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| In this Nov. 20, 2014, photo, New Pittsburgh Courier editor and publisher Rod Doss, left, and assistant to to publisher Stephan Broadus, right, show copies of the paper with focus on black on black violent crime while in the newspaper conference room in Pittsburgh. The Courier, an historic black newspaper, began a campaign with coverage of each homicide almost a decade ago because editors at the Courier simply felt black-on-black killings were not getting the attention they deserved. |
PITTSBURGH
(AP) -- At the start of every month, the same image of a pistol points
from the same place on the front page of the New Pittsburgh Courier,
above the same caption: Under Attack By Us!
The only thing that changes is the number of the dead.
"75
of 91 homicides Black lives," read a recent headline in the renowned
black newspaper's crusade against black-on-black violence. It was
accompanied, as always, by a literal body count: The name, race and
manner of death for every homicide in Pittsburgh in 2014 - with victims
being overwhelmingly black, as the headline shows.
For
years across the news media, stories have focused on cases like the
killing of Michael Brown, the unarmed black 18-year-old, by a white
police officer in Ferguson, Missouri. And for years, the Courier has
kept asking: What about all these other black lives lost?
That gun on its front page might as well be a finger pointed at black America - from a mirror.
"We
are challenging the community to own this problem," says Rod Doss,
editor and publisher of the 107-year-old weekly newspaper, which
sometimes does an in-depth story on a particular victim but unfailingly
updates and reprints its list, including whether anyone has been
arrested.
The campaign began almost a decade
ago because editors at the Courier simply felt black-on-black killings
were not getting the attention they deserved. At first, it met with
strong resistance from the paper's readership - "almost like we were
uncovering dirty laundry. Nobody wanted us to talk about it," Doss
says.
Slowly, though, that attitude started
to change. The number of rallies and vigils increased. Mothers of the
dead banded together to try to stop the tragedies. Police were pressured
to solve more of the murders.
"People began
to understand, we were doing it out of concern for black life," Doss
says. "We tried to make the issue that every black life is important."
The
Pittsburgh metro area, population 1.2 million, is vibrant after
rebounding from the collapse of the steel industry in the 1970s and
`80s.
But poverty and violence still afflict black areas such as
Wilkinsburg, Homewood, East Liberty and the fabled Hill District, where
the playwright August Wilson was born, Louis Armstrong blew his trumpet,
and baseball legends Satchel Paige and Josh Gibson played.
The
metro area's annual number of homicides has ranged from 71 to
120 between 2007 and 2013. In 2013, the homicide rate of 4.1 per 100,000
residents was 12th highest in the nation, according to FBI data, but
well below that of the worst metro areas, Baltimore (10.0) and Detroit
(9.6).
In Pittsburgh and many other big cities, most of the homicides
are black males killing each other.
Rashad
Byrdsong, a Pittsburgh native and leader of the Community Empowerment
Association, has worked for decades to help stop the violence through
myriad efforts, from hands-on street conflict resolution to hiring
minority residents to work for his own construction company.
He is the
type of grassroots activist, common in cities across America, whose
efforts are often overlooked when critics say that the black community
only cares when a white person kills a black person.
A
recent example of this criticism came when former New York City Mayor
Rudolph Giuliani appeared on "Meet the Press" to comment on nationwide
protests over a grand jury declining to indict the officer who killed
Brown in Ferguson.
"What about the poor black child that was killed by another black child? Why aren't you protesting that?" Giuliani said.
"Why
don't you cut (the homicide rate) down so that so many white police
officers don't have to be in black areas?" Giuliani continued, speaking
to a black panelist.
Byrdsong has been trying to do exactly that. He supports the Courier's focus on the killings, but argues there is a broader narrative that also must be addressed.
He
calls it "social violence": few opportunities for early childhood
development; over-prescription of drugs like Ritalin to black boys; high
rates of school suspensions and expulsions; racial profiling;
disproportionate unemployment and incarceration; and more.
"When
we talk about violence, the details in the newspaper are the finality
that we're reading about.
There are a lot of small violent episodes
occurring in these young men's lives that led up to the article,"
Byrdsong says. "There are a lot of systemic and structural impediments
that prevent the advancement of a certain group of people."
These
structural barriers may help explain why few confront black-on-black
killings as forcefully and repeatedly as the Courier does.
Many
black advocates believe obstacles to black advancement are the root
cause of such killings, and that eliminating them should get the bulk of
attention. They say blaming the problems of poor black communities
solely on the behavior of some residents comes uncomfortably close to
the view of certain white critics (and some black ones) that poverty and
a lack of opportunity had nothing to do with bad choices.
On the other
hand, some advocates downplay black misbehavior, suggesting that racial
obstacles cannot be overcome through good choices.
Those
who do mention black behavior can be castigated for "blaming the
victim." Even President Barack Obama has been stung by black critics for
sprinkling talk of "responsibility" into his rare racial speeches.
"Black
people will get extremely fired up and fight for a Trayvon Martin (the
black teen fatally shot by a neighborhood watch volunteer in Florida) or
any time a white person kills a black person, or police kill a black
person. You got rallies and marches and protests, you get your national
leaders involved," says Ulish Carter, the Courier's managing
editor. "But all these situations with blacks killing blacks, you're
just as dead."
Stephen Broadus, the Courier's assistant to the publisher, thinks the black community has become resigned to violence.
"Another black kid gone, no big deal. Another black kid in jail, no big deal," he says, summarizing that view.
"We've become numb," says Ashley Johnson, the Courier reporter who writes the Under Attack stories.
And
what makes the Courier feel it can challenge its readers with coverage
that is unsparing and painful to read? It's because of the paper's
record of deep, longstanding support. Since its founding in 1907,
perhaps no newspaper has done more to advocate for black people.
Anti-discrimination,
political empowerment, health care and housing were just a few issues
the paper championed in its early years. It fought for the desegregation
of professional sports.
Courier sportswriter Wendell Smith is credited
with recommending Jackie Robinson to Brooklyn Dodgers owner Branch
Rickey, and Smith then chronicled Robinson breaking of baseball's color
barrier, even rooming with him on trips to segregated areas.
During
World War II, the Courier's "Double V" campaign published weekly
stories advocating "for victory at home against prejudice and
discrimination as well as victory abroad against the enemies of
democracy," as one article stated.
W.E.B.
DuBois, Marcus Garvey, James Weldon Johnson and Zora Neale Hurston all
had bylines in the Courier.
At its height, the paper was distributed
nationwide, and its local and national editions had a circulation
reaching 350,000.
"By any fair-minded
historical measure, the Pittsburgh Courier is one of the most important
newspapers in American history," says David Shribman, executive editor
of Pittsburgh's biggest paper, the Post-Gazette.
"No serious student of
race relations in the United States can ignore the vital role played by
the Courier, which in its time may have been as important as Frederick
Douglass' newspaper, The North Star."
The Under Attack By Us series is a continuation of this legacy. And it's making a difference, people say.
"Just
by talking about these deaths, it's making people stand up," says
Richard Garland, a community activist and University of Pittsburgh
instructor who works directly with violence-prone youth. "What the
Courier is doing is letting everyone know what the plight of
African-Americans is."
Doss, the editor and
publisher, says the role of the Courier has always been to take the lead
on important black issues - popular or not.
"In
many instances we've been in the vanguard of creating change, because
we do challenge the community from within," Doss says. "That's where it
begins."
