freedom, on September 17th. At that book signing event, a woman approached Dr. King, asked him if he was Dr. King and when he indicated that he was, she, without warning, plunged a six-inch switchblade knife into his chest. The front-page headlines of the Afro included that while still in critical condition, Dr. King was nevertheless out of danger a little more than a week after the fight against an incident according to the doctors at Harlem Hospital. And the main part of the front-page considerable space was devoted to examining the unusual circumstances surrounding what might have prompted this woman to commit this act. She was black and living in Harlem, which was absolutely a shock. Given the obvious dangers Dr. King had continuously faced in the visible, more hostile areas of the South, this wild attack wasn't even more shocking to everyone, including New York Governor April Harriman who held a vigil outside Dr. King's hospital until he had received the word that King was out of danger. While the woman who committed the act is often referred to in the article as deranged, it was nevertheless clear that in 1958 Dr. King could apparently not be considered safe anywhere, even among his own people. That article, I thought, was shocking. But it was even more interesting, Marsha, that an article right beside that article was an article that was even more corny but relevant to what King had just been subjected to. And talking about the spiritual strength of Dr. King to rise above these continuous threats to himself as wife and children was reflected in a corny article in the center of that front-page. Right next to the article was described as being stabbed. And the article was entitled, How Levent King foresaw death and conquered all fear. This article focused on how almost three years before his Harlem close brush with death, Dr. King described in this recently published book the spiritual battle he had to personally address to overcome his fear of death and internal hostilities in order to continue his nonviolent campaign against racial injustice. How Dr. King overcame, overcame, is a stimulating historical explanation of how the Harlem incident and all the past and future forevoting challenges were not able to defeat the King leadership, which in 1958 America has just begun to witness. Jake, and we're only up to 1958? Yes. Well, we are almost out of time. So at some point we're going to have to keep going. So you're going to have to agree to come back if we're only up to 1958. And I guess I was, I don't know what I was thinking when I thought we could get 125 years into this little bit of time. We have to cover so much because the road that this paper has traveled, like the community that it was covering. Yes. It's not a short trip. No it's not. I don't know what I was thinking about when I thought we could get this in. So you will come back and we will talk more because I did get people from Baltimore who said, I want to see part two. So now we have to do part three. Okay. Be happy to. Thank you darling. It is a pleasure even if this is the only way I get to talk to you. Aloha. And we'll see you soon. Okay. Bye. Bye-bye.