 This is Stink Tech, Hawaii. Community matters here. I'll call you right back. Yeah. Remember that. Aloha. I'm Marsha Joyner. And these are the ties that bind. Today, we are going to talk to Jake Oliver, who is the publisher emeritus and former president of the board for the Afro-American newspapers, and he is in Baltimore. And it is a 125-year legacy. And so we are going to talk about just that, 125-year legacy. So Jake, are you there? There he is. I'm here. Oh, how handsome you are. You're proud of him. Oh, well, I'm biased. Just so that the audience knows that this beautiful man is my cousin, we share a set of grandparents, great-grandparents, and great-great-grandparents. And so to talk about the legacy, this 125-year-old newspaper, which has chronicled the lives of black people in America for that long, in sharing and ties that bind, I thought it necessary to set the stage of all that we have been through as a people, as black people in America, that this was the best place to start. Jake, so tell us all about the Afro. I'm not sure we have enough time. 125 years. 125 years. Yes, it covers a lot of things. When I think about the historical span of time that this institution has more or less been serving its community, and minority communities in general in this country, I generally break it up into decades. And that really comes from me having at least the opportunity over the last 31-plus years to really get involved in what we call the archives, the old editions that over the last 15, 20 years we were able to organize, started an indexing, and probably among the most proudest accomplishments has been the digitization of the old editions, most of the old editions, which had permitted many people on the internet to access and research the historical events that the Afro has been reporting about over the last 125 years. But during that 125-year period, it really is interesting to see just like anything, it grows, it changes, it evolves. And some of the things are quite astounding, and others are not. There is always one consistent flow throughout the entire period, as we've always recognized the need for us to have a strong and a very prominent voice on issues relating to promoting the progress of minority communities across the country. And that's modern-day civil rights. But back in the turn of the 20th century, it was not healthy to be too loud, and we did not really have that big of a voice. But over the first decade, we could, as a result of reporting on events, we could really begin to see how the black community was becoming aware of how it did have rights that it needed to become a lot more vocal in protecting and progressing. And I guess some of the early events that is present day, and when you look back, Marcia, some of those events that we reported in the first decade of the 20th century, 1902 and through 19, probably 12, they're rather shocking. One of the more interesting articles appeared in a 1906 January edition front page of the Afro. I talked about the fact that over the past year, there have been 73 lynchings. Most of the lynchings occurred in the south, and of the 73 lynchings, 69 of those lynchings were of black men, three were white men, and one was a black woman. But the article, which was very interesting, which really caught my attention, went into a level of specificity as to not only the number and the states, but also the monks and also categorized and indexed the alleged violations that apparently gave sort of a way to the unfortunate conclusion of the lynchings. And you really get a sense that the writer of that article, even though they were being very polite, they were very, they were outraged. He or she was outraged by the intensity and the numbers of atrocities that were occurring primarily through the south, Mississippi, Georgia, et cetera. And then it got to the point of where there was one that described what these people were alleged to have done, and then it says, of course, then it gets to the poor fellow in Louisiana who got lynched because he was alleged to have stolen one dollar. Well, you know, my mother, your aunt, said while she was at Fisk University, which is in Tennessee, that there was a lynching every weekend just outside of town, every weekend. And that was in the, what, 30s? The best in the 30s. Yeah. Yeah. The lynchings really reached their peak around right after World War I between 1920, 1919, and 1927 that they just, and it was also precipitated by and large, unfortunately, by the return of black troops from Europe who were in uniform. And they posed a threat to many of the southern communities and resulted in these young men just getting killed. Oh, yeah. But that was just reflective of, again, jumping back to the first decade. There was an article in 1907, I believe, that talked about the fact that all of the black troops in the U.S. Army were sent out of the country. And that was primarily, the rationale for that was that black men in uniforms, particularly in the south, posed a threat to white communities. They just were very, very concerned. And there was, there had been riots and abuses, but to the extent that there were, after that decision by the Secretary of War, which was supported by President Teddy Roosevelt, there were no longer any black soldiers in the country until probably 1909, 1910. And primarily, as a result of the newspaper, the Afro and the black community beginning to find its voice in objecting to the abuse of this magnitude. Well, you know, next. Go ahead. But that sort of leads into the second decade where the voice became organized. And it was very interesting that we were tricked into organizing it because we thought that we were going to have a stronger voice to promote black opportunities coming out of the 1912 presidential campaign because for the first time the black community was approached as a black community. Its vote was approached, but most important by the Democratic Party in its candidate in 1912 was Woodrow Wilson. And Woodrow Wilson made lots of promises. And he sent black AME bishops into the black community to try and convince. And indeed did convince the Afro and majority of the black community to support this very quiet intellectual past president of Princeton University to support him as president. And unfortunately, six months after we had been instrumental in electing him, we realized that we had made a big mistake because he... It didn't turn out that way. So he got rid of every black person who had any meaningful position in the federal government and never hired any black people at all except for one person as an ambassador to two countries in Africa. And that... Your grandfather. Your grandfather. Do we have a picture of... We do. It should be number three. Number three. This one right here. That is Dr. Jacob B. Oliver, which is our grandfather. And he was one of those nominated by Woodrow Wilson to... Become the ambassador to Trinidad, I think. But he rejected it. It could have been either Liberia or Trinidad. It was Liberia, yeah. And the other one in the picture is our grandmother, Rose Murphy Oliver. Yeah. That's Rose Murphy and this is Dr. Jacob B. Oliver. Those are our grandparents. And while we've got the pictures up, let's go back to number one. And we go... This is George Enoch Howard, who was our... What? Great-great-grandfather? Something like that. And he was the largest landowner in the state of Maryland, Montgomery and Howard Counties. Howard Counties. I told his name after him. Howard Counties. So that his daughter, Martha, married... John H. Murphy. John H. Murphy's senior. And... A person who really fits the medal in getting you out there. So if we can go to the next picture, this one. Okay. John H. Murphy is the one holding the baby. This picture was done in 1900. And so it was Martha, the daughter of the rich landowner. And of course, John H. Murphy came back from the Civil War, stumbles into a rich landowner that had daughters. He married Martha and thus all of those other people. And one in the background, Rose, is our grandmother. So that's how we're moving fast through generations. But it was John H. Murphy who needed to support all this family that he had. The story is he borrowed $200 from his wife. $200 at the turn of the century was a lot of money. Thus began the Afro. So, Jake, thus we begin. Yeah. Yeah. And it was really in partnership with several of the existing black churches in Baltimore because it was two of the preacher's partners had really started a black publication and hired John H. Murphy Sr., who after two or three or four years turned around and bought the paper from them. And at that point, things started to really started to change. It started to focus more on developing a voice for promoting progress in the black community. Whereas when it was initially started, it was really like a Sunday School publication, a religious publication. But it's also interesting, Marsha, to compare the decades, as I said, with the types of articles that appear. Back in the first decade, it was very rare that you're going to have any articles reporting crime because I'm not sure what crimes existed in the black community at that time. I remember running across an article from 1904 recently that was talked about in Frostburg, Maryland. There had been four libraries. And that was front page. Yeah. But it was very clear that those libraries were all committed by white people. And if we're reading that from the perspective of the day, why was that therefore put in the front page? Fairly because the fact that crime wasn't a big deal. As a child, I remember walking everywhere and no one mentioned crime. Listen, Jake, we need to take a break and we'll be back in one minute. 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. The host of Voice of the Veteran, seen here live every Thursday afternoon at 1 p.m. on Think Tech Hawaii. As a fellow veteran and veterans advocate with over 23 years experience serving veterans, active duty and family members, I hope to educate everyone on benefits and accessibility services by inviting professionals in the field to appear on the show. In addition, I hope to plan on inviting guest veterans to talk about their concerns and possibly offer solutions. As we navigate and work together through issues, we can all benefit. Please join me every Thursday at 1 p.m. for the Voice of the Veteran. Aloha. Aloha. I'm Marcia Joyner and this is the Ties of Vine. And today we are talking to Jake Oliver and we are talking about 125 years of Afro-American newspapers and all of the issues or as it has chronicled our struggles in America. And the one that jumps out to me simply because I was a child at the time and the word sedition was a big word. I had no idea what it meant. And still it seems strange. During World War II all of the black newspapers chronicled all of the troops that were fighting in Europe for somebody else's independence and yet they came home to rank segregation. It was just awful. Everywhere. We talk about the South but it was everywhere. And so all of the papers wrote an article after article after article. And Jake will tell you more about all of the articles, all of the black newspapers supporting the troops. And at some point the federal government charged all of the black newspapers with sedition which means giving aid and comfort to the enemy because they were telling the truth. We were tending towards insurrection. Yes. And they were my recollection on this is I wasn't born then but the point is that this was a time during which the National Newspaper Public Association which is the black press association really began to galvanize its voice because of the fact that all its black newspaper across the country were really reporting about the same thing highlighting the injustices that were focused on black troops. Now this is not something that just suddenly appeared in the Second World War because it really became very apparent in the First World War. So much so when the black troops in Europe, France, there was a front page article in the 1918 edition of the Afro that talked about the French government rose up and registered a formal objection to the way black troops were being mishandled by the white officers. And that the entire country was offended by the poor treatment of the black soldiers. But when you get to the Second World War it became even more prominent. And it was so much so that because of the fact that at that point in time the black press had a better organized sense of itself. We began to make an impact and I got the impression that it did have an impact on President Roosevelt and also on God, Eleanor, his wife was very helpful. But it also really resulted in Vice President Truman after Roosevelt's death who became president. One of the first things he did was to pass an executive order that integrated the troops because of the fact that he felt that segregation was an atrocity. Particularly you send all these troops across the oceans and for purposes of fighting to liberate and promote democracy. But when they come home they have everything but anything but justice. And he felt that segregation promoted this continuation of the injustice that was very prominent, particularly when these troops were arriving back from Europe and from the Pacific. So the concern initially arose as a result of the organized voice raised by the black press in the early 40s that caught the attention of various politicians. And eventually got President Roosevelt a lot more sensitive to it than what he otherwise probably would have. Again, thanks to Eleanor. You know, anybody that tuned in late, we are talking about the Afro-American newspapers and its 125 year history which chronicles our history, most of our history in the United States. The good and the bad, there was a lot of good in the paper, lots and lots as you go through. We look at so many documents, documentaries of other people and they use the archives, the Afro archives. There's so many stories and we see it over, especially the war stories. We had a cousin who was a war correspondent. Which one of, which one of, was it, Carlita? It was Betty. Betty. Betty Moss. Betty Phillips, yes. She was a war correspondent but there was another one that was in uniform somewhere, we have pictures of her. I didn't think of that. It was one of them. And they were war correspondents and Lacey. He was a war correspondent. Sam Lacey. Sam Lacey was a war correspondent. Yeah, but you had Art Carter. Art Carter. He moved in with Tuskegee Airmen in Italy. He had Ali Stewart, who was one of the first black war correspondent in the war, in the Second World War. The Afro during the Second World War, we were sending black correspondents all over the place. And to cover Pacific Theater as well as the European Theater. And we had some very famous correspondents as a result of that. It was Art Carter and Ali Stewart that come to mind almost instantly as the ones who really caught the flavor of the various parts of the war. Not only the coverage, out coverage of Tuskegee Airmen, but also what it was like to be a black soldier walking down the Chantilly Bay. The day the American troops liberated Paris. I mean, there were stories that were posted that really gave a clear sense of what the black involvement was, but also what the black experience was to be part of such an international event such as the World War II. Well, you know, I have such vivid memories of World War II, and I think it's because of the paper. As a little girl, your other cousin Carl and I, Carl Edward and I, because our fathers were in the war and our mothers were working at the Afro, we went to public school that was close to the paper, and then we would walk back to the Afro at the end of the day and then spend the rest of the day. So I thought everybody went to work because that's what we were doing. We were going to work. And listening to you now, I realized that's the reason I am so familiar with the war, because it was an everyday thing. The paper was everyday. It was every bit of the war, and it just occurred to me that that's why I'm so familiar with it and seem so much a part of it. It's because it was everyday. It was there. The paper was totally invested in the war. Yeah. Again, we're trying to give people a picture of the involvement of the minorities and the contribution of minorities. And Marsha, I guess one of the most striking articles, front page articles that caught my attention was an article that appeared on the front page of the paper before we jumped into the war. It was in 1939. And the front page headline talked about the fact that how black troops were not going to be sent to Arizona to pick cotton. Completely froze. That's what they were going to do because there was resistance. Keeping in mind that there was segregation at that time. The troops weren't integrated. But there were black officers. And there was a lot of the troops, particularly some of the southern troops, really resisted having to even give respect to a black officer who outright them. And so the question is, well, what do you do with these people? And they said, well, get them out of sight, not in a way. But luckily, Roosevelt jumped in and killed it. But it was, I believe, Secretary of War Stimson was one who also had considered it. But luckily, because of the pressure and the outrage registered by the black press, they backed off. Jay, darling, we have only gotten to the forties of 125-year odyssey. So we are out of time. Therefore, you will have to come back. And we will have to go from 1950 up to today. So thank you. But honestly, we all start in 1944 because there's an article where we interviewed Albert Einstein at Princeton where he talked about the difference between what he experienced as a Jew in Germany versus what he could see blacks were being subjected to here in America. And that is something that is absolutely astounding. Oh, okay. So now we know we know we have a way to pick up on part two. Jake, thank you so much. It's a pleasure spending this time with you. And we look forward to part two. Aloha.