Celebrating the History of Black Businesses in Louisville: Newspapers

Newspapers are such an important source of information that they deserve their own page. Not only do they carry news about and advertisements for local businesses, they are also significant businesses in their own right. 

The Louisville Leader was founded in 1917 by I. Willis Cole and was published until just after his death in 1950. In the 1920s, its masthead pronounced the Leader "Kentucky's Reliable and Most Progressive Newspaper," and reminded potential advertisers of its large and growing circulation. 

The Leader is a rich source of information about all aspects of life in Louisville and many other parts of the state, as well, thanks to correspondents from other cities. While there are many missing issues, all those that have been located have been digitized and are available online through the Louisville Leader Collection on the University of Louisville Libraries Digital Collections site. 

The Louisville Defender was established in 1933 by Alvin H. Bowman and John Sengstacke and continues to this day. Frank Stanley bought Sengstacke's interest in the paper in 1936 and remained its publisher until his death in 1974. Frank Stanley's widow and sons continued as publishers until 1985, when they sold the Defender to Clarence Leslie, its current publisher. The Frank Stanley papers include records of the newspaper itself and document interactions with advertisers, circulation drives, and philanthropic efforts and events related to the paper. Many of these people and organizations also appear in the Louisville Defender Photographs Collection, which was received as part of the larger Stanley papers collection. More detailed information about these materials is available in the Frank Stanley Papers finding aid and the Louisville Defender Photographs Collection finding aid. 

The Defender itself is available through the University of Louisville Libraries. Historical issues (1951-2010) are accessible online onsite in the Libraries or with a UofL signon; they are also available through the Louisville Free Public Library's Historical Black Newspapers subscription. 

One of the most significant of these events was the annual Black Expo, aimed at Black consumers. The image below is from the 1969 Expo.