The Colored Citizen was an African American newspaper published in Helena, Montana, for two months in 1894. It was published by J. P. Ball, Jr., using finances from white politicians to promote Helena's bid to become state capital over Anaconda in the 1894 Montana capital referendum.
History
The Colored Citizen was a paper for the black community of Helena, Montana—a community of some 279 people [1]—founded in 1894 by J. P. Ball, Jr., the son of James Presley Ball. [2] Ball's father was perhaps the only black photographer in the Pacific Northwest, and the paper was the second paper for a black audience in the region. [3]
The paper pushed for Helena to be the state capital over Anaconda in that year's referendum; Ball said Helena had " No Color Line", [4] a position Ball substantiated with his father's candidacy for city coroner by the Republican Party. [5] While the paper was funded by white politicians to promote Helena's bid to become capital—a common tactic by Republicans in the American West to create support for their policies [6]—it served the local black community through revealing instances of racism in Helena. [4]
The paper believed that black settlers in Montana "can boast of being pioneers" and were authentically American, but that immigrants were not. [7] According to Ball, one of the problems with Anaconda was that a local mining company did "NOT employ a solitary Colored man", but rather " Dagoes and Foreigners". [8] The paper was anti-populist for economic reasons. [9]
The paper was published with four pages each, spanning 17 by 22 inches, from the headquarters of Ball's father's photography company. [1] It ran from September to November 1894, a period of just two months. [5]
References
- ^ a b Montana Historical Society.
- ^ Behan 2006, p. 34; Lang 1979, pp. 52–53.
- ^ Taylor 1979, p. 344.
- ^ a b Lang 1979, p. 53.
- ^ a b Lang 2018.
- ^ Behan 2006, p. 34.
- ^ Leech 2008, p. 9.
- ^ Leech 2008, p. 10.
- ^ Griffiths 1969, p. 190.
Bibliography
- Behan, Barbara Carol (2006). "Forgotten heritage: African Americans in the Montana Territory". The Journal of African American History. 91 (1): 23–40.
- Griffiths, David B. (1969). "Far-Western populist thought: A comparative study of John R. Rogers and Davis H. Waite". The Pacific Northwest Quarterly. 60 (4): 183–192. ISSN 0030-8803.
- Lang, William L. (1979). "The nearly forgotten blacks on Last Chance Gulch, 1900–1912". Pacific Northwest Quarterly. 70 (2): 50–57. ISSN 0030-8803.
- Lang, William (12 August 2018). "The Colored Citizen, Helena, Montana (1894)". Black Past. Retrieved 23 December 2021.
- Leech, Brian (2008). ""Hired hands from abroad": The populist producer's ethic, immigrant workers, and nativism in Montana's 1894 state capital election". James A. Rawley Graduate Conference in the Humanities. 21.
- Taylor, Quintard (1979). "The emergence of black communities in the Pacific Northwest: 1865–1910". The Journal of Negro History. 64 (4): 342–354. doi: 10.2307/2716942. ISSN 0022-2992.
- "Newspapers". Montana Historical Society. Retrieved 23 December 2021.