ABSTRACT
Black owned and operated newspapers represent and advocate AfricanAmericans’ interests and concerns that the mainstream media have marginalized or ignored (Huspek 2004, 217; Hutton 1993, 26; Kessler, 1984, 21; Lacy, Stephens and Soffi n 1991, 8; Wilson and Gutierrez 1995, 41; Wolseley 1990, 6). Appealing to principles of democracy and human rights, the black press has challenged the self-righteousness of dominant society and its oppression and mistreatment of African Americans in the United States as well as other groups worldwide. In editorials, articles and political cartoons, black press news coverage during both world wars pointed out the hypocrisy of a nation that symbolized democratic freedom to the world yet mistreated its own citizens at home (Kornweibel 1994, 155; Washburn 1986a, 73). Human rights abuses anywhere, they argued, threatened human dignity and security everywhere (Carson, 1998, 40-50).1 This was especially true regarding black-owned and -operated newspapers’ uses of the Jewish Holocaust of the 1930s and 1940s as an opportunity to expand their human rights advocacy for groups other than African Americans. Although the mainstream press in the United States published vivid reports of the Nazi brutality, it did not focus on the immorality of the practices in the way the African-American press did. Drawing upon two leading newspapers, we will highlight how The Chicago Defender and The Pittsburgh Courier, in contrast to mainstream coverage, underscored the importance of human rights as they related to issues of the Holocaust.
