The 1996 Telecommunications Act greatly increased access to telephone services and high-speed internet. Telecommunications was the future, but the internet was still significantly less accessible to low-income Black communities.
It was a double-edged sword. Overcoming this digital divide opened up opportunities for Black Americans. However, modernization also brought up questions of assimilation.
Scholar André Brock, Jr. identifies Black radio, press, churches, and filmmaking as ways we accessed communication.
And as presses moved from physical to digital, many Black-owned publications fell through the cracks. Some survived and developed an online presence, like the Amsterdam News. But what about the others?
Projects like Howard’s Black Press Archives help keep them alive, digitizing 100,000 issues of publications. Since 1973, the collection expanded in storage.
From covering Emmett Till’s murder to interrogating anti-Blackness during World War II, they not only archived but helped shape history.
Statistics show that Black Americans are critical of how we’re represented in the news, seek all sides of an issue, and are likelier to feel connected to their main news source.
Today, we can both appreciate those publications’ critical work and welcome new Black presses online.
Black press hasn’t died - it’s only changing. And from the past to the future, we will continue to refuse the white American media perspective as our only option, and continue to cultivate and support our own.