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Black Community News
The Black Community News Collection compiles searchable newspaper articles and ads for local Black community events, schools, social gatherings, church events, obituaries, and wedding announcements in older local newspapers in the library’s collection. In addition to Lexington news, the articles contain information about people in many surrounding communities, as well.
In 1898, Lexington’s evening paper, the Leader* began publishing specific news columns about the local Black community and society events. Early columns were scattered and not consistently named; they were titled “Weldon” or “Welden” after the first Black columnist, “In Colored Circles,” “In Colored Society,” and later, became a more standard column titled, “Colored News” and “Colored Notes.” The other local paper, the morning Herald, began publishing a similar column in the 1920s. Lexington at that time had a weekly Black newspaper, the Lexington Standard, that ran from 1892-1912, when it briefly became the Lexington Weekly News before it folded.
The first reporter/columnist of Black social news in the Leader was John Weldon Jewett, a local educator later appointed to the IRS; he would often sign announcements with “Weldon” or “Welden” or “JW.” After his death in 1905, columns were contributed by William Henry Ballard, who opened the first Black pharmacy in Kentucky in 1893, and others. In 1925, the Herald appointed a separate department managed by Lucy J. Cochran, which was housed separately from the general newspaper office, and after multiple editors, D. I. Reid took over in 1934 and ran it until his death in 1950.
Community groups began to challenge the term “colored” and the “Colored Notes” being a separate news column in the 1950s, but Black community news was not integrated with the rest of the newspaper until 1969.
The only surviving issues of the Lexington Standard and the Lexington Weekly News can be found on Chronicling America.
Information about the Lexington newspapers and early Black editors was compiled from:
NKAA Database entry “Colored Circles, Colored News Notes, Colored News, General Colored News, and Colored Notes (Lexington Newspapers)”
Biographical sketches of prominent Negro men and women of Kentucky by W. D. Johnson, (1897)
*The Leader began as the Kentucky Leader in 1888, and several years later became the Daily Leader and the Sunday editions labeled as The Sunday Leader. It became the Lexington Leader in 1901, began sharing Sundays with the Lexington Herald in the 1950s, and eventually fully combined with the Herald to become the Lexington Herald-Leader in 1983.
Collection Content
Years Available:
The Leader: 1898, 1899
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News and Information from news sources around the globe. Features dozens of newspapers in their original printed format with pictures, including Irish Times, Jerusalem Post, Sydney Morning Herald, The Times (London), and many more.
Black Community News Collection
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Content from over 80 Kentucky newspapers and news sources, including the Lexington Herald-Leader.
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Lexington Weekly Press (1881)
The Lexington Weekly Press was published every Wednesday in Lexington, Kentucky, and contained local, state, and foreign news. The paper focused on Central Kentucky’s “agriculture, manufactures and fine stock”, as well as literary and scientific news, market reports, and serial stories. Local weddings, deaths, community events, and elections for Lexington and the surrounding region. The paper was sent anywhere in the United States at a cost of one dollar per year.
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The Kentucky Reporter (1817-1830)
The Kentucky Reporter was published from October 1817-April 1832, by William W. Worsley and Thomas Smith. It is the direct continuation of the The Reporter. Politically, it was a Republican paper (Jeffersonian Democratic Republican - liberal at the time.) It reported local and national news, elections, and speeches. The Library’s digital and microfilm collection ends in December 1830, but the bound volumes are available by request in the Kentucky Room Closed Stacks through 1832.
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The Daily Argonaut (1895-1899)
The Daily Argonaut began in 1895 and seems to have ceased publication in 1899. This collection includes scattered issues from 1896, 1897 and 1898. The paper focuses more on sensational news and tabloid-like reporting, though it later claims to be the only "Democratic Daily" in Central Kentucky. Many of the issues in this collection cover the Pearl Bryan Murder. The 1897 Courthouse Fire is also covered in detail.
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Kentucky Histories Collection
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Search and read articles from Consumer Reports in the EBSCO database. Provided by the Kentucky Virtual Library.
