Howard University’s Black Press Archives Digitization Project at Moorland-Spingarn Research Center receives a major grant from Google to support archival and preservation work.

Washington, DC – February 20, 2024 – On March 14, 2024, Howard University’s Moorland-Spingarn Research Center (MSRC) and the National Newspaper Publisher Association (NNPA) will host a celebration in honor of Black Press Day, the celebration of the birth of the Black press in the United States. 2024 marks the 197th year of the Black Press of America, with the first Black newspaper being published in 1827 called Freedom’s Journal. Hosted by MSRC, a research center that has been preserving the Black experience since 1914 and is home to the largest private collection of global Black Press archives, the event serves to highlight the rich history and impactful contributions of the Black Press and celebrate the significant milestones achieved. The celebration will include an overview and tour of MSRC’s Black Press Archives Digitization Project, which aims to preserve and digitize a collection of over 100,00 individual newspapers by Black journalists, editors, and publishers from the United States, Africa, and the African Diaspora, donated to Howard University by the NNPA. 

“The goal of Black Press Day is to celebrate and recognize the significant contributions of the Black press in journalism, storytelling, and cultural representation. We want our students to see firsthand the importance of the Black press in telling our stories across centuries and nations, and the continued importance of the Black press in the digital age,” said Dr. Benjamin Talton, Director of the Moorland-Spingarn Research Center at Howard University.  

Dr. Benjamin F. Chavis, Jr., President and CEO of the NNPA emphasized, “We acknowledge our long-term partnership with the Moorland-Spingarn Research Center. We are grateful that on the campus of the historic Howard University through the Center’s library, we continue to support the Black Press Gallery of Distinguished Publishers. This year in particular highlights the digital innovation and progress of the Black Press archives and the Gallery of Distinguished Publishers.”

Howard University’s Moorland-Spingarn Research Center and the National Newspaper Publisher Association have a long history of partnership, as the Black Press Archives Digitization Project began as a joint project between the two in 1973. Google recently awarded the Black Press Archives Digitization Project a $760,000 grant to support and continue the Project’s work in digitizing and preserving the collections of the Black Press Archives, which includes over 2,847 reels of microfilm representing more than 2,000 newspaper titles and over 100,000 individual newspaper issues. These newspapers span the United States, Africa, and the African Diaspora, demonstrating the truly global reach of the Black press. Google’s grant follows a $2M grant from the Jonathan Logan Family Foundation, which enabled the establishment of the Project.  

“This grant will go a long way towards ensuring that the contributions made by the Black Press are not only well preserved and maintained, but also made accessible to anyone interested in viewing our collection, from anywhere in the world. The Black Press Archives is truly a global project, telling the stories of the Black experience across the African Diaspora, so we want to ensure that the Archives are readily accessible online,” said Brandon Nightingale, Project Manager for the Black Press Archives Digitization Project. 

Karen Carter Richards, Chair of the NNPA Fund remarked, “As we celebrate 197 years of the Black Press, Google’s grant for the digitization of the Black Press is a commendable initiative that recognizes the importance of preserving and making accessible the historical archives of Black-owned newspapers. Digitization efforts not only ensure the preservation of valuable historical records but also make them more readily available for researchers, scholars, and the general public.”

The celebration will open with a ceremonial drum performance by Sadiki Lancaster, followed by remarks from the NNPA leadership. Brandon Nightingale will provide a detailed update on the state of the Black Archives Digitization Project, after which attendees will have the opportunity to tour the gallery of Black publishers as well as the University’s archival spaces, led by the MSRC’s student archivists. 

About Howard University’s Moorland-Spingarn Research Center

Howard University’s Moorland-Spingarn Research Center (MSRC) is the largest and most comprehensive repository of books, documents, and ephemera on the global Black experience, including the personal and official papers of Kwame Nkrumah, Paul Robeson, Alain Locke, Mary Frances Berry, Dr. Benjamin Mays, Vernon Jordon, and Amiri Baraka, to name but a few from its over seven hundred collections. It was founded in 1914 as the Moorland Library and became a research center within Howard University in 1973, consisting of the University Archives Division, the Manuscripts Division, the Library, the Museum, and the Black Press Archive. MSRC’s mission is to provide access to history through diverse formats and to preserve it for generations to come. For more information, visit msrc.howard.edu. 

About The Black Press Archives 

Authorized in 1973, the Black Press Archives was a cooperative effort between Howard University and the National Newspaper Publishers Association (NNPA), whose plan was “to develop an archive at a university where assembled documentation on the Black Press could be permanently preserved and made available to scholars, students, and the public.” A second component of the program to document the history of the Black press is the acquisition of the office files, personal papers, photographs, and memorabilia of outstanding journalists, cartoonists, editors, and publishers. Today, the Black Press Archives represents over 2,000 newspaper titles from the United States, Africa, and the African Diaspora. It is one of the most valuable research features, eagerly sought by visiting scholars and graduate students. The collection consists of physical and microfilm reels of newspapers, totaling over 100,000 individual issues of newspapers.

About Howard University

Founded in 1867, Howard University is a private, research university that is comprised of 14 schools and colleges. Students pursue more than 140 programs of study leading to undergraduate, graduate, and professional degrees. The University operates with a commitment to Excellence in Truth and Service and has produced two Schwarzman Scholars, four Marshall Scholars, four Rhodes Scholars, 12 Truman Scholars, 25 Pickering Fellows, and more than 165 Fulbright recipients. Howard also produces more on-campus African American Ph.D. recipients than any other university in the United States. For more information on Howard University, visit http://www.howard.edu.

About the National Newspaper Publisher Association

The National Newspaper Publisher Association is a trade association of more than 250 African-American-owned community newspapers from around the United States. Since its founding 84 years ago, NNPA has consistently been the voice of the Black community and an incubator for news that makes history and impacts our country. As the largest and most influential Black-owned media resource in America, NNPA delivers news, information, and commentary to over 20 million people each week. Americans from all backgrounds seek news from the Black perspective from the NNPA member newspapers around the country. In America, now among the most diverse countries in the world, the Black Press of America is more relevant than ever.

The post Howard University’s Moorland-Spingarn Research Center and National Newspaper Publisher Association to Present Black Press Day Celebration, March 14 first appeared on BlackPressUSA.

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