New Pittsburgh Courier

founded 1966

BiographyThe Pittsburgh Courier was founded in 1907 by Edward Nathaniel Harleston who was a guard with the H.J. Heinz food-packing plant. After being a one-man business for 3 years, Robert Lee Vann (1879-1940), an attorney took the position as the co-editor, publisher, treasurer and legal counsel for the newspaper in 1910. The Courier joined the Associated Negro Press to enlarge its publications in 1925. The Courier became popular under Vann’s management and became the largest and widely circulated Black newspaper in the country by 1928. However, upon Vann’s death in 1940 Ira Lewis took up the reins as the new president and executive editor of the Courier. Lewis died in 1948 and Jessie Matthew Vann, Vann’s widow became the president-treasurer of the newspaper. In 1966, the newspaper was bought by John H. Sengstacke and was renamed as the New Pittsburgh Courier to become part of the Sengstacke Newspapers (currently Real Times, LLC). The Courier has won the John B. Russwurm Trophy for the top Black Newspaper in the US many times.
Taylor Jr., Rob. “The History of the New Pittsburgh Courier.” Pittsburgh Courier. 2 February 2018.

Black, Samuel W. “America’s Best Weekly: 100 Years of the Pittsburgh Courier” in Western Pennsylvania History, Spring 2010, page 22-29.