There can be few people more excited than I am by plans afoot for New York’s oldest African American journal. Ms. Elinor Ruth Tatum, its publisher, is leading the New York Amsterdam News into an invigorated future as corporate and foundation headquarters, coupled with a national center of African American journalism history, replete with educational exhibitions, a research library, an inviting cafe, and a community forum.
Embarking on this project will improve and restore both the newspaper and its 138-year-old building. Utilizing, to capacity, a facility currently underused offers a world of as many possibilities as opportunities. Each is infinite.
In our time when Black contributions to intellectual life are ever increasingly ignored, denied, or erased, the Amsterdam News’ proposed national center will underline the historical significance of Black media and the professionals who document what’s happening around us.
In a time when news is, mostly, no longer communicated on paper or produced by a printing press, it projects the AmNews far into the future. Reimagining the offices as a place of pilgrimage, a storehouse of knowledge and learning, it’s also a reiteration of Harlem’s place as America’s Black Cultural Capital forever.
“In our time when Black contributions to intellectual life are ever increasingly ignored, denied, or erased, the Amsterdam News’ proposed national center will underline the historical significance of Black media and the professionals who document what’s happening around us.”
— Michael Henry Adams, Harlem-based preservationist and writer
What makes me so certain of my unsurpassed enthusiasm? It is knowing already all I’ve gained from the AmNews’ treasure trove of goodies. In graduate school at Columbia 38 years ago, except for exceptionally devoted and brilliant students, there was no internet, with cellphones occupying every idle hour. Instead, in Butler Library or at the Schomburg Center, we had the voluminous Readers Guide to Periodical Literature and reels of the Amsterdam News on microfilm. Not unlike scrolling along on Insta, I enjoyed otherwise empty hours, unspooling roll after roll of the AmNews, pausing here and there whenever some headline or another caught my eye.
Today, I take the same delight in searching the paper in the ProQuest database of Historic African American Newspapers. I’ve included just three stories, pretty close together time-wise, to illustrate the wide variety of interesting topics that await a willing explorer.
From the archive
On New Year’s Eve of 1923, a headline blared, “Race Superiority Bunk, Says Boasts Noted Anthropologist.” The reporter went on to tell how the Columbia professor, “the foremost scholar in his field nation-wide,” had related this, addressing an appreciative audience at the 135th St. Library.
By Easter Sunday, the AmNews reported how on April 1, 1923, Mother Zion Church [New York State’s oldest African American denomination ], was “Unable to Seat Members…[due to], the largest overflowing congregation in the history of the church…present at the 11:o’clock service.” This occurrence was seen as proof positive of how urgently the Black membership, who had moved to an existing church edifice from downtown in 1914, needed to build a new structure to better serve their mission and worship. Engaging Black architect George Washington Foster, soon after, they did.
Aug. 25, 1926, citing a study published in the Crisis, it was shown that, “In the State of Georgia, …the average amount expended yearly on each white child [was],… $36.29, and the average amount on each Negro child [each year was]… $4.59. Although Negro children [formed] 43 percent of the children of school age, only 9 percent of the educational funds are spent on them and 91 percent on the white.”
This, along with Black debutantes, drag balls, pilots and doctors (male and female), good Samaritans and corrupt politicians (Black and white), is but a tiny foretaste, along with amazing images unseen for decades, of the AmNews banquet in store. And, what a compelling story it has over an epic evolution too. Wow!
Founded on Dec. 4, 1909, the venerable New York Amsterdam News was first published by James H. Anderson with but a $10 investment. Anderson’s paper began in his home at 132 West 65th Street, in the African American San Juan Hill neighborhood. It was near Amsterdam Avenue, hence the name. New York’s oldest surviving Black journal was one of only 50 nationwide then.
With the confluence of Blacks fleeing Southern oppression and terror Downtown following New York’s anti-Black rioting in 1900, Harlem beckoned. Helping to establish what was envisioned as an autonomous, largely self-reliant Black enclave, the year after its founding, the Amsterdam News moved uptown to burgeoning Black Harlem’s Main drag, at 17 West 135th Street. Outgrowing this spot in just six years, the AmNews moved next to 2293 Seventh Avenue. This office occupied the top floor of a converted brownstone row house. Clinton Moore’s notorious ‘buffet flat,’ offering distinguished whites bootleg gin, reefer, and beautiful young Black companions for an evening (mostly male, for mostly men) was, recalled Amsterdam cartoonist and columnist Bill Chase, in 1940 “just next door.”
When the Amsterdam News expanded to 2271 Seventh Avenue in 1938, this old facility at first remained active. The building where the paper relocated, the building in question, at 2340 Eighth Avenue (Frederick Douglass Boulevard), was built in 1888.
The paper’s homes
- 1909132 West 65th StreetSan Juan Hill — Anderson’s home
- 191017 West 135th StreetHarlem
- 19162293 Seventh AvenueTop floor of a brownstone
- 19382271 Seventh AvenueExpansion
- Today2340 Frederick Douglass Blvd.Built 1888 by Ferdinand W. Geiler
Emigrating from Germany at seven and residing with his family at 101 Anderson Avenue in the Bronx, Ferdinand W. Geiler was the builder of this structure. Subject to financial difficulties after the Great Depression, before these troubling times he had shrewdly, routinely advertised his firm, F. W. Geiler, Inc. Paints, Oils, Varnishes, Wall Papers, in the AmNews.
His 1935 foreclosure had made Geiler’s building affordable for the paper’s new owners. Fellow physicians with Caribbean heritage, Dr. Cielan Bethan Powell and Dr. Phillip M.H. Savory were among the most savvy African American entrepreneurs of their era. Forming the Powell Savory Corporation, they helped to take the AmNews to the next level. From a local journal established to counter Booker T. Washington’s accommodationist conservatism, expounded by their rival at the New York Age, they transformed the paper into a peerless record, championing a Black world view.
The New York Amsterdam News had also suffered because of the depression’s disaster. Harlem in general was particularly hard hit. The strife felt by the paper’s staff culminated in an 11-week strike. Forced into bankruptcy and receivership, the Amsterdam was only saved in 1936 by the good doctors partnering to effect a purchase at a bankruptcy auction. Bid-in at $5,000.00; technically, this alliance resulted in a bargain. But it had also required their agreeing to absorb over $30,000.00 of indebtedness. More importantly, in a milestone of labor advancement, gaining control, Savory and Powell agreed to unionization by the American Newspaper Guild, making the Amsterdam News the first Black-owned newspaper that allowed workforce organization.
After Dr. Savory’s death in 1965, in 1971, his associate announced his retirement. He sold the paper to the Amnews Corporation, which still maintains ownership. In August of 1982, Wilbert A. Tatum, who was chairman of the board of the Amnews Corporation and publisher, expanded its reach still further with a broadened perspective on politics, both at home and abroad. By July of 1996, Tatum also amassed complete ownership of the Amsterdam News, himself stepping down just a year later.
Who has led the paper
Relinquishing control to his daughter, Elinor, a 26-year-old, seemed questionable to some. But the way she has sustained America’s Black paper of record, with the same impassioned integrity of all those before her serving as publisher and editor-in-chief, all while taking care of her widowed mother and a young daughter, beyond exemplary, is extraordinary.
It is her vision that has developed this project, which fosters the excellence of Black journalism while enhancing Harlem as a world destination for tourists and scholars alike. Supported by a grant from the Mellon Foundation, the old space will operate in a new way as an archival research center, public gathering hub, and cafe.
A time capsule of how things used to be, the newsroom will showcase retro furniture, typewriters, metal photo-engraving plates, and chalkboards. Framed front pages from the archives will show the results that were possible by such antique means. Chronicling generations of civil rights reporting, a repository of Black history and excellence, this resource can only challenge youth to appreciate how anything is possible.
A timeline projecting completion by the end of 2027 is perhaps optimistic. However, the endeavor is off to a resoundingly positive start with encouraging input and support from the community and philanthropic foundations alike; along with your help, we cannot fail.
In the months ahead, there will be other stories explaining more fully both the paper’s mission and our progress. Stay tuned, and for additional information about how you can get involved, email Siobhan Bennet at sam.bennett@amnewsfoundation.org or text at 484-560-2810. To learn more, visit amnewsfoundation.org.
2 / 6The AmNews offices are due to be remade into a national center for the history of Black journalism.
‹ › ← Back to story3 / 6The group of Brownstones encompassing the Amsterdam News’ second home at 2293 Seventh Avenue.
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