The Philadelphia Tribune history

Despite the challenges black businesses faced during the late nineteenth century, especially in journalism, the Tribune enjoyed unusual success during its early years, and it averaged 3,225 copies weekly by 1887.

In 1891, Perry and the Tribune received national recognition when Garland Penn, a prominent advocate for African-American journalism, praised the Philadelphia newspaper in his book The Afro-American Press and Its Editors.

Eugene Rhodes was born October 29, 1896 in Camden, South Carolina and went to the local public schools of the city.

Beginning about 1910, a new wave of black migrants moved to Philadelphia, as part of the Great Migration from the rural South to northern and midwestern industrial cities.

In 1914, a white mob attacked and destroyed the new home of a black woman, but the Philadelphia Department of Public Safety failed to investigate the crime and no white newspapers reported the incident.

However, after the war ended in 1918, white veterans returned and competed fiercely with African Americans for jobs in the post-war recession.

Racial riots broke out in the summer of 1919 in many industrial cities.

By 1920, the Tribune was distributing 20,000 newspapers weekly and had earned a reputation as one of the top African-American newspapers in the country.

Sadly, in the mitts of the Tribune’s prime, Christopher Perry passed away in May 1921.

Williams died in June 1922.

Upset over the Philadelphia School Board's lack of action to end segregation, the Tribune organized the Defense Fund Committee in 1926.

By 1932, the Tribune succeeded in gaining appointment of African Americans to the School Board, which eventually ended segregation in Philadelphia's public schools.

When Franklin D. Roosevelt introduced his New Deal program in 1933, the Tribune covered the new federal relief agencies and exposed the discrimination some of the programs practiced against African Americans.

In 1935, the Philadelphia Independent openly supported Roosevelt and the Democrats, and surpassed the Tribune as the most popular African-American newspaper in Philadelphia with 30,000 weekly subscribers.

Eugene Washington Rhodes became the managing editor, serving for more than two decades until 1944.