*The first edition of the West Indian Gazette (WIG) newspaper was published on this date in 1958.
It was founded in Brixton, London, England, by Trinidadian communist & Black nationalist activist Claudia Jones. The title as displayed on its masthead was subsequently expanded to West Indian Gazette and Afro-Asian Caribbean News. Starting as a monthly, it quickly gained a circulation of 15,000. The newspaper's offices were in the center of the then-developing Caribbean community in London, at 250 Brixton Road, above a record shop.
According to Donald Hinds, who worked as a journalist on WIG: "It was not merely a vehicle to bring the news of what was happening back home and in the diaspora to Britain. It also commented on the arts in all their forms.... It published poems and stories. Its trenchant editorials did not stop at Britain but had an opinion on what, where, and why of the cold war’s hot spots." WIG is widely considered to have been Britain's first major Black newspaper.
Jones, who originally worked on its development with Amy Ashwood Garvey, was its editor. WIG lasted until 1965 but always struggled financially, closing eight months and four editions after Jones's death.
