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Black Quotidian: Everyday History in African-American Newspapers

Philadelphia Tribune - August 31, 1963 - Sign Outside Baker House

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August - Archived Posts
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August 1, 1940: Los Angeles Sentinelcalls for abolition of poll tax.
August 2, 1958: Ghanian Prime Minister Kwame Nkrumah welcomed in Harlem, reported in Norfolk Journal and Guide.
August 3, 1939: Clark University octet performs at Seventh World’s Poultry Congress and Exposition in Cleveland, reported in Call and Post.
August 4, 1983: Los Angeles Sentinel profile of Janice Darling, owner and fitness director of Sweat Shop in Culver City.
August 5, 1939: Singer Maxine Sullivan prepares for jazz version of “Midsummer Night’s Dream,” photo in New York Amsterdam News.
August 6, 1966: Advertisement for news carriers in Norfolk Journal and Guide.
August 7, 1909: Tenth Cavalry returns to New York City from Philippine Islands, reported in Baltimore Afro-American.
August 8, 1936: Jesse Owens dominates the 1936 Berlin Olympics, reported in Chicago Defender.
August 9, 1975: Chester Commodore editorial cartoon on black unemployment featured in Pittsburgh Courier.
August 10, 1946: World War II veteran Maceo Snipes killed for voting in Georgia, editorial in New York Amsterdam News.
August 11, 1964: Mothers of slain civil rights workers, James Chaney, Andrew Goodman, and Michael Schwerner at funeral, reported in Philadelphia Tribune.
August 12, 1972: “Page One Miss” Betty Jean Thomas in Chicago Defender.
August 13, 1955: “On the Divorce Docket” column in Cleveland Call and Post.
August 14, 1947: Los Angeles Sentinel welcomes Zetas, Kappas, Sigmas, Doctors, and Witnesses to city for conferences.
August 15, 1966: James Brown and Muhammad Ali ride in Chicago Defender’s Bud Billiken Parade.
August 16, 1975: Dawn Magazine supplement in Pittsburgh Courier and Baltimore Afro-American.
August 17, 1932: Langston Hughes and two dozen African-American artists stranded in Moscow after film project is cancelled, reported in Atlanta Daily World.
August 18, 1917: Great Migration in the Norfolk Journal and Guide.
August 19, 1911: Lynching of Zachariah Walker in Pittsburgh Courier.
August 20, 1931: Philadelphia Tribune advertisement boasting about paper’s printing technology, staff, and service to citizens of Philadelphia.
August 21, 1943: East Bronx merchants screen Stormy Weather, weeks after Harlem riot, reported in New York Amsterdam News.
August 22, 1950: Black troops in 24th Infantry Regiment fighting in Korean War, reported in Atlanta Daily World.
August 23, 1924: Dr. Robert Russa Moton speaks in Chicago, covered in Norfolk Journal and Guide.
August 24, 1939: “Dark Night” protest against discriminatory practices by Los Angeles Bureau of Power and Light, reported in Los Angeles Sentinel.
August 25, 1917: National Medical Association moves annual meeting from Memphis to Philadelphia in response to lynching of Ell Persons.
August 26, 1961: Fifteen-year-old Preston Cobb Jr. sentenced to death in Georgia, reported in Cleveland Call and Post.
August 27, 1977: New York Amsterdam News highlights what Elvis Presley took from black musicians.
August 28, 2001: Philadelphia Tribune mourns death of Aaliyah.
August 29, 1953: Philadelphia Tribune announces engagement of pianist Eunice Waymon (Nina Simone).
August 29, 1960: NAACP Youth Council stages “wade in” at Rainbow Beach, reported in Chicago Defender. Guest post by Nick Juravich, Ph.D. candidate in the department of History at Columbia University.
August 30, 1930: Riot breaks out at National Baptist Convention, reported in Baltimore Afro-American.
August 31, 1963: Philadelphia Tribune on the death of W.E.B. Dubois and a white mob harassing a black family for moving into all-white neighborhood in Folcroft, PA.
August 31, 1963 On August 31, 1963, the Philadelphia Tribune's front page carried two sad news stories. First, the Tribune mourned the death of W.E.B. Dubois at the age of 93 (click to view article PDF). “It is ironic that much of what is happening to the Negro now—in the courts and in the streets—was urged by Dr. DuBois half a century ago,” the article read. “It is equally ironic that Negro leaders of today snubbed him and his counsel just as they did 50 years ago.”

The Tribune’s front page also featured articles and photographs about a black family who were harassed and threatened by a white mob after trying to move into a house in Folcroft, Pennsylvania, an all-white suburban area ten miles southwest of Center City Philadelphia. The Fair Housing Council of Delaware Valley and the interracial Friends Suburban Housing real estate agency helped Horace and Sarah Baker find a home in Folcroft. When the Bakers and their children tried to move in to the home at 2002 Heather Road, however, they were met by a several hundred white adults and children who shouted racial epithets, broke windows in the home, threatened physical violence, and hung a large sign outside the property reading “Nigger House.” “As a Tribune reporter for the past eight years,” Art Peters wrote, “I have seen hate-crazed, blood-thirsty mobs in Little Rock and in Birmingham. But, these cities are in the Deep South. Yesterday, I saw the same fierce hatred reflected in the faces of a white mob surrounding a Negro home less than 20 miles from Philadelphia—in the tiny, all-white community of Delmar Village.” George Crump, a black police officer in neighboring Darby Township, told the Tribune that Folcroft police allowed “a crazed mob to run amuck” and that the mob “went on a rampage beating up every Negro who came into the area and stoning autos driven by Negro motorists.” This violent attempt to block a black family from moving into Folcroft came two days after Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. delivered his “I Have a Dream” speech at the March on Washington.

The Bakers lived in Folcroft for several months, but the nonstop harassment eventually forced them to move. They found a home in West Mt. Airy, an intentionally integrated community northwest of Philadelphia.