Ebony Triangle:

Network of Black Newspapers in Kansas, 1878-1900

Aleen Ratzlaff

Tabor College

 

Abstract

In the late-1870s, Kansas became the first western state to attract a mass migration of Southern blacks. The movement of blacks westward, while expanding the boundaries of the race, also increased the reach and impact of the black press. As African Americans relocated on the Kansas frontier, a robust network of newspapers evolved in three areas of the state. Editors strategically recruited correspondents and agents to increase their circulation in towns and cities. Initially, the editors centered their focus on communities within the state. Later, in efforts to increase their readership and revenues, they recruited correspondents in other areas.

The story of Kansas’s newspapers underscores the significance of the press as a primary social institution for African Americans during this time period. Newspapers aided communication among communities and, along with churches, schools, and fraternal organizations, provided a means for exerting influence and solidarity beyond a narrow locality. The Kansas newspapers multiplied opportunities for involvement in the public sphere and served as a forum for expression, as well as an outlet for employment and job training. Although most of its readership lived in the Sunflower State, the press network in Kansas foreshadowed the shift by twentieth-century black newspapers to viewing readership as national rather than primarily local. Circumstances, such as the establishment of the Western Negro Association, spurred by editors in Kansas, suggest a similar pattern may have developed among black newspapers in other western states.