95 years old, and still going strong
14th September 2020 · 0 Comments
With this issue, The Louisiana Weekly begins its 95th year of educating, documenting, reporting, and advocating for the civil rights and human rights of people of color.
“With the president of the United States using terms like ‘fake news,’ to undermine the media, dismantling civil and voting rights, attacking women’s reproductive rights, gutting federal agencies that serve the nation’s most vulnerable citizens, declaring war on non-white immigrants, allowing tens of thousands of Americans to die from a virus he refuses to contain, and supporting white supremacy, there is little time for the Black Press or media organizations, in general, to sit idly by and do nothing,” Dejoie-Hall says.
For the past 95 years, The Louisiana Weekly has not only taken a public stance against racial injustice but has been front and center in the fight for equality and civil rights, not only publishing seminal moments in Black history but also contributing monetarily to the fight.
The Louisiana Weekly began its life as the New Orleans Herald on September 19, 1925, under the yolk of oppressive segregation and local, state and federal governments run by whites. There were scarcely any media outlets to champion the causes of Black Louisianans back then.
Co-founders, C.C. Dejoie Sr. and educator O.C.W. Taylor, decided to broaden the paper’s coverage and outreach upon the urging of its readers. Two weeks later, on October 10, 1925, the first edition of The Louisiana Weekly hit the streets.
At the time of the newspaper’s launch, the Black community’s leadership had some who favored moderation or gradualism in its approach to the fight for equality and justice. Dejoie and Taylor favored bold, progressive, political pressure over gradualism as evidenced by the paper’s first editorial:
“First, since it is a newspaper, it should have an adequate amount of real good news, interesting to its readers and bearing upon their lives. Secondly, we believe that editorially, in matters pertaining to the race, a paper should not straddle. There is only one course for a Negro paper to take in matters pertaining to Negro life, and that is the right side. Any attempt to sidestep and to pussyfoot is more harmful to the race than anything else.
Negro papers are not the property of the individuals who have them in charge, but the property of the Negro public whose interests they should serve… Lastly, we know that there are always papers that must be devoted to special interests…We know that in certain societies papers are justified in having their papers for their own special use…Hence we have selected our special group to serve – THE NEGRO PEOPLE OF LOUISIANA. To them our columns are open. For them will be our plans and labor. To them we look for support.” – 9/19/1925
When the newspaper’s first edition appeared, there were no subscribers. By Oct 17, the week following the debut of The Louisiana Weekly, 4,500 people had subscribed and the paper, the only Black-owned New Orleans-based news outlet, became the main repository for advertisements promoting Black-owned businesses.
The founders’ subscription policy was sheer genius. Subscribers to most papers had to pay in advance but The Louisiana Weekly’s subscribers only paid after delivery. Subscriptions were $2.00 per year, $1.25 for six months, and $.20 per month, after delivery.
The “Negro” population in Louisiana desperately needed a newspaper to inform and educate; one that supported independent Black businesses, and a partner in the ongoing fight against racial injustice and segregation laws passed by whites in the Louisiana Legislature and in the U.S. Capitol.
Four years before The Louisiana Weekly’s debut, during the Louisiana Constitutional Convention of 1921, the Louisiana Legislature codified voter suppression tactics, including poll taxes and a mandate that voters had to read and articulate the meaning of passages in the U.S. Constitution. The legislature created laws that violated the constitutional right to have cases decided by unanimous juries (which was overturned just two years ago), and dedicated money for pensions for Confederate soldiers and widows and for maintenance of the Confederate Museum for the preservation of relics and mementoes of the Civil War, among other racist laws.
The Louisiana Weekly ‘s first office was in Suite 303 at the Pythian Temple building, located at 234 Loyola Avenue (then Saratoga Street) on the corner of Gravier Street. The Pythian Temple was erected in 1909 by Smith Wendell Green, a former slave turned wealthy grocer and insurance magnate.
As a member of the Associated Negro Press (ANP/1919-1964, Chicago), The Louisiana Weekly published content from national and international sources. The ANP was the first African-American news gathering service with African-American foreign correspondents. From 1933 to 1940 the Office of War Information wrote that there were about four million Black readers of Black newspapers.
The Louisiana Weekly also covered local politics, business, church, society, education, sports and entertainment news stories back then, the same as it does now.
During its infancy, The Louisiana Weekly provided jobs and combined with the newspaper’s affordable advertising rates, the publication had the positive effect of expanding the African-African business base and the city’s middle class.
The Louisiana Weekly came to life during segregation and the aftermath of the Red Summer of 1919, where riots broke out over the high number of Blacks who were being lynched nationwide and the newspaper stood on the precipice of the Great Depression. It witnessed the beginning of legal segregation, the Black migration, white flight, KKK marches, and desegregation.
The Louisiana Weekly was born into a racially hostile environment and took advantage in a city whites were beginning to desert in favor of the suburbs. It became the glue that held our African village together and became a sustainer and promoter for African-American entrepreneurship, education, and a proud institution that lauded the accomplishments of its people.
Since its founding, The Louisiana Weekly has covered every major movement for justice, freedom and inclusion in Black America including the integration of the U.S. Armed Forces; the Montgomery Bus Boycott; the modern Civil Rights Movement; the March on Washington; the Black Power Movement; the migration of southern Blacks to other parts of the U.S.; the birth of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference in New Orleans; the murder of Emmett Till; the burning of Black churches across the South; Brown v. Board of Education; the assassinations of Medgar Evers, Malcolm X and Martin Luther King Jr.; the election of New Orleans’ first Black mayor; the freedom struggle in South Africa; the election of South African President Nelson Mandela; the anti-apartheid movement in the U.S. and New Orleans; the Million Man March in the 1990s; the renaming of New Orleans’ public schools; the bombing of the World Trade Center; and the elections of President Barack Obama.
The Louisiana Weekly has featured the writings of Black leaders including W.E.B. DuBois, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., the Rev. Jesse Jackson Sr., Malcolm X, and local luminaries such as the late great Catholic priest Father Jerome LeDoux, Marc H. Morial, and prominent Black syndicated columnists.
The Louisiana Weekly has documented important stories like Hurricane Katrina and published investigated reports on police brutality and judicial actions that affected the Black community.
Today, The Louisiana Weekly is read globally, across the U.S., from California to New York, to Japan, China, Africa, France and other countries. Today, The Louisiana Weekly is a member of the National Newspaper Publishers Association (1940-Present), the successor to the ANP, and has access to national and international content.
Both founders came to the venture as educated men with a flair for entrepreneurship.
Publisher C.C. Dejoie Sr. was educated in the New Orleans Public Schools and earned a degree from Southern University A&M. He invested $2,000.00 to launch the newspaper. Dejoie was president of the Unity Industrial Life Insurance Company but he also invested in a variety of other businesses, including a Black-owned oil company in Mound Bayou, Mississippi.
One of seven children born to Aristide Dejoie and Ellen Cumberland, C.C. inherited his entrepreneurial spirit from his father but also his dedication to civil rights. Aristide Dejoie was the president and a founding member of the New Orleans Chapter of the Negro Business League, an organization founded by Booker T. Washington. However, although he was a free person of color, he fought to end slavery as a member of the Union Army’s Native Guard.
Aristide Dejoie Sr. also served as a city assessor and he served two-terms as a state representative. He helped to merge several Black mutual aid and benevolent societies into the Unity Industrial Life Insurance Company and became the principal owner in the company. Dejoie also invested in several family businesses, including pharmacies, and undertaking companies.
O.C.W. Taylor, the founding editor, graduated from Wiley College and Columbia University. He spent 42 years in the public school system as a teacher and administrator. He left The Louisiana Weekly in 1927 to pursue a multifaceted media career. Taylor ran a public relations firm, he was the first Black radio and television personality, he was the state agent and reporter for the Pittsburgh Courier and Chicago Defender, a representative for the ANP; a JET magazine correspondent for 20 years and the publisher of Crescent City Pictorial.
C.C. Dejoie Jr. and Henry Baxter Dejoie Sr. – C.C. Sr.’s sons – took over operations of The Louisiana Weekly in 1970. In the mid-1980s C.C. Dejoie Jr.’s son, Michael, assumed editorial duties. In the 1990s, Henry Sr.’s daughter, Renette and her husband, the late James Hall, got involved in the newspaper’s operations. She worked on the editorial side and James handled distribution and subscriptions. Dejoie-Hall’s younger brother, Bertel Dejoie managed the business affairs of the newspaper.
Today, Renette Dejoie-Hall and her son Christopher D. Hall continue the legacy and mission of the newspaper.
“As long as we see racial injustice, economic exploitation, public corruption, unconstitutional policing and other practices and policies that violate the human and constitutional rights of men, women and children, we will continue to fight the good fight,” Renette Dejoie-Hall affirms.
This article originally published in the September 14, 2020 print edition of The Louisiana Weekly newspaper.
