Claude Barnett
*On this date, in 1889, Claude Barnett was born. He was a Black journalist and entrepreneur.
From Sanford, Fla., Claude Albert Barnett moved to Illinois to live with relatives when he was very young. In 1906, he received an engineering degree from Tuskegee Institute. He worked as a postal clerk and an advertising salesman in Chicago until 1915.
Barnett noticed the need for a news service for black newspapers concerned with themes relevant to the African American community. He created a small mail-order business during this time, marketing photos of famous Blacks. Along with others, he also established the Kashmir Chemical Company (a cosmetics firm).
In 1919, he founded the Associated Negro Press (ANP). By 1935, the ANP was serving over 200 subscribers across the country, and after WW II, its membership grew to include more than 100 Black newspapers. During World War II, Barnett and other Black journalists pressured the U. S. government to accredit Black journalists as war correspondents. In his travels, he wrote many accounts of the adverse effects of Jim Crow segregation in the armed forces. Barnett was also focused on the terrible living conditions of Black tenant farmers. From 1942 to 1953, he consulted the Secretary of Agriculture to improve their conditions.
The ANP ceased operating after Barnett died of a cerebral hemorrhage in 1967. He was a member of the Tuskegee Board of Directors until 1965. He held a similar post with the American Red Cross, Chicago's Supreme Liberty Life Insurance Company, and was president of the board of directors of Chicago's Provident Hospital.
The Claude Barnett Papers
LexisNexis
7500 Old Georgetown Rd Suite 1300
Bethesda MD 20814.6126 USA
Photography by Vincent Saunders, Jr.,
courtesy of the Chicago History Museum
