85th Anniversary - March 14th, 2013

In 1928, St.

Louis needed TheAmerican

Life in the year when this paper was founded

By Donn Johnson For The St.Louis American

It was the end of the “Roaring 20’s.”

It was a time when streetcars clanged noisily down St. Louis streets and Downtown was a destination for work and shopping.

It was a time when taxicabs lined Union Station and passenger trains loaded thousands of commuters a day, carrying them to all points across America.

It was the year after Babe Ruth hit 60 home runs for the World Champion New York Yankees and the year before the notorious St. Valentines Day Massacre in Chicago. Mobster Bugsy Malone was quoted saying “Only (Al) Capone kills like that,” about the machine gun slaughter of seven of his hoods

It was the year after “Lucky Lindy” hopped across the Atlantic “all by his lonesome,” and the year before the stock market crash that sent some robber barons hopping out of high-rise windows, their fortunes gone.

The year was 1928. Amelia Earhart became the first woman to fly across the Atlantic.

She was hailed as the world’s greatest Aviatrix. Two years earlier, America’s first African-American female pilot, Bessie Coleman died in a stunt crash. Queen Bess, as she was known, already had proven what the U.S. military refused to accept until the Tuskegee experiment: that black people could fly airplanes.

George Washington Carver was 65 years old. The Missouri native was getting many accolades for his incredible work with peanuts, sweet potatoes, soybeans, and pecans. 1928 was the year he became “Doctor Carver” as his alma mater, Simpson College of Indiana, bestowed an honorary degree upon him. Carver, who could have made millions, mostly accepted praise and awards for his successful inventions. “God gave them to me,” he would say. “How could I sell them to anyone else?” This was a view clearly not shared by his white contemporaries.

Agreat leap in medicine was made in 1928 when AlexanderFleming discovered penicillin in London. Here, the first rumblings of a new “colored” hospital could be heard. Almost a decade later, Homer G. Phillips Hospital for Colored opened in The Ville.

Great strides were being made in technology.

Missourian Walt Disney would make the first talking animated movie, Steamboat Willie, introducing the world to Mickey Mouse. The best picture of 1928 was The Broadway Melody. Twenty-six million cars were traveling the roads of America. The first three televisions were sold in 1928. It would be nearly 20 years before the first St. Louis television station, KSD, aired.

In 1928, St. Louis was the jewel of the Midwest – a bustling, thriving industrial city of nearly one million people, filled with smokestacks belching thick black clouds

into the air. The putrid smell of slaughtered cattle often drifted through north and south side neighborhoods from the packinghouses that dressed and prepared much of the meat consumed in the Midwest.

Often, poor people, mostly black, could be found outside the packinghouse, picking through some of the discarded parts of the cows and pigs, looking for food. Sometimes,

the intestines were thrown out.

Recovered, cleaned, cooked, and eaten. Smelling up the neighborhoods – chitlins. If Chicago was the king of packinghouses, St. Louis was certainly a crown prince.

By 1928, St. Louis’African American community was sizable. Asmall neighborhood just south of Chouteau and east of Compton known as “Compton Hill” was alive. It

was a collection of workingclass black folk. Just north of there was “Mill Creek,” on its way to becoming a slum that the city would bulldoze as part of its “urban renewal.” This area produced Josephine Baker, who used to dance in front of Tom Turpin’s BookerT. Washington Theatre – among the first in the United States operated by and for blacks.

On the other side of the city, another community of black folks was growing. The “Ville” was completing a racial swing that began in 1920 and went from only eight percent African-American to 86 percent African-American. The area was a collection of German and African immigrants and a few African Americans, known as Elleardsville for the man who originally owned the land. As the immigrants moved away, more black people replaced them. Black businesses and churches sprang up. The most famous African American living there was Annie Malone, who built her beauty products business there. Malone became a millionaire and contributed generously to the local orphan’s home that bears her name. She also pushed for capital improvements such as paved streets. Sumner High School, Stowe College, Turner and Simmons schools were all in use in the Ville by 1928.

Here, the first rumblings of a new “colored” hospital could be heard. Almost a decade after the American was founded, Homer G. Phillips Hospital for Colored opened in The Ville.

Phone lines and trolley lines crisscrossed the space for white-collar St. Louis. It was more than an even bet that a smiling black face opened doors, shined shoes or pushed brooms down shining halls. A chorus of black “Yes, sirs”

could be heard each time a white businessman came through a door commenting about the ever-changing St. Louis weather. These faceless “colored” men and women were, after all, part of America’s “Negro problem.” College theses and books have been written on this unique American “problem.” Black newspapers like the Kansas City Call, Pittsburgh Courier and Chicago Defender described the treatment of colored people. The Communist Party was courting disgruntled intellectuals with promises of social equality. The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People and the Urban League both sought compromise on integration. The “Negro problem” was a dilemma for blacks and whites, social and political. More than a quarter of the way through the 20th-century – and the nation was a long way from solving it. It was a decade after the end of the First World War and black veterans were no closer to winning their freedom at home than they had been before they left. Life for the average black person in St. Louis still consisted of menial jobs with some kind of “hustle” on the side. The few professionals in existence led the “good life” inside the walls of segregation. However, black businesses flourished and the nightlife was good. St. Louisan Josephine Baker had already fled to Europe, but the talented writers, artists, and performers flourished in a place called Harlem. Black music was being played loudly, and hip

See 1928, D15

Donn Johnson

Josephine Baker,who used to dance in front of Tom Turpin’s Booker T.Washington Theatre – among the first in the United States operated by and for blacks. However,in 1928,Baker was performing in Europe because Broadway wouldn’t touch her.

Launching TheSt. Louis American

By Tavia Evans For the St.Louis American

When St. Louis’black population called for another “colored paper” to serve St. Louis 85 years ago, the city’s most prominent lawyers, teachers and businessmen stepped up to offer their support and pocketbooks.

Until then, the St. Louis Argus, founded in 1912, was the main media eyes and ears of the black community.

In 1928, black St. Louis residents lived and conducted business in a “separate, but equal” city, where access to everything from neighborhood lunch counters was dictated by skin color. Jim Crow laws reigned and black St. Louisans were calling for a second paper to challenge the status quo and represent black interests.

John Levy Procope, a local businessman, took charge of gathering the needed shareholders for the new paper. Procope coaxed his father-inlaw, veteran newsman A.N. Johnson, to move from Baltimore to St. Louis to help facilitate the creation of an alternative black voice in the city. But the would-be shareholders of the St. Louis American, who held their first meeting at the Peoples’ Finance Company in 1928, could not have predicted the economic fallout after the start of the Great Depression the following year. The newspaper’s original investors, many of St. Louis’most successful black professionals, boldly put their money and credentials behind the paper’s vision.

Ayoung lawyer and St. Louis newcomer, Nathan B. Young Jr , used his legal experience to officially incorporate the fledgling newspaper, then signed on as editor. Originally from Tuskegee, Ala., Young reportedly grew up next door to Booker T. Washington. His father Nathan B. Young Sr., was a prominent educator who became president of Florida A& M University and later Lincoln University.

Charles Udell Turpin, Missouri’s first black elected official and owner of the Booker T. Washington Theater at Market and 23rd St., also signed on as a shareholder. Turpin’s theater was one of the first owned and operated by African Americans in the country and was rumored to be the site of Josephine Baker’s first performance. Arguably one of the most renowned St. Louis citizens, HomerG. Phillips, a popular lawyer and civic activist, bought stake in the paper. Phillips was best known for his work with the city alderman in the early 1920’s to pass a bond issue to improve the city’s public works system and build a hospital to serve the black community. The hospital, which opened several years later after Phillips’untimely murder, bore his name.

Other investors included the Rev. Douchette R. Clarke, rector of All Saints’Episcopal Church; Richard Kent, owner of the St. Louis Stars, world champion Negro baseball team; and Sumner High School teacher Robert P. Watts Ruth Miriam Harris, former president of Stowe College, later Harris-Stowe State University, lent her support to the venture, as did Dr. Thomas A. Curtis a black dentist and the first black president of the St. Louis branch of the NAACP.

Many of the American’s original investors have later been included in editions of Who’s Who in Colored America. In St. Louis, they represented the cornerstones of the black community and provided the foundation of what would become the city’s top black newspaper.

Civil rights champion

The St. Louis American’s first issue on March 17, 1928, sold out of its 2,000 copies with the headline “Pullman Porters May Strike.” With its first edition, the paper aligned itself with the

Awho’s who of black St. Louis helped

struggle for equal rights for the black citizens and diligently covered the political and civil rights issues of the day. In a 30th anniversary edition of the American, then-editor Nathan B. Young Jr. reported the hard fight of the Pullman Porters, the first black labor union, for recognition around the country and especially in St. Louis. The American’s coverage of the black porter’s incited the Pullman Company to buy full page ads in other papers in opposition to the black union, Young said.

On two occasions, the Pullman Company bought all the copies of the American on newsstands, “not an entirely unkind act since the sales bonanza came in well,” Young said, as the paper depended heavily on circulation income.

Although the black union lacked the funds to buy ads, the American dutifully presented coverage of the group’s organizing efforts. “It was the first, but by no means the last case where the young American found itself on the ‘right side’that had little or no money to back it,” Young said.

During the “Don’t Buy Where You Can’t Work” campaign, the American printed the names of stores and companies that would not hire black employees. The editor received constant warnings of retaliation for the campaign, including that “Negroes would stand to lose the good jobs they already had,” Young said. No such counter move occurred. After two years of the campaign, which included boycotts of neighborhood stores, many began to employ blacks. Young reported that even the St. Louis Dairy Company hired “colored milk wagon drivers.”

Considered radical at the time, the paper’s assertive coverage of the campaign and various social issues raised awareness and even mobilized citizens to take a firm stance on issues. Despite its position as the “other” black paper in the city, the American quickly gained a reputation of speaking on behalf of black people in St. Louis.

“The Argus has more circulation, but the American was the civil rights fighter,” said Fred Sweets, son of Nathaniel Sweets, Sr., publisher of the American for nearly four decades. Serving the same community, Fred Sweets said, the papers worked side by side rather than in competition with each other. Fred Sweets said he remembers walking with his father to the Argus’offices just blocks from the American’s old address at 11 N. Jefferson.

“My father was often personally involved in many of these movements so they received more coverage in the paper,” Sweets said. Riding high on the success of their new enterprise, the American’s staff and founder were ill prepared for the economic disaster and tough times that lay ahead.

‘Sweet’start

The depression that followed Black Tuesday in 1929 triggered a mass exodus of the American’s shareholders and resignation of its co-founder, A.N. Johnson.

Nathan B. Young Jr. seized more responsibility. “I had kept on as the editor and was now drafted to keep the paper going,” he said.

Young called his father Nathan B. Young Sr., then president of Lincoln University, for advice.

Within three days, Young Sr. had recruited Nathaniel A. Sweets Sr., a recent Lincoln graduate who would adopt the American like a member of his family and keep the paper in circulation for the next 45 years.

Originally recruited as an advertising manager, Sweets quickly rose to business manager and publisher of the paper, buying out Young’s shares in 1932. Young stayed on as a writer, and Fred Alston joined the staff as art director and cartoonist.

Under Sweets’direction, the paper sputtered through the Great Depression of the early 1930s and its aftermath.

Despite tough economic times, Sweets and staff continued to provide coverage on social issues of the day and created promotional events that generated buzz around the city and fostered loyalty to the paper.

“The St. Louis American Home and Cooking Show was a big deal and it was a lottery for the black community,” said Ellen Sweets, daughter of Sweets Sr. and recently retired writer for the Denver Post

“Everybody from the community came out and we gave away food and door prizes, and everybody came out on the night they gave out a stove.”

The attendance prizes for the cooking show included a 1928 Hudson Automobile.

American coverage of the event reports that more than 5,000 people attended one of the shows and local companies like Laclede Gas Co. and National Food Stores offered sponsorships.

“My father was the master promoter,” said Fred Sweets.

“The paper never made a huge profit, but the events he organized helped support the paper’s losses.”

Fred Sweets fondly remembers taking the train from Union Station to Urbana, Ill. as part of the St. Louis American Football Special.

“For the cost of a subscription and a bit more, he could charter a train and, for a flat fee, you would get a train ride, tickets to a University of Illinois game, and a light lunch on the ride there and a gourmet meal coming back,” Fred Sweets said.

Nathaniel A. Sweets Sr. also hosted and spun records during the St. Louis American Breakfast Hour, a talk show featuring local personalities that was broadcast from the

In 1928,St.Louis

newcomer Nathan B.Young Jr.(left) used his legal experience to officially incorporate the fledgling St. Louis American After Black Tuesday in 1929, Young called his father,Nathan B. Young Sr.,then president of Lincoln University,for advice.Young Sr. recruited Nathaniel A. Sweets Sr. (right),a recent Lincoln graduate who would adopt the American like a member of his family and keep the paper in circulation for the next 45 years.

Southern Kitchen restaurant on Delmar Ave. The St. Louis American Cab Company, sported the paper’s logo with dark and light green stripes on cabs across the city.

In those early years, strong writers and personality columnists helped increase the paper’s popularity and attracted loyal readers.

Melba A. Sweets former contributing editor and wife of Nathaniel A. Sweets Sr., cowrote the paper’s popular gossip column with long-time friend Thelma Dickson Sweets said her proudest memory was a letter she received from Langston Hughes about

how much he enjoyed the column while passing through St. Louis.

“Back in those days, on Monday nights, folks our color could go on the boats on the Mississippi River, Melba Sweets said. “So we would talk about who was there and what they were wearing and who they were with.”

Fiery columnists such as Henry Winfield Wheeler led the attack on “half-hearted civil righters and Uncle Toms,” Young Jr. wrote. Wheeler’s column “The Spider’s Web,” a forerunner of the Political EYE, was dedicated to outing questionable politics and

politicians in the city.

Perhaps the paper’s most important find in the late 1930’s was a man-about-town, Bennie G. Rodgers. Rodgers first job with the American was for promotional work, but after serving in WWII, he returned to work in circulation in 1945 and later became the city editor of the paper.

Rodgers mentored many of the first-rate journalists who passed through the American over the years.

“He was a consummate newspaper man,” said Fred Sweets, who went on to work as director of photography for the Associated Press in Washington, D.C.

“That man did nearly every job there was to get the newspaper into print,” Ellen Sweets said. She fondly remembered the “cussing and shouting matches” Bennie had with visitors and other staff in the paper’s editorial offices.

“Bennie would bait people with comments that he knew would send them off, and he yelled at everybody, including me.”

Thumbing through the dusty worn pages of the archived copies of the American is like reading the history of race relations in St. Louis. While black papers around the country struggle to remain financially viable, though rarely profitable, they continue to give voice to the black community.

“My father’s vision was to give a voice to the black community that was lacking and bring them information they could use,” Ellen Sweets said.

“The St. Louis American carried news tailored to the black community and anybody who wanted to know about it.”

Tavia Evans-Gilchrist is a former staff writer for the St. Louis American.

Sweets family kept the faith

Longtime

American Staff

Melba A. Sweets was already a young woman of 19 when the first editions of The St. Louis American rolled off the presses back in March 1928.

In 1932, her husband, Nathaniel A. Sweets, would become publisher of the fledgling newspaper and she would become a newspaper columnist soon after. Aformer English teacher, she was suited for the job of helping to write and edit the newspaper.

“I was always good in English,” said Mrs. Sweets, who was born Feb. 26, 1909 and remained a feisty editor, always ready to offer her criticism of the paper, long after she retired.

“They used to call me chief critic, because that’s what I was,” she said, laughing.

“She loved words so much. She respected them. She wanted everyone who worked for the paper to embrace her love of the language,” Ann Scales, Style editor for the Boston Globe, said of Mrs. Sweets. “She cared about words and how they were used more than anybody I know.”

Scales, who worked under Mrs. Sweets at the American in the 1980s, is one of the many black journalists –including her own children –schooled under the scrupulous editor who advanced far in the field.

Her son Fred Sweets said, “The folks she’s helped become better people and better journalists – besides me and my sister – include Donald M. Suggs, Gerald Boyd, Bob Joiner, Sheila Rule, Greg Freeman, Ken Cooper, Kevin Boone, Ann Scales, Jabari Asim.”

Her daughter Ellen Sweets said, “She worked with so many people who have gone

on to other publications – the Post Dispatch, L.A. Times, US News & World Report Business Week, The New York Times.” Ellen was a food writer for the Denver Post Fred, who lives in Miami, FL., worked for years as a photographer and editor at the PostDispatch and Washington Post Athird child, Nathaniel Allen “Buzzy” Sweets Jr., also worked as a photojournalist for the American between service in the military and a career at the St. Louis County Juvenile Count.

Melba A.Sweets married Nathaniel A.Sweets Sr.(left,top) in 1937 when he already owned The St.Louis American.Together they published the newspaper,with the help of their children (above),Fred Sweets,Ellen Sweets and Nathaniel Allen “Buzzy” Sweets Jr.,who all worked as journalists.The Sweets sold The American to a group that included Donald M.Suggs in 1981 Melba A.Sweets (left),who died Nov.4,2006,remained the paper's fiercest and most constructive critic long after she retired to Emeritus status.

Buzzy, who lives in North County, remembered a symbol of Mrs. Sweets that will live long in the memories of journalists who worked with her.

“The most famous thing was her red pen,” Buzzy said. “Every time somebody would make a mistake, she would go through the paper, mark up the mistakes with that red pen, and show it to everybody.”

Suggs in 1981.

She continued to write for the American – and mark it up with her red pen – for years after the sale of the paper.

inevitably, she was right.”

Up from The Ville Mrs. Sweets was born in St. Louis on February 26, 1909 and grew up at several addresses in The Ville, including a four-family flat in the 4200 block of Cote Brilliante, near Cora Ave. She remembers a time when blacks were not allowed to live west of Taylor Ave. Her father, Oscar Samuel Ficklin, studied chemistry by correspondence while working as a porter at Union Electric and eventually became that company’s first black chemist. Her mother, Ocarsenia Ficklin, was a teacher until she married. The young Melba was an only child. “Her father was also a taskmaster,” Ellen said. “He impressed upon her at an early age the importance of education.”

Mrs. Sweets attended Simmons School, Sumner High School, Sumner Teachers College (her mother’s alma mater) and then Howard University.

the Washington Post, and now is associate professor of writing, literature and publishing at Emerson College and editor in chief of the Crisis magazine, remembered receiving her critical calls after each issue of the paper was published.

publisher raised a family of journalists and a newspaper See SWEETS, D15

Mrs. Sweets’husband, the late Nathaniel A. Sweets Sr. (who passed in 1988), bought the American in 1932 and later sold it to a group that included

“Hers was a tough love for the newspaper and the journalists who produced it,” Suggs said. “Her total dedication to quality writing and the nurturing of young writers are an enduring contribution to the American’s progress as a newspaper.”

Jabari Asim, who started in journalism at the American was a columnist and editor at

“Because everyone knew that she was calling to go over the mistakes she found in the issue, the phone would get handed to me, the new guy,” Asim said.

“Afriendship developed between us as soon as I realized, and quickly realized, that

“In her time at Howard, she would sit on the lawn in Anacostia, the historic black section of D.C., and talk with Sterling Brown, Thurgood Marshall, and Langston Hughes,” Ellen said. She and Hughes were to remain life-long friends. She was a graduate of Stowe Normal Teachers College (now Harris-Stowe State University). She briefly attended Howard University before running out of money and returning to St. Louis. She landed a job teaching English at Cottage Avenue School, located near the football field of today’s Sumner High School.

She taught in the St. Louis

From Russwurm’s courage to today’s challenges, black newspapers press on

American Staff Report

Freedom’s Journal, the first black newspaper in the United States, started as a weekly abolitionist journal in 1827. It was the result of a meeting of black leaders in New York City. The leaders realized that such a publication was important in the struggle to unite free blacks in efforts against slavery. Editors Samuel Cornish and John Russwurm advocated education and stressed the importance of civil rights for free blacks.

However, Russworm and Cornish disagreed on editorial policy, and the newspaper, after it changed its name to The Rights of All, only lasted until 1829. Other black newspapers, most of them similarly short-lived, appeared in New York City, Albany, Philadelphia, Pittsburg, and Columbus, Ohio. Almost 50 black newspapers were published between 1827 and 1861. Willis Hodges started his own newspaper, the Ram’s Horn, in New York in 1847 in response to the New York’s Sun’s stance against black voting rights – the Sun’s famous motto ‘The Sun shines for all” did not include black men and women. The Ram’s Horn lasted about a year. Enjoying greater longevity, however, was Frederick Douglass’s newspaper the North Star, which appeared in Rochester the same year as the Ram’s Horn and lasted, despite financial troubles and a name change, until 1860.

Typically, the early black newspapers rarely lasted more than a year or two for several reasons. First, the target audience, the base population of educated free blacks, was seldom large enough to financially support a weekly newspaper. Second, most of these newspapers ignored the many literate, but uneducated, free blacks that lived in the North. Athird reason was that the publishers usually lacked adequate funds to weather the difficult early years. Nonetheless, the black press spread westward, as far as Kansas by 1855 with the start of the Kansas Herald of Freedom in Lawrence. The earliest black newspaper on the west coast, San Francisco’s Mirror of the Times appeared the same year. All of them protested the lack of civil rights for blacks in the North and protested against the inhumanity of southern slavery. In 1864, T. Thomas Fortune founded the New York Freeman, which spoke out against lynching. Ida B. Wells, an editor, teacher and publisher, accused white capitalists of killing a black man. Upset by her accusations, whites destroyed her printing press. Wells became afraid for her life and fled to England where she began The Red Record, a publication that told England about the atrocities occuring in America.

The Civil War saw the startup of an abundance of black newspapers. After the war in 1865, America suddenly had more than 115 black publications. Most of them lasted less than two years, but, as a larger number of former slaves learned to read, formed communities, and became active in political activities, more newspapers took advantage of a secure financial base to print successful, long-lived newspapers, especially in the 1880s and 1890s. For example, the Colored Tribune of Savannah, Georgia which started in 1875, survived until 1960. And, a Tennessee newspaper, the Jackson Index, lasted from 1870 to 1937. The last two decades of the 19th century experienced an explosion in black newspapers across the nation. More than 500 appeared between 1880 and 1890. In 1902 alone, 101 black newspapers started. Further, in the two decades from 1895-1915, over 1,200 black newspapers served African Americans nationwide. They also appeared in states that had never had black newspapers before, from Indiana to Colorado to Wisconsin, and as far west as Montana, Utah, and

Washington. As before, many black newspapers did not last more than a few years – sometimes, they lasted only a few months—but growing literacy among the readership, a stronger economic base, more experienced journalists, and more concentrated black populations all helped to support the successful newspapers.

William Monroe Trotter

founded the Boston Guardian in 1901. Trotter, a successful businessman who graduated magna cum laude from Harvard, started the paper because he felt the general advancement of all African Americans was a vital goal for successful individuals like himself.

He strongly opposed BookerT. Washington’s conservative philosophy of accommodation and meek acceptance of white institutional dominance. Trotter felt that Washington impeded black

At one time there were more than 3,000 black newspapers throughout the country. Today there are just over 200 in the National Newspaper Publishers Association.

progress and hurt African Americans as a group for selfish reasons, mainly the continued white support for Washington’s Tuskegee Institute.

Trotter’s editorials, often directed against Booker T. Washington, generated spirited debate among the paper’s readership. The conflict turned into a full-scale feud, as the Guardian increased its attacks on Washington and his “Tuskegee Machine.” Like W.E.B. Du Bois,

Trotter criticized the slow progress in Negro social advancement in the face of America’s racist institutions and customs. In the face of Du Bois’and Trotter’s criticism, Washington responded with a series of short-lived newspapers espousing his accommodationist views.

In 1905, Robert S. Abbott started the Chicago Defender possibly the nation’s most important and influential black newspaper of all time. Where black newspapers had previously tended towards a sober tone, Abbott adopted a sensational style of reporting, mimicking the yellow journalism of William Randolph Hearst’s newspapers empire. Flamboyant stories about crime and violence, some of them allegedly fabricated by Abbott’s writers, attracted a large number of regular readers within the black population that had seldom before read newspapers.

By 1920, the Defender claimed a circulation of almost 300,000. More than two-thirds of the circulation came from outside Chicago and the Defender enjoyed great popularity in the South. Along with lurid tales to attract readers, the Defender also raised awareness with articles on lynching, segregation, and black achievement. Abbott also editorialized on white hypocrisy and offered advice on the advancement of the race. The newspaper’s most famous crusade, “the Great Northern Drive,” started during World War I and urged southern blacks to move north to take advantage of war jobs in the northern cities and escape southern brutality. Thousands of blacks, encouraged by the Defender and other newspapers, left the South and went to northern industrial cities; this constituted the largest movement of people in the nation’s history.

In 1940, John H. Sengstacke, Abbott’s nephew and heir, assumed editorial control of the Defender and continued to champion for full equality. He founded and became the first president of the National Negro Publishers Association, now known as the National Newspaper Publishers Association. (Sengstacke served as publisher of the Defender until his death in 1997).

Locally, Missouri became the last of the former slave states to have a black newspaper. The Negro World was the first in 1875, followed by St. Louis Advance in 1881. The St. Louis Argus was

founded in 1912 by Joseph E. Mitchell, William Mitchell and Nannie Mitchell-Turner

The Argus is considered one of Missouri’s oldest black businesses and one of the oldest in the country. There were at least

three other area black papers in existence when the Argus was founded, including the St. Louis Palladium, which was published from 1884 to 1912.

The Central African American went out of business in 1915.

The St. Louis American was founded in 1928 by a group of several area businessmen, led by Judge Nathan Young, A.N. Johnson (from Baltimore), and John Procope. Other shareholders were HomerG. Phillips Charles Udell Turpin and Richard Kent, owner of the St. Louis Stars world champion Negro baseball team. The original masthead in 1928 stated the American was “The Paper for the Rank and File.” N.A. Sweets later changed the masthead to say “Anewspaper for all Americans” in 1932, after taking ownership of the paper. By 1950, there were actually more than 30 black newspapers in the St. Louis area.

During World War II, the black press faced a dilemma similar to the one they faced during the Great War. Most black newspapers supported the war effort, encouraging blacks to enlist and writing stories about the AfricanAmerican accomplishments on both the battlefield and the home front. But, they also criticized discrimination in the armed forces and editorialized on the inefficiency of segregated military forces. For instance, the Pittsburgh Courier instituted the “Double V” campaign, calling for victory overseas against Germany and Japan as well as victory at home against Jim Crow. Many newspapers joined the popular campaign and circulation soared, with the Courier topping 270,000. In the late 1940s and early 1950s, black newspapers helped lay the groundwork for the Civil Rights Movement. Ironically, the black press’s greatest achievements in this

See PRESS, D10

Frederick Douglass’s newspaper the “North Star,”which started in 1847 in Rochester,lasted until 1860 despite financial troubles and a name change.

John Russwurm

Bennie’s story

By Bennie G.Rodgers Of the St.Louis American

The late Bennie G. Rodgers joined the St. Louis American staff as a reporter during the 1940s and remained an integral part of its editorial staff for more than 50 years. After he passed away in 2000, he was honored for his service and dedication with the title of Executive Editor Emeritus of The St. Louis American. In 1995, Rodgers wrote this short history of his groundbreaking career in St. Louis journalism.

I began working for the St. Louis American on August 20, 1945. That date is easy to remember because the “pink slip” was given to me and hundreds of African Americans at the Curtiss-Wright aircraft plant just two weeks after the first atom bomb was dropped on Japan. Blacks were the last hired and the first fired.

In case you didn’t know it, a black scientist, Moddie Taylor, Ph.D., a St. Louisan, helped Dr. Oppenheimer and others develop the devastating bomb. I knew him when he attended Vashon High School.

When I began working at the American, there was no such thing as television, but they were working on it.

There were only three daily newspapers in the city, but no one had an African American working in their news departments. They were the Globe Democrat, the Star-Times and the St. Louis Post- Dispatch This exclusion however, was similar to other businesses that fostered discrimination but tried to control our destiny.

The only blacks working at City Hall were one alderman, the Rev. Jasper Caston, and very few clerks.

The few folks who were working for the St. Louis American let me test the racism waters alone and told me nothing of such ignorance. I walked into the press room at the City Hall and began thumbing through some of the papers that were there on a desk.

Awhite dude asked, “What are you looking for?” and I said, “Oh, I’m with the St. Louis American and I want to know what’s going on.” He said, “You won’t find it here because this is not a place for coloreds.” I put up an argument but lost.

There were about 2,000 City policemen, but only about 38 percent of them were black. The highest-ranking black officers were sergeants. The sergeants were all plain-clothes detectives. They could not wear a uniform with their rank on their sleeves.

Of course, you must know that there was not one black person on the Board of Police Commissioners.

The courts were all just as bad. Even though blacks were stacked into paddy wagons by an unequal proportion to whites (the same as now) and sent to jail, there were no black judges or prosecutors in the municipal circuit or federal courts. You wouldn’t believe it could be like this, at the end of World War II, when so many blacks returned home in body

bags and stretchers after fighting for freedom on foreign soil. They didn’t need forensic tests to prove that much of the blood spilled overseas came from blacks.

I covered a murder story in 1946 and while talking with two white cops, one asked me if I wanted a sandwich. I walked with them to the front coffee shop of this municipal building and one said, “They won’t serve you but I’ll get it for you.” I said, “No, thanks.”

Fifty years ago, I could not join the Press Club or any other journalist organizations.

Fifty years ago, I could not join the Press Club or any other journalist organizations. I wasn’t ready yet anyway, because I was still “wet behind the ears.” There were more stories out on the streets than fish in the sea.

The St. Louis Board of Education was all white. There were two high schools for blacks, Sumner and Vashon.

Hadley Technical School, at Grand and Bell, in a predominately black neighborhood, was built there for whites and featured such advanced subjects as aircraft, diesel and turbo engines.

I had plenty to write about.

The only white-owned major restaurant in the city that served blacks was Fred Harvey’s at Union Station.

The baseball diamond at Sportsman’s Park, Grand and Dodier streets, where the Browns and Cardinals played, was sacred soil for whites only, except on special occasions when someone rented the station for Negro games. The Cardinals didn’t let black ladies in for free on Ladies

Day. (All of this was before Jackie Robinson dismantled the racial bar.)

As a black reporter, I had no other work except working for the St. Louis Argus. Dewey Johnson published the Tattler and Ben Thomas the Evening Whirl, but they did all of their work themselves.

Henry Whitfield Wheeler kept me pretty close to the racial problems. He was working at the U.S. Post Office, but he stayed in trouble with his bosses because in his column in the St. Louis American called “The Spiders’Web,” he constantly criticized segregation in the Post Office’s restaurant and the failure to promote black postal workers. He was given an early retirement, and this gave him additional time to protest. Rain or shine, snow or sleet, he picketed in front of the Fox and American Theaters.

While performing at the American Theatre in the 50s, Paul Robeson used his time during the intermission to join Wheeler in picketing. Uta Hagen, Robeson’s co-star in a play at the theater, told Melba Sweets (who also worked at the American), “Never again will I perform before a segregated house.”

Fifty years ago, organized labor rejected black applicants. The machinists, plumbers, steamfitters, carpenters, bricklayers, typographers and iron workers all denied membership to blacks. The musicians’unions were separate, one for white, one for blacks. The motion picture operators were the same. Those who say blacks have not made any advances in 50 years should look around Busch Stadium, AnheuserBusch, City Hall, Police Headquarters, municipal, circuit and federal court and read the St. Louis American Through changes of attitudes, integration has prevailed.

The late Bennie G.Rodgers joined the St.Louis American staff as a reporter during the 1940s and remained an integral part of its editorial staff for more than 50 years.

Activist Al Sharpton, surrounded by St.Louisans including Eric Vickers,Walle Amusa,Eddie Hasan,Sen. Paula Carter,guest Martin Luther King III and James Buford

From The American’s photo files

These photos were taken by St.Louis American photojournalist Wiley Price, and contributing photographers Carl Bruce,Maurice Meredith,Lawrence Bryant and James Boyd.

Longtime St.Louis

DJ Lou Fatha Times spinning vinyl 45s back in 1985

Entertainer Sammy Davis,Jr. visiting children in

St.Louis hospitals in 1987

Janet Jackson wows the crowd at the Savvis Center.

Boxing legend Muhammad Ali along with St.Louisans Merdean Gayles,Steve Roberts and Leon Spinks

A young Whitney Houston with St.Louisan Lisa Norwood and a guest

St.Louis American sports columnist Mike Claiborne with Cardinal great Ozzie Smith

Fayard Nicholas of the Nicholas Brothers along with Clayton “Peg Leg”Bates and entertainer Debbie Allen at a Tap Festival at Harris-Stowe

B.B.King and Doris Wilson in St.Louis in 1976

President Bill Clinton with Virvus Jones and Freeman Bosley,Jr.

St.Louis Cardinals Willie McGee and Vince Coleman at Busch Stadium in the 1980s

Eight-year-old Mattiniah Foggy presents flowers to Coretta Scott King at the 20th Anniversary of the Skate King in 1990.

American publisher Donald M. Suggs and songstress Patti LaBelle

Sen.Jet Banks and entertainer Ben Vereen

Maya Angelou speaking at Saint Louis University

Chuck Berry entertained St.Louis Cardinals fans before the 1987 World Series against the Minnesota Twins.

Oprah Winfrey was in St.Louis last year to celebrate the success of the TV show Welcome to Sweetie Pie’s with owner Robbie Montgomery.

Gladys Knight

Comedian Bill Cosby at the Fox Theatre

Lola Falana Comedian Dick Gregory

Author Walter Mosley

Wiley Price’s famous photograph,titled Message for the Messenger,taken at America’s Center in St.Louis in 2008

Colin Powell pages through the American with publisher Donald M.Suggs

St.Louis native, opera singer Grace Bumbry

Jesse Jackson

Tiger Woods demonstrated his golf skills for children in St.Louis in 2001.

Serena Williams gives tennis lessons to a young St.Louisan.

Dina M.Suggs,Donald M.Suggs and Dawn M.Suggs at the 2000 Salute to Excellence in Education Banquet

Shirley Chisholm at Wash.U.in 1978

President Bill Clinton and Olympic champion Jackie Joyner-Kersee

Activist actors Harry Belafonte and Danny Glover in St.Louis

A Cardinals groundskeeper and Hall of Famers Stan Musial and Bob Gibson watch as Rachel Robinson (Mrs.Jackie Robinson) places a ceremonial base at Busch Stadium

era

– uncompromising political activism, increasing visibility, and recognition of its journalist excellence –were also the sources of its setbacks. Black newspapers muted their militancy to fend off accusations of Communism, and to appease big advertisers who had finally become interested in attracting black consumers. At the same time, the mainstream press began to integrate its staffs, and hired some of the best African American reporters away from black newspapers. By the 1960s, the circulation and the political power of the black press began waning. Government persecution of the black press continued, as it did during World War II. The Federal Bureau of Investigation under J. Edgar Hoover, continued to target black newspapers. Members of the black press were targeted by these efforts. Charlotta Bass, editor and publisher of

the California Eagle and a committed community activist, was suspected of being a member of the Communist Party. The FBI’s investigation of Bass brought so much negative attention to the Eagle that it prompted readers to turn away from the California Eagle and flock to the less militant Los Angeles Sentinel In St. Louis, Howard Woods founded the St. Louis Metro Sentinel in 1968 after returning from Washington, D.C. where he was appointed by President Lyndon B. Johnson to the position of Associate Director for the U.S. Information Agency. He died in 1976, and Jane WoodsMiller took over the paper. Throughout the 1970s, 1980s and very early 1990s, the black press, like many other media outlets benefitted significantly from cigarette and hard liquor advertising. Many black newspapers received several, very profitable full page ads each and every week from those advertisers. Today, however, that revenue, along with national advertising revenue, has pretty much disap-

peared, and black newspapers have been forced to make up for that huge loss.

Today, many challenges abound for the newspaper industry, but especially the black press. More media outlets, losing employees to the mainstream press, high newsprint costs, and rising fuel and insurance costs, lack of advertising revenue, declining readership, and outdated business models have forced the closing of many black papers across the nation. At one time, there were more than 3,000 black papers throughout the country. Today there are just over 200 in the National Newspaper Publishers Association. The venerable Chicago Defender, which became a “daily” newspaper in 1956, moved to a “weekly” newspaper, according to Editor and Publisher magazine. E & P also stated that the Defender’s circulation, once listed as nearly 300,000, had “drifted to less than 20,000 by the mid 1990s,” and now is reported to be under 15,000. The newspaper is now owned by Real Times, Inc.

Locally, not only did two area black newspapers have to temporarily cease publication in recent years, other local black newspapers had to shut down completely. After having more than 30 area AfricanAmerican newspapers in St. Louis in the 1950s, only a few remain today.

Yet, there are many black newspapers throughout the country that are excelling and are perennially at the top of their industry, beating the odds with their business acumen and innovations, such as the Philadelphia Tribune, the Indianapolis Recorder, the Charlotte Post, the St. Louis American, the Michigan Chronicle, the Baltimore AfroAmerican, the Dallas Weekly, the Atlanta Voice, Chicago Citizen Group, Houston Defender, New York Amsterdam News, and others. These papers are championing the visions of founding fathers of the black press, while taking their organizations to their highest levels in an everchanging and challenging media environment.

A young paper boy in the 1920s.

Ida B. Wells

William Monroe Trotter

Charlotta Bass

Robert S. Abbott

American more committed than ever to reach, positively impact community

Shortly after The St. Louis American newspaper was founded in 1928, a youthful Nathaniel A. Sweets stated that his vision of The St. Louis American was “To give a voice to the African-American community that was lacking, and bring them information they could use. The St. Louis American should carry news (targeted) to the AfricanAmerican community and anybody who wants to know about it.”

We’re proud that after 85 years, Sweets’vision informs our mission today. We continue to strive to stay true to that vision despite a rapidly changing environment. Building on our print platform, The St. Louis American, now available to more people throughout the area (and the world, online), is more widely-read and is more engaged in the community than ever.

There was another landmark for us in 2012, when The

St. Louis American newspaper became the single largest weekly newspaper in the entire state of Missouri. Please note, not the largest “AfricanAmerican” weekly newspaper. We said the largest “weekly” newspaper. We owe that to our loyal readers and advertisers. The St. Louis American is bucking well-publicized reports of “doom and gloom” and the imminent demise in the newspaper industry. Financial genius Warren Buffett says that “there is no substitute for a local newspaper that is doing its job….Papers delivering comprehensive and reliable information to tightly bound communities and having a sensible internet strategy will remain viable for a long time.” In our 85th year, our print circulation is at all time high. Our readers and advertisers have made Missouri the ONLYstate in the nation where the largest week-

ly newspaper is a targeted, ethnic publication. That gives us a feeling of some satisfaction. However, we are very mindful that in 2013 we must be more than just a weekly newspaper. Our readers want and expect to be able to access The St. Louis American through a broad range of platforms, available 24 hours per day, year-round. Our dedicated, award-winning online staff makes certain stlamerican.com is updated several times daily, including weekends, with relevant and breaking news, and staff-generated videos. More and more viewers are also accessing The St. Louis American through their mobile phones, and

Donald M.Suggs

engaging us through FaceBook, Twitter, Google+ and Instagram. We will continue to use state of the art technology to reach effectively our ever-expanding audience. That means growing our unique mobile experiences beyond the desk top and social media experiences in the future.

Further expanding on Mr. Sweets’vision, we also continue to partner with dozens of local community-based nonprofit agencies in the St. Louis community. Not only do we act out of a sense of responsibility to partner and promote these organizations, we are also honored to be associated with them and their mission to serve the community. Our

many varied community partners include: 100 Black Men of St. Louis, Community Women Against Hardship, Better Family Life, Big Sisters/Big Brothers, Herbert Hoover Boys & Girls Club, the Urban League of Metropolitan St. Louis, the United Way of St. Louis’African-American Leadership Giving Initiative, and many more. Their value to The American and the community cannot be underestimated. They are critical to the sustenance and growth of the St. Louis region, and the AfricanAmerican community in particular, and we feel privileged to work with them on a consistent, year-round basis. We seek to add value to their efforts to better serve their missions.

The 501c3 St. Louis American Foundation, along with our educational institution partners, has facilitated nearly $2.5 million in minority scholarships and community grants since its inception in 1994.

Our health literacy initiative continues to address health care disparities among African Americans, and promotes and encourages healthier lifestyles for our readers. We also encourage more people to pursue health care careers. a Nearly $100,000 for scholarships in nursing is provided each year. Our newly-created Newspaper In Education (NIE) program provides newspapers at no charge to more than 5,000 3rd, 4th and 5th grade students, each week, making it one of the largest free NIE programs in the country. Through The St. Louis American newspaper, stlamerican.com, social networking, working closely with our community partners, and the St. Louis American Foundation, my colleagues and I promise to continue to work even harder to serve better the well being of our growing audience, supporters, advertisers and the entire St. Louis community.

American’s NewspaperIn Education program continues to grow

Provides free classroom tool for more than 200 teachers, 5,200 gradeschoolers

By K. Michael Jones

St. Louis American

The

Of

After more than 84 years of service to the community, in August of 2012 The St. Louis American embarked upon perhaps one of its most ambitious initiatives in its history, an innovative Newspaper In Education program.

Many newspapers across Missouri and the nation have some version of a Newspaper In Education (NIE) program. Many are extremely well done and are useful for their targeted readership. After doing our research, however, we found there was a lack of a consistent, comprehensive program that was specifically targeted to African-American students. Our research also revealed that many African-American children in St. Louis were

See NIE, D14

Ashland Elementary School fourth graders Marissa Jackson 9,Angela Crutchfield 10,Joshua Banks 10,and Garieon Canamore 9,use The St.Louis American newspaper in class to work on sentence structure using the who,what,where,and why formula in Mr.Huffington’s class.

Photo by Wiley Price

American Staff

American’s Foundation dedicated to community, education

The St. Louis American is one of the few newspapers in the entire country that has created its own 501(c)3 foundation, the St. Louis American Foundation. Founded in 1994, the St. Louis American Foundation is dedicated to enabling individual AfricanAmerican students to prepare for careers in business, the Sciences and the Humanities. Its mission combines a primary interest in promoting educational opportunity with critical support to move individuals towards being self-directed and assuming personal responsibility for pursuing constructive futures. The Foundation is pleased to have the opportunity to support individuals and organizations who share our view that education is a critical need if African Americans are to be able to help themselves and contribute to community progress.

Since its inception, nearly $2.5 millionin local community grants and minority scholarship has been raised, enabled and distributed through the St. Louis American Foundation and our educational partners. In the last eight years alone, the Foundation has been recognized with “12” first place Community Service awards from six different industry organizations: the National Newspaper Association, Suburban Newspapers of America, Missouri Press Association, Illinois Press Association, Inland Press Association, and the National Newspaper Publishers’ Association.

Each year, proceeds from the St. Louis American Foundation’s four “Salute” events provide tens of thousands of dollars for scholarships for minority students. The four, quarterly events are:

Salute to Young Leaders Networking Awards Reception (started in 2010)

The reception has become one of St. Louis’hottest networking reception for young black professionals, and honors 20 outstanding, accomplished African-American professionals, under age 40, who are not only excelling at their careers, but have also already demonstrated a commitment to community service.

Salute to Excellence in Health Care Awards Luncheon (started in 2000)

This is St. Louis’premiere event specifically honoring African-American health care providers.

The Foundation honors 8 Excellence in Health Care awardees, a Lifetime Achiever in Health Care, a Stellar Performer in Health Care, an Excellence in Public Health

awardee, as well as a Health Care Advocacy Organization of the Year.

Salute to Excellence in Education Scholarship & Awards Gala (started in 1988) Now in its 26th year, the Education Salute for many has been one of St. Louis’single largest sit-down banquet, with more than 1,300 attendees. At the Gala, outstanding AfricanAmerican educators are honoreed, including: Lifetime Achiever, Stellar Performer, SEMO Counselor of the Year, Washington Univ. Social Worker of the Year, Eight Excellence in Education Awardees, and the Donald M. Suggs Scholarship recipients.

Salute to Excellence in Business Awards & Networking Luncheon (started in 1999)

This event is co-sponsored by the Regional Chamber

Association and the Urban League of Metropolitan St. Louis, and has grown to become a premier event for business networking in St. Louis. The event cites the Area’s Top 25 African American Businesses of the year, an Entrepreneur of the Year, a Corporate Executive of the Year, a Non-Profit Executive of the Year, as well as a Corporate Diversity Award In 2012, the foundation distributed nearly $200,000 in community grants, scholarships for local minority students, teacher honorariums, as well as laptop computers for elementary schools and college students. In addition to other scholarships, The St. Louis American Foundation now has three (3) Donald M. Suggs Scholarships (named after the St. Louis American publisher).

University of Missouri Columbia Donald M. Suggs Scholarship (4-year, $57,000 scholarship. It also allows the recipient to study for a semester abroad, for up to a $7,500 additional allowance. Past Suggs Scholars have studied abroad in England, Brazil and Japan.)

Southeast Missouri State University Donald M. Suggs Scholarship (4-year, $30,000 scholarship)

Harris-Stowe State University Donald M. Suggs Scholarship (4-year, $15,000 scholarship at a Historically Black College/University)

The Foundation is currently working with STLCC and Missouri State University to partner on a similar program.

Congratulations from the community

Saint Louis Public Schools salutes the St. Louis American for a remarkable 85 years of service to the community.We thank Dr. Suggs and everyone at TheAmerican for your commitment to the children and parents of St. Louis. You deserve a grade of A+. Here’s wishing you another 85 years and more.

– Superintendent Kelvin Adams, St. Louis Public Schools

The St. Louis American newspaper is a shining beacon of intelligent information-sharing and quality reporting which has navigated the African-American community through racial pitfalls, courageous civil rights movements, political achievement and educational empowerment while simultaneously exalting the great works of local grassroot organizations and activists. Now celebrating 30 years, Better Family Life says Congratulations and Thank You for 85 years of commitment to the African-American community’s growth, development and survival.

– President Malik Ahmed, Better Family Life, Inc.

I would like to congratulate The American on 85 years of successful service to the St. Louis metropolitan

area. Through knowledge and education, The St. Louis American has increased the diversity, advancement and awareness of the AfricanAmerican community.

– President James H. Buford, Urban League of Metropolitan St. Louis

My heartfelt congratulations to Dr. Donald Suggs and The St. Louis American team on 85 years of exemplary service to the community. Thank you for being a valuable resource as we work together to build a stronger region and help people create successful lives.

– President Gary Dollar, United Way of Greater St. Louis

St. Louis Community College congratulates Dr. Donald Suggs and The St. Louis American

for 85 years of service excellence. As the flagship of minority journalism, your name is synonymous with positive change and progress. We salute your integrity and dedication to St. Louis, and your unflagging support of higher education.

– ChancellorMyrtle E.B. Dorsey, St. Louis Community College

On behalf of the Metropolitan Police Department, City of St. Louis, we thank you for your commitment to keeping citizens informed. Congratulations on reaching a remarkable milestone, and thank you for 85 years of dedicated service to the St. Louis community.

– Police Chief D. Samuel Dotson III, St. Louis Metropolitan Police Department

On behalf of the St. Louis Gateway Classic Foundation family, I would like to congratulate you on the 85th Anniversary of the St. Louis American newspaper. Throughout its distinguished

history, the newspaper has been a beacon shining a fearless light of truth in the community by informing generations of readers.

–President Richard Gray, St. Louis Gateway Classic Sports Foundation

Congratulations to The St. Louis American for over 85 years of speaking truth to power and being one of America’s best newspapers. You make the entire nation proud. We are honored to have you as St. Louis’BESTmedia outlet!

– President EstherHaywood, St. Louis County NAACP

What a privilege to congratulate The St. Louis American which has consistently been voted the top AfricanAmerican newspaper in the country. St. Louis is indeed

fortunate to have this award-winning, stellar publication. Outstanding journalism reflects well on our region and is highly prized by our business community. Bravo!

– President Kathy Osborn, Regional Business Council

The American has provided a means to communicate the views of African Americans on the various social, political and economic issues that commonly confronted our community, while the established press routinely denigrated African Americans, even to the extent of questioning both the integrity and morality of the entire race.

– President Adolphus Pruitt, St. Louis City NAACP

The St. Louis American is much more than just the nation's best black weekly and

the top weekly newspaper in Missouri. It is essential reading that provides honest, progressive coverage of our community and our world from a positive and highly perceptive African American perspective. Congratulations! - U.S. Rep. Wm. Lacy Clay

We celebrate The St. Louis American for 85 years of reflecting the soul of St Louis and for calling us to reach higher and be better. We can always count on The American for an articulate telling of the news and meaningfulnarratives that help us see our strengths and the challenges we still face. Thank you for being there. We wish you another 85 to grace our community. Many blessings.

– Rabbi Susan Talve, Central Reform Congregation

Yourhealth has always mattered

By Sandra Jordan The St.Louis American

Positive health coverage has been a staple in the St. Louis American since July 25, 1996 when the first issue of Health Watch was inserted in the newspaper. It was the brainchild of a diverse group of community health professionals, academia and the American staff, including the late Ed Heins, Chief Operating Officer Kevin Jones and Publisher Donald M. Suggs, who for many years held a dual career as an oral surgeon.

Associate Dean for Diversity at Washington University School of Medicine, Will Ross, M.D., became the first consultant overseeing content for Health Watch, a responsibility he undertook many years.

“This was an ideal opportunity to craft health messages and pertinent health materials that were based on community health assessments, written in a culturally competent manner, and delivered by leading African American medical professionals,” Ross said.“Dr. Suggs and I strongly believed that health communications would be more valid and credible if it were linked to respected and highly visible medical professionals.”

“We are providing a broad multiplatform forum connecting race and health care issues,” Suggs said.

“Addressing health care disparities in a consistent way and targeted way that was not being done enough in the African American community” Jones added.

Early editions focused on health topics including prevention, disease management and wellness, diabetes, fitness, cardiovascular health, and sickle cell testing. Leaders in the medical and dental health profession were highlighted as examples for a vocation in

In 2008,to support encouraging a healthier lifestyle among readers and with funding support of the Centene Foundation and the Deaconess Foundation, The American hosted monthly Healthy Happy Hours in community centers,schools,churches and various locations in St.Louis City and County.

health care.

Health coverage was wellreceived by American readers. Yet, Health Watch needed to connect more with its target audience. The health advisors re-strategized, prioritized and strengthened Health Watch through collaborations with key community leaders and public health advisors with a proven track record in health promotions. Ross said particularly helpful advice and support came from Dr. Jacquelyn Garrett, then president of

Mound City Medical Forum and Ed Fisher, who at the time worked with the Division of Health Behavior Research at WUSTL.

“By 2002, Health Watch matured into Health Matters and had become the most recognized source of health news and personal health messages for the African American Community,” Ross said.

It was also the time Ross passed the baton as health consultant to Dr. Katherine Matthews for a couple of

years. Jones said she also helped with initial funding for the health coverage.

“The positive reaction and the positive response we got from Health Matters actually led us to start a Salute to Excellence in Health Care event every year,” Jones said.

“We wanted to recognize the achievements of individual African American health care workers and encourage African Americans to consider careers in health care.” The program has been in place for 13 years,

and The American has honored many health care professionals.

In 2003, internal and geriatric medicine and nutritional science specialist Dr. Consuelo H. Wilkins joined The American’s Health Advisory Board and her role with the paper expanded during her tenure as president of the Mound City Medical Forum.

Over the next few years, Wilkins worked closely with the editorial team to contribute regularly relevant, up-to-date

health information while increasing the visibility of the nearly 200 African American physicians in the St. Louis area. Wilkins contributed via a regular column focused on issues relating to health policy and health disparities. In 2007, Wilkins was appointed the health/medical editor.

“This was an exciting time because The American was in the process of revising the Health Matters format and content in response to input from readers through focus groups and surveys,” Wilkins said. “It was clear from readers that Health Matters was a valuable, reliable and well-respected source of health information, but readers wanted more personal content and stories from real people.”

Health Watch becomes Your Health Matters

Dina Suggs, senior vice president of The American and Debbie Chase, director of health strategy and outreach, were among the group who reengineered Health Matters to showcase more personal health stories written by a health journalist, more vibrant covers and photos, and increased connections to local health resources. In October 2007, with funding support from the Missouri Foundation for Health, the special section became Your Health Matters, with awardwinning journalist Sandra Jordan as its first full-time health reporter.

“Helping readers bring their personal health stories forward in order to encourage men and women to take the steps toward healthier lifestyles is very rewarding,” Jordan said. Your Health Matters s increased its frequency to twice per month from its previous monthly format. As health

Photo by Wiley Price

St. Louis American and social media

Meeting online communities in the middle

By American Staff

“We can’t just be reactive,” said Ishmael Sistrunk, Web/IT/Promotions Coordinator for The St. Louis American. “We have to be where the people are looking for us.”

And as social media has completely shifted the paradigm for news and media consumption, we also have to be available to bring our platform to them.

With a strong Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, LinkedIn and Google+ presence The St. Louis American is actively pursuing its target audience through a broad range of social media platforms.

“The challenge in that is to not just cut and paste – and provide the same experience across those social network platforms,” Sistrunk said. “Because the Twitter community is very different from the Facebook community and the Google + community is very different from the Instagram community. It is a challenge because we are a small business, but it’s something that we have to do – make each of those experiences separate and tailor it to that community.”

Sistrunk is a social media natural as he navigates through the varying channels with ease.

But learning to engage fans/followers has indeed been a learning experience in the four years that we have been actively dedication manpower to social media.

“At first we were just providing links to our stories and attempting to redirect our fans and followers back to the site,” said Kenya Vaughn, website editor. “But after some serious trial and error we saw that the most effective way to reach them – especially on Facebook – is to really connect with

them within the confines of the platform. Now we have people talking amongst themselves on a regular basis. It is an amazing thing to see our vision and brand alive and well as we engage our virtual community via social media much like we do with our readers and the paper.”

The conversations have ranged from Beyonce’s Super Bowl performance to last week’s mayoral primary and the comments have run the gamut.

“As far as Facebook, that is the real definition of social media,” Sistrunk said. “They like to share, they like to interact and comment on stories if they feel like it is relevant to their life and their interests. And you can be more conversational with them – we speak to them and ask their opinions.”

We also have created STL Scandal Talk, a group that allows fans and viewers of the popular ABC television show starring Kerry Washington to

announcement of Slay’s victory in the 2013 Mayoral democratic primary yielded more than 60 comments. Since the American has joined the social media conversations in real time, we have gained nearly 500 new Facebook fans since January – nearly 11,400 total –and the number continues to grow daily.

Instagram,Twitter and Google +

Although Facebook rules the world as the most popular social media platform, there are a handful of other growing social media channels and The American has its hat in the mix.

“Because it’s strictly photos on Instagram everything is visual,” Sistrunk said. “We are lucky that we have Wiley Price at The St. Louis American as a photojournalist, because we are able to get great photos every week.”

Price’s photos easily garner dozens of likes among our followers and because Instagram falls within Facebook’s umbrella we are able to crosspollinate and get more interaction within both platforms.

chime in with thoughts, opinions and reaction to the show as it is happening – as well as recaps and previews. The plan is to create additional groups to for instant firsthand conversations within our Facebook community.

“Real time is the key,” said Vaughn. “On social media time is more of the essence that the 24-hour-news and information cycle that the web has presented. We would go to discuss a topic the following morning if it was outside the realm of business hours – like Scandal, which comes on at 9 p.m. –and there would be crickets, because they had already talked themselves out about it the night before.”

But as of 2013, adjustments have been made and fans and followers have responded. The FB status congratulating St. Louis’own Curtis Finch Jr. for earning a spot in the top ten on “American Idol” received more than 325 likes. And the

NIE

continued from page D11

growing up without a newspaper in their household. The data showed that minority students who use a newspaper at least once a week score 29 percent higher on standardized tests than minority students who don’t use a newspaper.

Initially, discussions were held with superintendents, academic officers and administrators of local urban school districts, inquiring about their needs. Later we talked with several area business and civic leaders to learn about their interests and needs. We had discussions with administrators of area museums/cultural institutions.

Two needs became very clear: the need for improving MAPtest scores, while increasing STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Math) literacy in our region, especially among AfricanAmerican students in their early formative years, for the benefit of the entire region.

The St. Louis American launched its Newspaper In Education Program August 23rd. The initial pilot project has been targeted to students in 3rd, 4th, and 5th grades in Saint Louis Public Schools and Normandy School District. Each week, during this academic school year, The St. Louis American publishes a full color, full page classroom tool dedicated to our NIE program. Each week’s page is focused on a specific theme about STEM education, (for example “Solar power and solar experiments”).

This initiative aims to help reduce the achievement gap

but the members of the community are very passionate and they are very involved and opinionated.

“We are definitely looking to build our base on there because as people begin to circle us (term for connection) I do think they will be very involved in the American as we build it,” Sistrunk said. “They have this wonderful tool called Hangout where up to ten people can chime in while others watch live. I actually did a boxing hang out last week with six people. We want to do NBAhangouts, NFLhangouts, boxing hangouts where we will be able to interact with our readers. Have them be able to contribute to the news instead of just reading it.

The goal is also to incorporate the Hangouts throughout the other aspects of the paper –including entertainment and politics.

“With Twitter there’s interaction, but I think that it’s pretty much for media consumers,” Sistrunk said. “On twitter we can literally just post links all day and get new followers because we are providing new content. People can just look at a headline and if it interests them they can click on the story and retweet it. Twitter seems to be all about consumption. You are limited on your characters, but the great thing about twitter it’s just immediate feedback and people love that. On twitter our strategy is to literally get the most news out that we can without bombarding somebody’s timeline. And I think the twitter community has responded to that.”

Since Sistrunk began managing The St. Louis American’s Twitter account, the following has grown from 23 to nearly 3,700.

The yet to be discovered member of our social media mix is found within Google + There are far fewer members than the other platforms,

among African-American students and to encourage and support greater interest in and the participation of African Americans in the excitement of learning about science.

The STEM page has six features: Inventors & Inventions, Science Experiment of the Week, Math Connection, Life Science Corner, MAPCorner, and a Did You Know feature. All of the content meets Missouri Learning Standards as well as Common Core States Standards. Additionally the page highlights a local classroom featured in our Classroom Spotlight section.

This is a photo of an area classroom that is using the American’s NIE program, and is doing something fun, and perhaps unique, with STEM learning tool.

The project was made possible by and enabled by the generous support of our Corporate Sponsors (Ameren Missouri, Centene, Emerson, Monsanto, Regional Business Council, and World Wide Technology). When we launched our NIE program in August, we provided just over 4,100 papers each week. Today, we are providing free newspapers to more than 5,200 students in more than 200 classrooms every Thursday throughout the school year, making it the largest “free” NIE program in the entire state of Missouri. (The program is also available online, to any area teacher, at no charge. Please visit stlamerican.com and click the “Newspaper In Education” link).

“I think that it’s important for us to join their party,” Sistrunk said. “These are the tools that they are already using and so I think it’s important for us to let them know that we are also in that same space. It’s not even a matter of the American needs to be where the people are or the people need to be where the American is. We are occupying the same space it’s just a matter of letting them know ‘hey, we are here and we’re doing this too and we’re going to provide something that’s beneficial to you we are not trying to push any agenda other than informing the people and enhancing our community.

“Our challenge is that as we go out in this social network arena to let people know that we are not trying to sell you something,” I think as we get that message out and show people that we are here and that we don’t have an agenda as far as trying to sell them something or to get them to act a certain way I think those people will continue to come.”

https://www.facebook.com /StLouisAmerican www.twitter.com/stlouisa merican www.instagram.com/stloui samerican

The American’s google + circle can be found at +stlouisamerican

We have been truly encouraged by the enthusiastic reception of our NIE program from area educators. After all, it is the classroom teachers who are on the front line of educating our children, day after day. Many teachers are not only integrating the STEM page into their teaching, but are also using other parts of the newspaper to teach a variety of learning skills.

According to SLPS teacher Rhonda Stovall, “We integrate the St. Louis American into our weekly academic activities. I have used your newspaper to review common and proper nouns, to review current math computations with real world applications, to discuss the implications of the legal system, learn and summarize the inventors and inventions section, and to teach my fifth grade students how to read and navigate through a newspaper.” We are also encouraged by the support of students, working for their education degrees, at Saint Louis University and Washington University in St. Louis (and their Each One Teach One Program) who are using The St. Louis American’s NIE program while tutoring at local grade schools. And, we are encouraged and heartened by the smiles on the faces of young students who are reading our newspaper, and more importantly are gaining knowledge about STEM education and experience real world lessons from our newspaper. Because of this response from area educators, students, parents, and the civic community, we look to expand this program even further next year. Questions/comments can be directed to our NIE Coordinator at nie@stlamerican.com Thank you and stay tuned.

1928 continued from page D2 in Arkansas, moved to St. Louis and later, made her mark as poet, novelist, autobiographer and actress – Maya Angelou

whites were diggin’it. Louis Armstrong formed his band. Bessie Smith sang the blues, and Duke Ellington released “Black Beauty” and “Swampy River.”

The Harlem Renaissance was still in its heyday. Langston Hughes, Zora Neale Hurston, James Weldon Johnson and Countee Cullen were telling the world of the joys and sorrows of being a black American. The arts flourished, but the end was approaching rapidly. Claude McKay published his Home to Harlem – at the time, the most popular novel by a black author. Harlem became synonymous with black people, and every black section in every American city had some business called the Harlem something-or-other. And while 20-year-old white Bellville native Buddy Ebsen debuted on Broadway in 1928, Miss Baker was in Europe because Broadway wouldn’t touch her. On April 4 in 1928, Marguerite Johnson was born

SWEETS

continued from page D2

public schools from 1930 until her marriage in 1937. Chuck Berry was one of her students.

“Married teachers had to give up their jobs to the single people who were waiting for work,” Mrs. Sweets told Doris A. Wesley in the 1999 book Lift Every Voice and Sing “So, because I happened to marry a newspaper man, that’s how I got into writing.”

Nathaniel Sweets was a graduate of Lincoln University in Jefferson City. He made plans to attend law school, but he never made it. Instead, he marked time as a waiter for the railroad until he entered the newspaper business.

“Nobody had money,” Sweets said. “My husband was not a writer. He was a good hearted businessman and a good salesman. He made a lot of friends. He had the gift of the gab. He knew the business side. He not only sold the paper, he sold ideas to people, influenced people and others to put money into the paper.” (He also founded the St. Louis American Cab Company in 1949, to promote the newspaper).

Together, the Sweets would help grow the newspaper from the inside out, beginning with

Ten black men were lynched in the South in 1928. Lynching was, to some white people, one solution to the “Negro problem.” That year, civil rights legend Ida B. Wells wrote in her autobiography, Crusade for Justice, “I was convinced that the Southerner had never gotten over his resentment that the Negro was no longer his plaything, his servant, and his source of income.”

So blatant were the illegal lynchings of black men in America and so visible was the Ku Klux Klan that distinguished Americans began to speak out against the lynchings and the Klan.

It all came to a head in 1928 when the Klan, incensed by the presidential candidacy of Catholic Alfred E. Smith, added Catholics and Jews to its list of targeted groups. More than five million Klansmen were parading in hoods and carrying fiery crosses through 45 of America’s 48 states in the name of “Protestant moral-

not much more than their souls and a love for journalism.

“The American was always a center of activity for our family, leading up to the Thursday publication day,” Fred Sweets said. “I remember lively discussions about what would be on the front page. I remember her laying out the paper with Bennie Rodgers. Hearing the press ‘roar.’”

The Sweets worked to keep the paper publishing during the hardship years of the Great Depression. Time and time again they rose to the occasion, learning as they went, working part-time and fulltime with little to no pay, with the help of people like Executive Editor Emeritus Bennie G. Rodgers, who joined the staff during World War II and stayed for more than 50 years.

“My husband knew I was a worrier. He never let me know how bad things were,” Sweets said.

“I think he put himself in the grave, trying to give his family the best, even when he didn’t have anything.”

We’re Tellin’

For about 55 years, from around 1930 to 1985, Sweets and a friend, Thelma Dickerson, wrote a column called “We’re Tellin.” Mostly they wrote chit chat about life

ity.” Out of this year of hatemongering came the first effort to unite divergent groups –The National Conference of Christians and Jews.

In 1928, the St. Louis Cardinals won the National League flag for the second time in three years, but more important to African Americans was “Cool Papa” –he won a Negro League pennant and married Clara Belle Thompson

St. Louis for years had been one of the leaders in brewing beer, in making shoes, in producing coal, steel, and lead.

Rock quarries were common work sites in north and south St. Louis. The beer barons though, were driven underground or into the soft drink business because of prohibition.

Unskilled black laborers found work in the foundries and steel mills. There were the janitors and the street cleaners. Many held these jobs proudly unaware that they would soon lose them to the looming depression because “honest white men” needed jobs.

This was the world in 1928 that prompted a Baltimore newspaperman, A.N. Johnson

in the black community and people came to refer to them as “Mel and Thel.”

Langston Hughes once described it as the best such column he had ever read.

“Every once in a while we got into things deep but mostly it was social, homey stuff – who had babies, who got married, who went away,” she said.

“It was about young people. Also, we wrote social news, obituaries. Maybe we were paid $10 a week.”

At times she tackled controversial topics, such as the 1947 appearance in St. Louis of the singer and activist Paul Robeson, who was then being Red-baited as a Communist. She considered her news story about Robeson’s death in 1976 as her most important piece of journalism.

to join St. Louis businessman

John L. Procope, feature writer Nathan B. Young, and Lincoln University graduate Nathaniel Sweets to create the St. Louis American newspaper.

The paper challenged the issues of that time. Civil rights, lynchings, mob influences, black veterans, jobs, education, and baseball’s color line were all frequent topics.

The American became the social register for St. Louis’ black society as well.

Weddings, meetings, church events, entertainment events all found their way into the pages of the American. Names like Duke Ellington Cab Calloway, Josephine Baker, LouisArmstrong, Quincy Trouppe, James “Cool Papa” Bell, HomerG. Phillips and Annie Malone were frequently on the pages.

This tiny paper filled in the sizable gap left by the mainstream newspapers – the Post Dispatch, the Globe-Democrat, and the Star-Times. It made no pretense about its purpose: News about blacks, for blacks, in a paper owned by blacks. That is still the American’s mission – 85 years later.

front page cried “Never gain,” as the actress vowed to never play the segregated theater again.

“I remember lively discussions about what would be on the front page.I remember her laying out the paper with Bennie Rodgers.”

– Fred Sweets

In 1977 and 1978, Melba Sweets served on juries for the Pulitzer Prize – becoming only the second African American at the time to have done so. Twenty one years later, her son Fred accepted a Pulitzer Prize on behalf of a photo team at the Associated Press. Nathaniel “N.A.” Sweets, who suffered from diabetes, died in 1988 at age 87. He was named Publisher Emeritus of the paper. It took an unexpected injury to an ankle late in life to slow down Mrs. Sweets. When she turned 90, friends and family threw a bash for her at a local church and people traveled from out of town to help her celebrate.

hair and the intense focus. Her modest home was filled with photographs of family, friends, and icons such as famed dancer and educator Katherine Dunham and former presidents Bill Clinton and Jimmy Carter. Late in life, she reminisced about a five-cent American, printed in black and white, unlike the brightly colored pages that dominate today’s complimentary editions. Also, she recalled the paper didn’t have a lot of photos, unlike today’s edition. Nearly everyone working at the paper had other jobs because the paper couldn’t pay people full-time salaries – again, unlike today’s operation, which supports a full-time staff.

– until she got to the point when she just couldn’t read it anymore.” Her fierce advocacy for proper English remained with her until the end. Ellen said that in her final days at Barnes-Jewish Extended Care, her mother regularly corrected the nurses and nurses’aides when they spoke improperly.

“One day, she was refusing to eat,” Ellen said. “One nurse, Sylvia, said, ‘Mother Sweets, if you don’t drink this for me, I’m gonna split an infinitive.’” “Mrs. Sweets was an extraordinary woman who continued to inspire many with her words of wisdom and kindness,” said Dr. Consuelo Wilkins, who cared for her from 2003 until her death.

She traveled to Castro-era Cuba and wrote a series about her journey. She proudly remembered a piece she did on Jim Crow laws in St. Louis, when she profiled an actress who opposed segregation yet who was appearing at the segregated American Theater. The

After her retirement, she continued to scrutinize the newspaper – not only for mistakes, but for familiar faces: Frankie Freeman, Dr. Leon Burke III and countless others. Melba Sweets herself made for a striking photograph –eyeglasses, a head of white

Mrs. Sweets was a staunch member of Pilgrim Congregational Church. Prior to that she was at All Saints Episcopal. “She was a very spiritual person,” Fred said. She also was a cancer survivor. She underwent a radical mastectomy 35 years ago, but declined chemotherapy “because she has seen it wipe out too many of her friends,” Fred said. Even as her health declined in her later years, she remained an avid reader and critic of journalism.

Buzzy said, “As long as she could, a young man would bring her the paper every week

“Even on days when she didn’t feel her best, she was always concerned about the well-being of others and managed to brighten any room with her warm smile.” Melba A. Sweets died Nov. 4, 2006, at 97. In addition to the Sweets’ three children, Melba Sweets was survived by eight grandchildren – Hannah Sweets (of Aspen, Colo.), Nicole Marie Sweets (of St. Louis), Alecia Sweets Maclin (of Atlanta), Glyn Adrienne Sweets (of Chicago), Matthew Sweets (of Reston, Va.), Tara Sweets (of St. Louis), Teresa Sweets (of St. Louis), Taryn Williams (of St. Louis) – and seven great

James “Cool Papa”Bell

American continues long strand of state, national awards

By American Staff

The staff of The St. Louis American is extremely proud and gratefully humbled to receive all of our awards from peers in the news industry. We feel that being honored by your peers is the highest form of flattery, and we are humbled. In the last 12 years alone, The St. Louis American has won more than 400 state, regional and national awards for excellence in journalism, design, advertising and community service.

The National Newspaper Publishers’Association (NNPA) has named The St. Louis American the “#1 African-American Newspaper in the Nation” 8 times over the last 12 years. The NNPA, known as the Black Press of America, is a 72-year old federation of more than 200 African-American community newspapers from across the United States.

The NNPAhas also awarded the American its first place General Excellence award four of the last eight years. In addition, the Missouri Press Association gave the American first place General Excellence awards in 2003, 2005 and 2012, beating out all other weeklies in the state of Missouri in its circulation class.

One of the biggest awards in the American’s 85-year history came in 2010, when The St. Louis American was named “Best Weekly Newspaper in North America” by Suburban Newspapers of America, an industry association of more than 2,000 member newspapers throughout the United States and Canada. (The American tied for first place in its circulation class of 37,500+).

Another notable award came in 2004, when the American received the inaugural Daimler Chrysler Services Entrepreneurial Award. This award included a $10,000 cash prize and a trip to Black Press Week in Washington, D.C. It is given to “the NNPAmember publication that has established the most creative campaign to promote unity, economic development and goodwill within its market, while promoting and building on the publication’s business.”

HEALTH

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editor, Wilkins said her columns evolved from a technical, scientific format to a more personal commentary about health and life and was better aligned with the revised Your Health Matters Moreover in response to readers, The American expanded its health communications reach beyond print into community outreach.

In 2003, The St. Louis American received a Gold Honor Award for Distinguished Service in Journalism by the University of Missouri-Columbia’s School of Journalism. The American is the only African-American newspaper to be honored with the Gold Honor Award, which has been given to only a few newspapers since its inception in 1930.

Website Awards

In 2012, The St. Louis American’s website received accolades from three different industry organizations. Stlamerican.com was recognized for its layout, viewer friendliness, and components such as video, special sections and photo galleries. Missouri Press awarded stlamerican.com first place for “Best Online Newspaper or Website” among all weekly Missouri newspapers in its circulation class. The NNPAawarded the American the first place award for “Best African-American Newspaper Website,” and stlamerican.com was also named an EPPYAward finalist by Editor & Publisher

cultural cuisine. The chef would prepare healthier versions of entrees for sampling and offer the recipes to take home. Attendees learned how to relax, stretch through yoga and exercise and without fancy gym equipment from life coach Rebecca Bennett of the InPower Institute.

Healthy Happy Hours

In 2008, to support encouraging a healthier lifestyle among readers and with funding support of the Centene Foundation and the Deaconess Foundation, The American hosted monthly Healthy Happy Hours in community centers, schools, churches and various locations in St. Louis City and County.

“The paper began hosting ‘Healthy Happy Hours’in partnership with local organizations to engage readers in dialogue about health issues, provide tips for healthy living and promote physical activity,” Wilkins said.

Health Happy Hour health outreach events continued through 2010.

In partnership with STLTV, monthly three- to five-minute videos were produced featuring Wilkins and aired highlighting one of the topics published in Your Health Matters .They were linked to The American’s website. Wilkins served as health editor until May 2012.

“My experiences working with The American team and communicating with the readers have been highly rewarding and have significantly shaped my approach to communication,” Wilkins said. Last summer, family practitioner Denise Hooks-Anderson, M.D. became medical accuracy editor for Your Health Matters.

Dr.Denise HooksAnderson

Aformer president of Mound City Medical, her expertise had been called upon throughout the years on current health issues.

The free events included line dancing from dance instructor Alicia “Sunshine” Williams; topical health information from area health associations and a healthier spin on

Veteran staffers earn recent honors

Trio has 90 years of experience in the industry

American Staff

When it comes to longevity, several members of The St. Louis American’s team have been with the organization for a long time, including three who have each been with the paper for more than two decades. Photojournalist Wiley Price, publisher and executive editor Donald M. Suggs, and chief operating officer Kevin Jones have been with The American for more than 20 years, with a combined total of 90 years of experience in the newspaper industry. Each has also received recent notable honors.

Individual Awards

Current staff members of The St. Louis American have garnered many awards as well. Veteran photojournalist Wiley Price has won more than 80 local, state and national awards for photojournalism excellence. Reporters Kenya Vaughn and Sandra Jordan have each won A. Philip Randolph Messenger Awards. Reporter/videographer Rebecca Rivas is a 2-time first place winner for Best Video from Missouri Press Association. Managing editor Chris King was national first runner up for Best Investigative Story, by New America Media. Graphic artist Angelita Jackson received the Ad Layout Person of the Year award from Missouri Advertising Managers’ Association, and art director Mike Terhaar has received numerous awards including a 3-time win for Best Front Page Design. The American’s C.O.O., Kevin Jones, is a 4time winner of both Best Ad Idea as well as Best Newspaper Promotion categories, by Missouri Press

Association, and also received the Advertising Director of the Year award by Suburban Newspapers of America in 2007.

Community Service Awards

While the American’s staff is proud of all of the recognition for journalism, design and advertising excellence, it is just as proud of the accolades it has received for community service. Since 2004, The St. Louis American has received an unprecedented “10” first place awards for community service from four different industry associations (National Newspaper Association, Suburban Newspapers of America, Missouri Press Association, and Inland Press Association).

While we are encouraged by past recognition, we realize that we are still a work in progress and need to continue to work to keep the faith with our mission as we build on our proud past while addressing the challenges and opportunities of the future.

Wiley Price

This past October, longtime St. Louis American photojournalist Wiley Price was inducted into the Missouri Photojournalism Hall of Fame. He is only the second African American to receive the honor since the Hall of Fame’s inception in 2005. For 30 years, Price has been capturing important moments in St. Louis history as they happened. Price started as a freelance photojournalist in 1979, shooting for the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, the Kansas City Star, Ebony magazine, and other publications. He worked for the Suburban Journals for five years and has been with The St. Louis American for more than 25 total years.

Price has received more than 80 awards for photojournalism excellence from newspaper associations.

Donald M. Suggs

St. Louis American publisher and executive editor Donald M. Suggs is truly humbled by the numerous accolades he has received, and is always quick to share his honors with the team at The St. Louis American. His many honors include being named St. Louis Citizen of the Year in 2004, and receiving the FOCUS St. Louis Leadership Award in 2011, as well as lifetime achievement awards from organizations such as Big Brothers Big Sisters, Mentor St. Louis and the St. Louis Gateway Classic Sports Foundation. In May, Suggs received an honorary Doctorate of Human Letters by Washington University in St. Louis at the university’s 151st commencement ceremonies, in recognition of his civic leadership and legacy in journalism.

Suggs, who began with The St. Louis American in the early 1980s, has also received honorary degrees from Harris-Stowe State University, Saint Louis University, and the University of Missouri-St. Louis.

Kevin Jones In 2010, St. Louis American C.O.O. Kevin Jones was elected president of the Missouri Press Association. Missouri Press Association is an industry association comprised of more than 280 weekly and daily newspapers from throughout the state of Missouri, including the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, St. Louis Business Journal Springfield News Leader and Kansas City Star. In the 144-year history of Missouri Press presidents, Jones is only the third from a St. Louis publication.

Jones is an honor graduate from the University of Missouri-Columbia’s School of Journalism as well as St. Louis University High School, with more than 27 years of experience in the newspaper industry. After working for three newspapers while in college (Columbia Daily Tribune, Columbia Missourian, and the student paper The Maneater), and several years at the Suburban Journals of St. Louis, he has been with the American for nearly 21 years.

“For me, The St. Louis American has been such a refreshing source of information and positive reinforcement of our community,” HooksAnderson said. “It is such an honor for me now to serve as its medical accuracy editor.” In the last several years,

Your Health Matters has earned numerous local and national awards for health coverage and advertising, including A. Philip Randolph MillerCoors Messenger honors through the National Newspaper Publisher Association; media awards

from The American Cancer Society Great Plains Division; Suburban Newspapers Association, and the Standing Up for Mothers and Babies Award for health coverage by the Maternal Infant Child and Families Coalition of St. Louis.

Today’s health coverage includes personal accounts of local people successfully managing medical conditions, particularly those prevalent in the African American community; obesity, heart disease, diabetes, infant/maternal health and asthma. It also covers behav-

ioral health topics, dental health, HIV/AIDS and cancers. Issues regularly feature upcoming health fairs, fundraisers and forums, resources for health services; profiles of local persons in health careers; and answers to reader’s questions. Each month, it features healthy recipes, courtesy of Food Outreach, volunteer-based organization focused on providing nutritious meals and nutrition counseling to lowincome men, women, and children living with cancer or HIV/AIDS.

“At this point, among leading newspapers in the country, African American or mainstream, there are no other similar publications that deliver high quality, up-to-date health information on such a frequent publication basis,” Ross added. “Nor are there other periodicals that have embedded culturally competent health messages that address health literacy while highlighting local stories with powerful images of empowered African Americans engaging in health prevention and chronic disease management.” Feedback confirms its place as a local health resource.

“The entire St. Louis community should recognize the importance and impact of Your Health Matters, which is now a major player in our community-engaged, multidisciplinary approaches to addressing and resolving intractable health disparities in the St. Louis region,” said Ross. “I am proud to have been involved in such a far-reaching project. Thanks to the leadership and vision of Dr. Suggs and many others, Your Health Matters will be influencing the health of our community for generations.”

Dr.Consuelo H.Wilkins

St.Louis American publisher and executive editor Donald M.Suggs,holding the 2012 Russwurm Trophy,Karl B.Rodney of the New York Carib News,and the American's Kenya Vaughn at the NNPA Convention in Atlanta.

15 years of The American and the internet

By American Staff

The St. Louis American’s Publisher and Executive Editor, Donald M. Suggs, says “The St. Louis American’s mission to inform and affect the community has not changed, but we must provide our content where the audience wants to receive it. We have to be easily accessible to our readers, wherever they are.”

As The St. Louis American celebrates 85 years of informing, engaging and working to uplift the community, media consumption has changed in ways that the founders never could have imagined when they came together to give African Americans in St. Louis a voice and platform by way of a weekly newspaper.

It goes without saying that the web has become the primary source for obtaining news. And as we commemorate, The St. Louis American is on the cusp of another milestone – 15 years of a presence on the internet.

And just as the paper has evolved over the years, so has stlamerican.com to meet the needs of the community we serve. Our web presence has gone from merely a digital version of the print product to a resource for breaking local and national news, entertainment, sports and politics that impact our core community of readers and beyond.

“It’s been almost night and day from where we were,” American COO Kevin Jones said. “We were just used to preparing for a weekly product. It’s changed for the better certainly. Technology keep changing so rapidly and we need to stay on top of it. Management decided that we had access to news in many ways and we have the ability to generate news and it was really just going along with the

times to be honest – we saw the writing on the wall. Our readers wanted the news and they wanted it now, in real time.”

The antiquated formats of the early days of the web have given way to a sleek user friendly format that makes provisions for multimedia and reader interaction.

Thanks in part to a complete redesign in 2010, Stlamerican.com now has a look and aesthetic that is attractive and uniquely complimentary to the print product –and makes for a visitor experience that allows The St. Louis American media platform to reach beyond the confines of a Thursday print distribution.

The weekly web uploads of what people saw in the paper have transformed into information updates several times a day from an array of topics –from local obits to breaking entertainment and political news, sports and more.

“I hope that they are able to get an experience that’s relevant to them,” said Ishmael Sistrunk, Web/IT/Promotions Coordinator. “I think we have a multifaceted site. We are still developing it, but I would hope that a 70 year old grandmother could come to our site and find something that’s useful and relevant to her life –the same as I would hope a 13 year old kid in middle school would be able to come on to the site and find something that is relevant to his or her life.”

Stlamerican.com is a team effort of Sistrunk and Web Site Editor Kenya Vaughn with strong support from the print editorial team.

“On any given day we will receive a breaking political item from Chris King, an investigative updates from (Rebecca) Rivas and a hot health news report from

Sandra,” Vaughn said. “In addition to the national news and entertainment items that have become a popular mainstay on the site, we all chime in with our respective beats to create a well-rounded web presence.”

Stlamerican.com also includes compelling videos created in-house by Rebecca Rivas and our newest staff member, community reporter Bridjes O’Neil.

“Our focus is relevant local community news, but when it comes to mainstream media the big thing is the more popular entertainment where it’s really not all that important but it’s fascinating,” Sistrunk said. “The biggest challenge is finding a balance. We want to be able to stay relevant to the community and reach out to the community and provide these stories and services that they need – but it’s a balancing act with giving them the infor-

mation that they need and the chatty stuff that they want.”

Over the course of the site’s evolution, a steady climb in traffic serves as evidence of the success of our efforts to meet the needs and desires of site visitors. Stlamerican.com has grown from a modest 26,000 average monthly visitors to nearly 100,000 in 2013 and roughly half-a-million page views per month.

Weekly contests are also a regular part of the stlameican.com experience and lend themselves to web site traffic. Tickets to the sold-out Janet Jackson performance, a Valentine’s Day package that included an overnight stay at The Four Seasons have been our most popular contests to date. The site also houses information and photos from the four major St. Louis American Foundation events (Salute To Excellence in Education, Healthcare,

Business and Young Leaders).

“We want to further interact with readers and viewers,” Jones said. “We want to be very interactive with our community more and more.”

Even though the pace can be demanding the web presence has presented a special gift by way of its broad reach and that has been made evident over the years based on feedback from the site.

“We keep seeing all of these people who live out of town and they want to keep up with Black St. Louis,” Jones said. “How else can they do that except for stlamerican.com?”

E-Edition

Aspecial new feature that will most certainly appeal to out of town visitors is our enhanced e-edition, free of charge. The stlamerican.com eedition gives the look and feel of the print paper from the convenience of a desktop, laptop or tablet. Users can sign-in on stlamerican.com to take advantage of the free e-edition service.

“The goal is to continue to evolve the American’s online presence,” Sistrunk said. “If the American is going to thrive in this digital age we are going to have to take the media to where the people are – and we have to involve them to every aspect of our media and make it relevant to them. W

We need to be a melting pot for them to come to on stlamerican.com and find something that they will either want to share with others or interact with. It needs to be an experience where we’re not just feeding them news but that they are becoming a part of and exchange.”

For more information on the site, visit www.stlamerican.com

MOBILE

The St. Louis American’s web app allows our readers to stay in connected on the go, free of charge. With the enormous growth of smartphones and tablets in recent years, people want their news and entertainment accessible at any given time, not just when they’re at home or work. We’ve addressed this with our mobile app. By utilizing HTML5 for the app, we’ve made it simpler and more convienient for our readers. Instead of needing to download separate apps for iPhone, Android, Blackberry, Windows phone, etc., users will automatically be directed to our app just by visiting stlamerican.com from their smartphone or tablet. It looks and functions just like an app you’d download, but you don’t have to search for it, don’t have to update it and don’t have to worry about those annoying crashes. It just works. Because we’re working off a unified platform, readers will get the same great experience, regardless of what mobile operating system they are using. Readers have access to all the photos, galleries, videos and articles on the web app. For those who want the same stlamerican.com experience on their desktop, laptops and mobile devices, viewing the full site from the web app is literally one click away. Overall it’s a great experience and takes advantage of all the latest, greatest, fastest featurefilled smartphones and tablets.