Black newspapers

[Steve Thomas]

I think this would be a fruitful area of research.

I have always been struck by the number of black or African-American spectators in Dealey Plaza at the time of assassination.

I wonder if anyone has ever combed the archives of small black-owned Dallas newspapers in 1963 who might have published interviews with readers who were present on November 22nd. I think these observers have largely been overlooked.

I know that in the 1970's, using federal grant money, the State Libraries in many states undertook a project to microfilm or archive the smaller newspapers held by public libraries in towns that didn't have the funds or equipment to do their own microfilming. I'm not talking about the Dallas Times Herald or Morning News, but the smaller papers that didn't get much attention. I don't have access to the Ulrich's International Directory, but it will tell you which papers were published and the dates of publication. Being smaller papers, these will probably not be indexed and a person will more than likely have to comb through the papers issue by issue, but I think it would be a worthwhile endeavor.

Steve Thomas