2022 Essays

Meddlesome Practices Landing Page Text for Black Journalists Oral History Collection

Kratcha, Kae Bara

The Black Journalists Oral History Collection meddles with the definition of “business oral history” by presenting business practices that center community care and activism rather than profit and providing narratives that show the success of the Black press as dependent on a network rather than a single individual. Certainly, many of the narrators interviewer Henry Le Brie speaks to in the collection are business people who are concerned with managing and training their staff, soliciting and printing advertisements, balancing budgets, and other activities necessary to running businesses. However, narrators in the collection often express a political or activist motive in running their papers and give credit to others in their offices and communities for the success of the papers.

Learn more about this collection in the Columbia Libraries Catalog (CLIO): https://clio.columbia.edu/catalog/11561600