May 13, 1993.

Clipping from September 22, 1934.

Just under 50 issues of The Charlotte Post have recently been added to the DigitalNC newspaper collection, rounding out the rest of  2006 and ending on October 11, 2007. If you have been following us closely, you may have noticed that over the past two years we have routinely been scanning and uploading issues of The Charlotte Post. In fact, we now have a grand total of 1,041 issues available to view online! We think this is a cause to celebrate. In this blog, we’ll go through a brief look back at our entire Post collection. Many thanks go out to our long time partners at Johnson C. Smith University for supplying all the issues in this collection.

While a majority of our Post issues are from the mid 1970s to the mid 2000s, the earliest issues come from the 1930s. Since its debut in 1878, the Post has provided an African American perspective on news local to Charlotte, North Carolina and beyond. While we only have three issues from the 30s, they contribute Black voices to our primary source material of that period.

Clipping from March 17, 1977.

Weekly issues from the 70s through 90s continue to highlight the African American community in and around Charlotte. While the tagline for the Post in the 30s was “The Paper with a Heart and Soul”, in the early 70s it changed to “Charlotte’s Fastest Growing Community Weekly” and then finally landed on “The Voice of the Black Community”. Weekly features become frequent in this era of the Post, such as “Beauty of the Week” and The B.E.E. (Black Entertainment Events) Line.

Once we arrive in the new millennium, issues become longer and have strict sections. These sections cover a wide range of topics typical of modern newspapers: editorials, weather, life, religion, sports, real estate, business, A&E (arts and entertainment), and classifieds. Special editions were also intermittently added to issues, such as the CIAA Basketball Tournament edition and Top Seniors.

Clipping from April 26, 2007.

The Post continues to be printed to this day and we hope to add many more issues of it for future digital viewing. To start your own Post collection exploration, click here to browse by year. If you would like to look at all African American newspapers on DigitalNC, click here. And to learn more about JCSU, click here.

The Charlotte Post, September 28, 2006.

A small but meaningful addition of 33 issues of The Charlotte Post have been added to DigitalNC’s online collection, further expanding the digital access of this contemporary (and ongoing) newspaper. All 33 issues are from 2006, ranging from March 16 to November 2. Thanks to our longstanding partners at Johnson C. Smith University for allowing us to share these images.

Goldie Phillips started her own company, Island Flavors, to raise money for graduate school, April 20, 2006.

Known as “The Voice of the Black Community,” The Charlotte Post not only delivers relevant national and global news, but focuses on Black topics in and around the Charlotte, N.C. area. Creating space to vocalize achievements from the community, such as printing an entire supplement showcasing the Black high school graduates of Mecklenburg County, as well as navigating issues normally left untold by U.S. news outlets, such as mental illness in the Black community and the racial income gap, The Charlotte Post fills in an inequality information gap for all to benefit from.

The 2006 issues of The Charlotte Post sectioned off the newspaper by topic, including Religion, Sports, Arts and Entertainment, Business, Real Estate, and Classifieds. Covering a variety of subjects, The Charlotte Post maintained consistent features in each section, such as “Sounds,” by Winfred Cross. In Arts and Entertainment, Cross reviewed new music releases, like India.Arie’s Testimony, Vol. 1.

For a look at all of the issues DigitalNC has online from The Charlotte Post, click here. To view all materials from Johnson C. Smith University, click here, and to visit their website, click here.

Front page articles, April 20, 2006.

The April 13, 1968 front page of The Carolinian, reporting on the aftermath of Dr. King’s assassination.

The newest issues to DigitalNC of one of Raleigh’s African American newspapers, The Carolinian, cover the most turbulent years of the Civil Rights Era. Recently added are issues from 1959-1962, 1965-1972. These join issues from 1945-1958, 1963-1964, which are already available on our site. 

Within these new additions you will find coverage of the sit-ins in Greensboro and throughout the state, North Carolina’s protracted battle over school integration, the assassinations of Malcolm X and Martin Luther King, Jr.. There is ongoing reporting about both local and national efforts of the NAACP, KKK demonstrations and counter-protests, and news about boycotts and protests at the state’s historically Black colleges and universities.

The paper covers local news – achievements of adults and children alike, events, crime. Milestones of integration appear as well, like the first known birth of an African American child at Rex Hospital in Raleigh.

Thanks to Olivia Raney Local History Library in Raleigh for securing permission to share The Carolinian online. You can view all of the issues currently available, as well as everything we’ve scanned for Olivia Raney on their contributor page.