As a journalist, advertiser, and philanthropist, Claude A. Barnett was a critical figure in the civil rights movement, and yet his name is one that few people recognize or think of when they think of the civil rights movement. Currently available through ProQuest History Vault, the Claude Barnett Papers contains over 200,000 pages of this fascinating man’s personal and professional correspondence, press releases, newspaper clippings, and financial records for almost fifty years.
From his founding of the Associated Negro Press, the first ever international news agency for black newspapers, in 1919 until his death in 1967, Barnett participated in several social and philanthropic organizations, such as the Elks and Alpha Phi Alpha fraternity. He was a prolific writer with a wide correspondence throughout his personal and professional acquaintance. He was a board member for Provident Hospital in Chicago, director of Supreme Liberty Life Insurance Company, a special assistant to the Department of Agriculture, a secretary for the Republican Party, and a trustee of his alma mater, the Tuskegee Institute. Little happened in the almost half century of history covered in these papers that Barnett was not personally involved in.
Early Life
Born in Florida in 1889, both of Barnett’s parents were employed as domestic workers. When his parents’ marriage fell apart, Barnett moved with his mother back to Chicago, where he would remain for the majority of his life. He worked as a houseboy through high school before attending the Tuskegee Institute. Clearly no stranger to hard work, Barnett finished the advanced course of study there in two years. Those years had a profound effect on him in two ways. First was the continued exposure to the ideas promoted by the school’s founder, Booker T. Washington. Barnett’s mother was a great admirer of Dr. Washington and the principles he espoused: self-help, moderation, respectability, vocational training, and capitalism. These principles would form the backbone of Barnett’s personal philosophy.
Birth of the Associated Negro Press
Office of member newspaper New York City Amsterdam News
The second result of Barnett’s years at Tuskegee was his extensive network of alumni and professors that Barnett drew upon for support throughout his professional career. Barnett worked at the post office and in advertising for over a decade after leaving Tuskegee and used those experiences to create the Associated Negro Press. Undoubtedly Barnett’s most famous achievement, the ANP was a mailing service which provided black newspapers with interest stories, columns, sports news, and entertainment reviews. Since black newspapers of the 1920s and 1930s only printed one weekly edition, the ANP was designed as a mailing service (rather than a wire service) with two weekly mailings. As the service grew in popularity, Barnett expanded to three weekly mailings. In addition to providing black newspaper with material, the ANP also acted as a clipping service with extensive files on people, organizations, and current events.
Despite this busy schedule, Barnett made time for participation in several social and philanthropic organizations. His involvement with the Phelps-Stokes Foundation and the Harmon Foundation led to his extensive travel in Africa. Through his ties with the Tuskegee Institute, Barnett became involved with the Booker Washington Institute in Liberia. Through this involvement and his friendship with President Tubman of Liberia, Barnett became an advocate for greater understanding between Africans and Black Americans. His personal time was also spent in helping promote his wife’s career and helping to raise her three children from a previous marriage. In 1934, Barnett married Etta Moten, a singer and actress. As her career bloomed, Barnett travelled even more. Eventually, the couple temporarily relocated to New York City when Moten starred as “Bess” in the 1942 Broadway revival of Gershwin’s famous “Porgy and Bess.”
The need for a black press was clear early on
Barnett’s death and end of the ANP
During the years of World War II, Barnett advocated the desegregation of the armed forces. Using the ANP to reach Black Americans all over the country, he spearheaded campaigns to desegregate the military and Red Cross blood donations. This was only the beginning of Barnett’s support for the civil rights movement of the 1950s and 1960s. Throughout those decades, the ANP supplied civil rights news to newspaper across the United States. Barnett also supported the civil rights movement through his social and philanthropic organizations, many of which sponsored scholarship for black students.
Ironically, the success of the civil rights movement played a large part in closing down the ANP. As black newspapers became more prosperous, they joined wire services. Also, with the civil rights movement becoming increasingly important to all Americans, many white daily newspapers started to cover civil rights news. The company relied on Barnett’s personal connections to stay in business until 1964, when Barnett’s failing health forced him to close up shop. He died in 1967.
Barnett is a historian’s dream come true: a highly involved man who loved to write things down and rarely threw anything away. The records of ANP press releases alone constitute a wealth of historical information. His personal correspondence and papers add to that wealth, demonstrating how Barnett’s involvement with different organizations and companies led to their inclusion in his press releases. The end result is a web of interconnecting causes, organizations, events, and people centred around the life of Claude A. Barnett.
Images from Wikimedia Commons and the Library of Congress.
