{"id":30472,"date":"2024-07-24T19:36:12","date_gmt":"2024-07-24T19:36:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.scencyclopedia.org\/sce\/?post_type=entry&p=30472"},"modified":"2024-07-24T19:37:59","modified_gmt":"2024-07-24T19:37:59","slug":"lighthouse-and-informer","status":"publish","type":"entry","link":"https:\/\/www.scencyclopedia.org\/sce\/entries\/lighthouse-and-informer\/","title":{"rendered":"Lighthouse and Informer<\/em>"},"content":{"rendered":"

Black journalist John McCray founded the Charleston Lighthouse <\/em>newspaper in 1939. In its first year, the Lighthouse<\/em> highlighted the abuse of Black citizens by police and demanded the removal of \u201cwhites only\u201d signs from a local beach. While both signaled the paper\u2019s forthright style, it was McCray\u2019s investigation of rape charges against a Black doctor under the headline \u201cWhites Frame Doctor, Force Him From Town\u201d that drew the ire of local whites. As McCray considered leaving Charleston, NAACP leaders extolled the need for a paper that could extend a message of mass Black struggle against Jim Crow across the state. McCray concurred and merged the Lighthouse<\/em> with the Sumter-based People\u2019s Informer<\/em> to create the Lighthouse and Informer<\/em> to be located in the state\u2019s capital of Columbia.<\/p>\n

During World War II, the Lighthouse and Informer<\/em> embraced the \u201cDouble V\u201d campaign launched by the Pittsburgh Courier<\/em> that called for victory over U.S. enemies abroad and over racism in the U.S. Without using the term, the paper emphasized its themes by highlighting Black soldiers and Black patriotism while emphasizing claims for equal citizenship. When South Carolina Governor Jefferies failed to appoint any Black members to the post-war planning committee, McCray called it an abandonment of the allies\u2019 ideals of democracy. To this end, the paper attempted to show, through its coverage of issues like discriminatory Black teacher pay in segregated schools, that segregation meant an implied white supremacy. In 1944, tensions in the South rose as the Supreme Court struck down the all-white Democratic Primary election and President Roosevelt campaigned for a fourth term. McCray used the Lighthouse and Informer <\/em>to organize the Progressive Democratic Party of South Carolina, an organization that allowed Blacks to organize independently, support Roosevelt, and wield their political voice by attempting to vote.<\/p>\n

In addition to political coverage, the Lighthouse and Informer <\/em>covered literary and sports news, while its network of correspondents across the state covered the breadth and depth of Black life in South Carolina. The society columns of the paper reported births, deaths, marriages, and visits from family and friends. This gave the paper a place in the lives of Black South Carolinians that political coverage alone could not. In 1942, the Lighthouse and Informer<\/em> serialized Richard Wright\u2019s recently released and then controversial novel Native Son. <\/em>The paper also covered the career of Los Angeles Dodgers player Jackie Robinson, the first African American to break the color barrier in Major League Baseball, and African American Boxing star Joe Louis.<\/p>\n

In 1947, South Carolina NAACP President Reverend James Hinton wrote in the Lighthouse and Informer<\/em> that the NAACP would no longer accept \u201cseparate but equal,\u201d which Hinton called \u201cunconstitutional, unlawful and immoral.\u201d Subsequently, the Lighthouse and Informer<\/em> vigorously supported the NAACP\u2019s case Briggs v. Elliott<\/em> challenging gross inequalities in Black and white school facilities in South Carolina, which later became one of the five cases decided in the consolidated 1954 Brown <\/em>decision. Yet by the time the Brown <\/em>decision was announced in May of 1954, the Lighthouse and Informer<\/em> had tipped into bankruptcy and John McCray had left the paper. By the end of the year, the paper was closed.<\/p>\n

Bedingfield, Sid. Newspaper Wars: Civil Rights and White Resistance in South Carolina, 1935\u2013<\/em><\/p>\n

    \n
  1. 1965<\/em>. Champaign, IL: University of Illinois Press, 2017.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    Bedingfield, Sid. 2011. \u201cJohn H. McCray, Accommodationism, and the Framing of the Civil<\/p>\n

    Rights Struggle in South Carolina, 1940\u201348.\u201d\u00a0Journalism History<\/em>\u00a037 (2): 91\u2013101.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/em><\/p>\n

    Roefs, Wim. “Leading the Civil Rights Vanguard in South Carolina: John McCray and the<\/p>\n

    Lighthouse and Informer, 1939 – 1954” in Time Longer Than Rope: A Century of African <\/em><\/p>\n

    American Activism, 1850-1950<\/em>, edited by Adam Green and Charles M. Payne. New York: NYU Press, 2003.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    Black journalist John McCray founded the Charleston Lighthouse newspaper in 1939. In its first year, the Lighthouse highlighted the abuse of Black citizens by police and demanded the removal of \u201cwhites only\u201d signs from a local beach. While both signaled the paper\u2019s forthright style, it was McCray\u2019s investigation of rape charges against a Black doctor […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"featured_media":-1,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","class_list":["post-30472","entry","type-entry","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","ecms-a-z","ecms-african-americans","ecms-categories","ecms-charleston-county","ecms-civil-rights-era-1955-1969","ecms-counties","ecms-encyclopedia","ecms-l","ecms-lowcountry","ecms-midlands","ecms-politics","ecms-post-war-america-1946-1954","ecms-regions","ecms-richland-county","ecms-sumter-county","ecms-time-periods","ecms-world-war-ii-1939-1945"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nLighthouse and Informer - South Carolina Encyclopedia<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.scencyclopedia.org\/sce\/entries\/lighthouse-and-informer\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Lighthouse and Informer - South Carolina Encyclopedia\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Black journalist John McCray founded the Charleston Lighthouse newspaper in 1939. 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