Barnett, Claude Albert

Scott, William Alexander II

1902-1934

Founded the Atlanta World in 1928 at age 26, which became the Atlanta Daily World in 1932 — the first successful African American daily newspaper of the 20th century — and built the nation’s first chain of Black newspapers, eventually growing to fifty publications

Sengstacke, John Herman Henry

1912-1997

Inherited the Chicago Defender from his uncle, founder Robert Abbott, in 1940, converted it to a daily newspaper in 1956, and founded the National Newspaper Publishers Association the same week as Abbott’s death, uniting the country’s Black-owned newspapers into a collective national voice for the first time

Dunnigan, Alice Allison

1906-1983

Became the first African American woman credentialed to cover the White House, Congress, and the Supreme Court, breaking into the Senate and House press galleries in 1947 and covering three U.S. presidents over a fourteen-year Washington career

Davis, Frank Marshall

1905-1987

Transformed the Atlanta Daily World into the first successful African American daily newspaper as its managing editor in the early 1930s, then spent twelve years as executive editor of the Associated Negro Press while building a parallel career as one of the era’s most acclaimed social-realist poets