The People's Voice, also known as Voice, was a newspaper based in Harlem, New York City to serve the African American community. Adam Clayton Powell Jr., a New York politician and pastor, founded the newspaper in 1942. Voice mainly focused on racial issues, local events and investigative news, but it also covered entertainment and sports. Many activists and writers contributed to Voice, including Ann Petry, Fredi Washington, and Marvel Cooke. The paper stopped publication in 1948 partly due to accusations that Voice was circulating Communist propaganda.
History
Adam Clayton Powell Jr. founded The People's Voice in 1941. Powell's novice 1941 term in the New York city council was met with a lot of criticism from Harlem journalists. Supporter Charlie Buchanan, along with investor Mo Gale, encouraged Powell to start his own newspaper to mitigate these denunciations. Subsequently, Powell and Buchanan co-founded the Powell-Buchanan Publishing Company in New York City, located on 210 West 125th Street Harlem, New York City, in order to circulate this newspaper. Influenced by the Communist Party's ideals of a democratic coalition, Powell named the paper The People's Voice.
The paper also served other purposes: to propagate Powell's political ideals and set the stage for his eventual Congressional campaign. Additionally, Powell wanted to distinguish his paper from news companies like his former employer Amsterdam News, which he felt lacked "information for the democratically-minded African American reader". Powell recruited writers to jump ship from the Amsterdam News to Voice, including journalists Marvel Cooke and St. Claire Bourne
After releasing its first issue on February 14, 1942, Voice was published weekly. At the peak of its popularity, it sold about 40,000 – 50,000 copies per week.
The paper published criticisms of racism across industries and featured writers prominent in the Double V campaign initiated by the Pittsburgh Courier, which encouraged African Americans to fight for an end to White supremacy in Europe and in the United States. When Powell became the first African American congressman from New York in 1945, as historian Gerald Horne puts it, he was caught between activism and entrepreneurialism. In order to appease anti-Communists, he attempted to purge the newspaper of presumed Communists, including Fredi Washington and Doxey Wilkerson.
Shortly after winning his Congressional campaign, Powell resigned as editor and chairman of the Powell-Buchanan Publishing Corporation. He was replaced by Denton J. Brooks Jr., and then by Max Yergan.
Anti-Communist attacks on the paper, staffing turnover, and financial issues all contributed to its closure in 1948. In total, seven volumes of The People's Voice were published during its six-year run.
Contributors
Adam Clayton Powell Jr., was the founder, editor, and co-publisher of The People's Voice. Powell was born in 1908 to Mattie Buster Shaffer and renowned Baptist preacher Adam Clayton Powell Sr. Powell founded The People's Voice after obtaining his college degree at Colgate University, and he served as the paper's editor until he was elected the first Black New York state representative in 1945.
Journalist and activist Marvel Cooke worked as the assistant managing editor. Later in her career, she would break ground by becoming the first African American woman to work at The Daily Compass, a popular White newspaper.
Ann Petry, a writer and social activist whose work focused on African American life, also contributed to Voice as a reporter from 1941 to 1944. Years after she stopped writing for Voice, Petry broke records as the first African American woman to sell more than a million copies of a book with her novel The Street.
Another contributor was Fredi Washington, who was Powell's sister-in-law, a renowned Black actress, and co-founder of the Negro Actors Guild. As the paper's entertainment editor, she publicized local events and highlighted Black entertainers' careers and the challenges they confronted as Black artists.
Content
The People's Voice covered a variety of topics, including racism in the city, entertainment, and opinion columns primarily written for the local African American audience of Harlem.
Voice advocated for the local community through direct suggestions to the city government. For example, after the 1943 Detroit race riot that killed 34 people, Powell used Voice to urge the New York City council to appoint an interracial committee that could advise on racial issues so "we won't have a Detroit in New York."