Associated Negro Press
The Associated Negro Press (ANP) was an American news service founded in 1919 in Chicago, Illinois by Claude Albert Barnett. The ANP had correspondents, writers, reporters in all major centers of the black population in the United States of America. It supplied news stories, opinions, columns, feature essays, book and movie reviews, critical and comprehensive coverage of events, personalities, and institutions relevant to black Americans. As the ANP grew into a global network. It supplied the vast majority of black newspapers with twice weekly packets. The office of the Associated Negro Press was located at 312 South  Clark Street in Chicago. The ANP served about 150 U.S. Negro newspapers and 100 newspapers in Africa in French and English. It is stated in "The Rise & Fall of the Negro Press" by Gerald Horne that from 1865 to 1900 approximately 12,000 newspapers catering to African Americans were in existence. From 1933 to 1940 the Office of War Information wrote that there were about 4 million black readers of Black newspapers. The ANP was the first African American news gathering service with African American foreign correspondents. History. Claude Barnett started the Associated Negro Press in 1919 in Chicago. It was  a service that provided news outlets with news. By 1950 the ANP serviced 200 newspapers across the United States of America and globally. It was the first international news agency for Black newspapers. It supplied news stories relevant to the African American, African, and the African Diaspora communities. The ANP had journalists and writers in Europe, Caribbean, and Africa. The ANP was "the most ambitious black press institution in the country before Johnson Publishing Company and more extensive", according to Gerald Horne in his book "The Rise & Fall of the Associated Negro Press". Around 1945 the ANP grew into a  global network with outlets in Africa, London. In the late 1950s about 75 African papers subscribed to its services. The news packets were in French and in English. The ANP documented African American experiences in the United States of America and abroad from the 1920s to 1960s. The black press during its golden years became, "the greatest single power in the Negro race." During the 'Chicago Black Renaissance', the ANP was an outlet for African American writers. The ANP was a bridge between the black masses and the black intellectuals. The ANP globalized the African American Civil Rights struggle. The  Chicago-based ANP fought racism in America and abroad. It had African correspondents in Kenya, Tanganyika, Southern Rhodesia, Congo, Nigeria, Ghana, and Liberia. The ANP clipped about 100 items from African newspapers for news packets. The ANP reported on and brought attention to racism and racial incidents in the U.S. America, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, Buenos Aires, Argentina, Guatemala, Panama, and Bolivia and wherever there were African people or the African. The ANP was a very significant institution for almost five decades. It is credited with increasing readership and interest in national and international news. In the summer of 1964  the ANP went out of business. It went out of business due to several factors as documented by Gerald Horne, in his book titled "The Rise & Fall of the Associated Negro Press". As integration took hold Barnett no longer had a captive African American market in the news gathering business. Mainstream media started to hire African American writers and journalists; and to report on Jim Crow issues. The new era of Integration opportunities opened up for many of the African American journalists that had worked for the Associated Negro Press. Barnett is quoted as saying in the book "The Rise  & Fall of the Associated Negro Press: Claude Barnett's Pan-African News and the Jim Crow Paradox" by Gerald Horne, "as soon as [we] train a man up, one of the big papers come[s] along and hires him at a price we cannot afford to meet." When the ANP closed it had a membership of 75 American Negro newspapers, 200 African newspapers, two radio stations and two magazines. Notable contributors. Many well known writers and authors contributed articles to the Associated Negro Press. The ANP's Chicago office had a staff of six employees, and 72 correspondents in strategic  locations in the United States of America, Africa, Europe, and the African Diaspora for gathering news stories and reports. They also did news packet mailings.