The ''Iowa Bystander'' was an

Iowa Iowa () is a state in the Midwestern region of the United States, bordered by the Mississippi River to the east and the Missouri River and Big Sioux River to the west. It is bordered by six states: Wisconsin to the northeast, Illinois to the ...

newspaper A newspaper is a periodical publication containing written information about current events and is often typed in black ink with a white or gray background. Newspapers can cover a wide variety of fields such as politics, business, sports a ...

targeted toward an

African American African Americans (also referred to as Black Americans and Afro-Americans) are an ethnic group consisting of Americans with partial or total ancestry from sub-Saharan Africa. The term "African American" generally denotes descendants of ens ...

audience. It was founded in

Des Moines Des Moines () is the capital and the most populous city in the U.S. state of Iowa. It is also the county seat of Polk County. A small part of the city extends into Warren County. It was incorporated on September 22, 1851, as Fort Des Moines, ...

on June 15, 1894, by I.E. Williamson, Billy Colson, and Jack Logan, and it is considered to be the oldest

Black newspaper African-American newspapers (also known as the Black press or Black newspapers) are news publications in the United States serving African-American communities. Samuel Cornish and John Brown Russwurm started the first African-American periodi ...

west of the Mississippi. The paper was first called ''Iowa State Bystander''; the term "bystander" given by its editor, Charles Ruff, after a syndicated column "The Bystander's Notes" written by

Albion W. Tourgée Albion Winegar Tourgée (May 2, 1838 – May 21, 1905) was an American soldier, lawyer, writer, politician, and diplomat. Wounded in the Civil War, he relocated to North Carolina afterward, where he became involved in Reconstruction Era, Reco ...

, a civil rights advocate who wrote for ''The Daily Inter Ocean''. The name was changed to ''Bystander'' in 1916 by owner John L. Thompson, who published the paper from 1896-1922. Thompson traveled around the state seeking new subscribers, raising the circulation to 2,000 copies, and changed the paper to a 6-column 8-page layout. In 1922, Thompson sold the newspaper to Lawrence Jones who, within 2 years, sold the paper to

World War I World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, the United States, and the Ottoman Empire, with fightin ...

veteran and founder of the National Bar Association, James B. Morris for $1,700. Morris changed the name of the paper to ''Iowa Bystander''. Morris and the paper developed close ties with the

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and fought the rise of the

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in Iowa. The Iowa Bystander was one of 20 papers represented at the first meeting of the National Newspaper Publishers Association, formed in 1940 by

John H. Sengstacke John Herman Henry Sengstacke (November 25, 1912 – May 28, 1997) was an American newspaper publisher and owner of the largest chain of African-American oriented newspapers in the United States. Sengstacke was also a civil rights activist and wor ...

, to support newspapers serving Black communities. Also that year, it was identified by '' Editor and Publisher'' as one of Iowa's four "leading Negro publications," along with the ''

Tri City Observer * Tri- is a numerical prefix meaning three. Tri or TRI may also refer to: Places * Tri-Cities Regional Airport, Tennessee, US, IATA code TRI * Triangulum constellation, astronomical abbreviation Tri People *Tri, Former nickname for wrestler Trip ...

'' (Davenport), the ''

Iowa Observer Iowa () is a U.S. state, state in the Midwestern United States, Midwestern region of the United States, bordered by the Mississippi River to the east and the Missouri River and Big Sioux River to the west. It is bordered by six states: Wiscon ...

'' (Des Moines), and the ''

Sioux City Enterprise The Sioux or Oceti Sakowin (; Dakota: /otʃʰeːtʰi ʃakoːwĩ/) are groups of Native American tribes and First Nations peoples in North America. The modern Sioux consist of two major divisions based on language divisions: the Dakota and ...

''.

Notable contributors and editors

* Eleanora E. Tate was news editor of the ''Iowa Bystander'' from 1966-1968 * Jonathan Narcisse, who ran for governor of Iowa in 2010 and

2014 File:2014 Events Collage.png, From top left, clockwise: Stocking up supplies and personal protective equipment (PPE) for the Western African Ebola virus epidemic; Citizens examining the ruins after the Chibok schoolgirls kidnapping; Bundles of wat ...

, was owner from 1990 until his death in 2018. He had transitioned the paper into a digital-only format. * James B. Morris, founder of the National Bar Association, owned and ran the ''Iowa Bystander'' from 1922-1972 * Robert V. Morris, grandson of James B. Morris and author of ''Black Faces of War: A Legacy of Honor from the American Revolution to Today'', ran the paper from 1979-1983 while he was still a college student *Marie Ross, was news editor for the paper, and won two first-place awards from the

National Federation of Press Women The National Federation of Press Women (NFPW) is a United States-based organization of professional women and men pursuing careers in the field of communications, including electronic, broadcast and print journalism, public relations, marketing, adv ...

for her "Personal Touch" column.

References

External links

* * https://archive.org/details/sim_editor-publisher_1971-05-15_104_20/page/34/mode/2up {{African American press Defunct newspapers published in Iowa Defunct African-American newspapers