"Associated Negro Press" (3-2-1919)

The ANP was the oldest and largest African American press service in the United States.Founded in Chicago in 1919 by Claude Albert Barnett,a young African American entrepreneur who remained its director for the next four and a half decades,the ANP supplied news stories,opinion columns,feature essays,and reviews of books and movies to African American newspapers throughout the country.The ANP's service enable its membership,which included nearly all of the major African American newspapers in the United States as well as many of he smaller ones,to offer their readers detailed coverage of activities within African American communities across the country.The service also included the latest news about national trends and events concerning African American.With an effective mixture of reforming zeal and business insight,Claude built the ANP into an important news gathering network that helped to heighten black self-esteem long before the civil rights revolution of the 1060s.The Claude A.Barnett Papers,published at the ANP headquarters office on Chicago's South Side,sifted information from such sources as reciprocal reports by African American newspapers,announcements from foundations and organizations,and reports from ANP correspondents.From these sources their editors complied news releases.The people who wrote by-lined columns for the ANPs news releases document a vast range of the of the experiences of African Americans from the 1920s through the 196os.Their organizational papers are the working of a successful and influential African American business.Claude contacts with African Americans & whites from all communities generated a rich and varied correspondence that was unique.Claude retired in 1964,selling the business to Al Duckett,an African American press veteran from New York.Claude died of a cerebral hemorrhage in 1967,and the ANP followed him no too many years afterward.The ANP remained unsurpassed during its time because it gave the African American viewpoint and interpretation of African American activities and written together by African Americans.The idea is still a good one.