Savannah Tribune

History

Newspaper

When Deveaux and R. W. White revived the Tribune on October 23, 1886, the paper published from its own printing plant located on St. Julian Street. In that issue's salutatory editorial, Deveaux explained that "the main and higher object of our paper will be to promote the cause of education, cooperating with all teachers and workers in that cause, and the moral and material advancement of the colored people." In 1889, editorial control of the Tribune passed to Solomon "Sol" C. Johnson when Deveaux accepted an appointed position as collector of customs in Brunswick, Georgia. Under Johnson's direction and with a reach extending to north Florida, the Tribune crucially reported injustices of the Jim Crow era. Beginning in 1892, Johnson particularly criticized segregated streetcars in the city and played an instrumental role in the boycott movement that emerged in the early 20th century.

After Deveaux's death in 1909, Johnson purchased the Tribune, and, by the 1920s, he shifted the newspaper's editorial tone from the ideology of Booker T. Washington to a more activist voice for civil rights and social equality. Continuing its history of featuring prominent black thinkers in its columns, Harlem Renaissance writer James Weldon Johnson served as a correspondent for the Tribune during his tenure as executive secretary of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People. In 1928, the Tribune, Georgia's leading African American newspaper, faced significant competition with the establishment of the Atlanta World (later Atlanta Daily World), which became the preeminent black newspaper in the state. Following Sol Johnson's death in 1954, his goddaughter Willa Ayers Johnson became the first woman owner and editor of the Tribune, and she managed the paper until it ceased publication in September 1960. Robert E. James, a banker, then reestablished the Tribune in 1973, and he managed the paper until 1983 when his wife, Shirley Barber James, became the publisher and sole owner. To this day, the Tribune continues to serve Savannah-Chatham County's African American community."

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