page_title: Charlotta Bass
section_title: California Eagle
hierarchical_section_title: Charlotta Bass / California Eagle
caption_attribution_description: English: Actor, singer, and civil rights activist Paul Robeson speaks with fellow activist and California Eagle editor and publisher Charlotta Bass. Both Paul Robeson and Charlotta Bass were accused of disloyalty by the Committee of Un-American Activities and were the subjects to federal investigations.
context_page_description: Charlotta Amanda Spears Bass was an American educator, newspaper publisher-editor, and civil rights activist. She also focused on various other issues such as housing rights, voting rights, and labor rights, as well as police brutality and harassment. Bass is believed to be the first African-American woman to own and operate a newspaper in the United States; she published the California Eagle from 1912 until 1951. In 1952, Bass became the first African-American woman nominated for Vice President, as a candidate of the Progressive Party.
  Due to her activities, Bass was repeatedly accused of being part of the Communist Party, for which there was no evidence and which Bass herself repeatedly denied. She was monitored by the FBI, who continued to view her as a potential security threat up until she was in her nineties.
context_section_description: The Eagle developed a large black readership. By 1925, the Eagle employed a staff of twelve and published twenty pages a week. The Eagle's circulation of 60,000 made it the largest African-American newspaper on the West Coast. It is credited as pioneering multiethnic politics, advocating Asian-American and Mexican-American civil rights in the 1940s, during which time the California Eagle, along with other African-American presses, were under investigation by the Office of the Secretary of War, who viewed it as a threat to national security. The Department of Justice interrogated Bass in 1942 over claims that the paper was funded by Japan and Germany.  
  When the editor John J. Neimore became ill, he turned the operations of the Eagle over to Spears. After Neimore's death, the paper's new owner put Spears in charge. She renamed the newspaper company to the California Eagle due to increasing social and political issues.
  Her purpose for the California Eagle was to write about the wrongs of society. The newspaper served as a source of both information and inspiration for the black community, which was often ignored or negatively portrayed by the predominant white press. As publisher, Bass was committed to producing a quality periodical. In her weekly column "On the Sidewalk", begun in 1927, she drew attention to unjust social and political conditions for all Los Angeles minority communities and campaigned vigorously for reform.
  Bass published the California Eagle from 1912 until 1951. Bass and her husband combated such issues as the derogatory images in D. W. Griffith's film, The Birth of a Nation; Los Angeles' discriminatory hiring practices; the revival of the Ku Klux Klan; police brutality; and restrictive housing covenants. In her pursuit against the Ku Klux Klan Bass received threatening phone calls and at one point was confronted by eight men robed in white, who she scared off after displaying a firearm. She was also unsuccessfully sued for libel by Klan leader G.W. Price after Bass published a letter from the clan which detailed plans to exterminate black leaders.
  The Basses championed the black soldiers of the Twenty-Fourth Infantry who were unjustly sentenced in the 1917 Houston race riot. They also covered the case and supported the "Scottsboro Boys," nine young men who were framed and convicted of rape in Scottsboro, Alabama, in 1931.
  In 1934, Joseph Bass died and Charlotta Bass assumed control of the paper. The paper's coverage and focus during the 1940s has caused it to been credited as pioneering multi-ethnic politics, advocating Asian-American and Mexican-American civil rights. During this time period the California Eagle, along with other African-American presses, were under investigation by the Office of the Secretary of War, who viewed it as a threat to national security. The Department of Justice interrogated Bass in 1942 over claims that the paper was funded by Japan and Germany. The FBI continued to monitor Bass, as they deemed her actions as advocating the Communist Party despite a lack of evidence and Bass herself denying any assertions of the kind. In 1943, the Department of Justice was asked by the Post Office Department to revoke her mailing permit. The Post Office Department argued that the newspaper could not be mailed due to sensitive and illegal material within the paper. Bass again won the case, and the Department of Justice said her mailing permit would not be revoked.
  Bass continued to use the paper as a way of raising awareness of various issues facing African-Americans and other minorities such as restrictive covenants in housing, which the United States Supreme Court found to be unconstitutional in 1948.
  Bass continued to run the California Eagle on her own until selling it in 1951 and moving to New York City, where she focused on politics. Her activism and political activities would result in continued belief that she was a communist, which she continued to deny.
caption: Bass and Paul Robeson, Los Angeles, 1949
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