History
Background and foundation
In 1885 there were less than 1500 African-American residents in the Minneapolis–Saint Paul area. African-American newspapers were common at the time, but few of them lasted longer than a year, since they were started for cultural purposes more than commercial ones. There had been many previous African-American newspapers in St. Paul, including one printed in 1876 also named the ''Western Appeal''. It had no affiliation with the paper established in 1885. The ''Western Appeal'' was first published on June 5, 1885, inEarly years
In December 1886, Parker resigned as editor and a new management team took over. Prominent St. Paul businessmen Thomas H. Lyles and James Kidd Hilyard led the team and put their own money into the paper to save it. In February 1887, the team reorganized under the name Northwestern Printing Company. It provided job order printing services in addition to publishing the ''Western Appeal'', which kept the paper afloat financially over the long term. Lyles and Hilyard initially convinced Parker to return to the ''Western Appeal'' as editor. But by January 1887, Parker had resigned again to take another position. Lyles and Hilyard then promoted associate editor John Quincy Adams to editor. Adams had been editor of a similar newspaper, the ''Bulletin'', in Louisville, Kentucky. He had moved to St. Paul in 1886 at the request of Lyles and Hilyard to work at the ''Western Appeal''. With his promotion, Adams became the driving force behind the newspaper. Adams was an influential writer and a staunch Republican, and like other editors of his day, he expressed his opinions through his paper's editorial page. The ''Western Appeal'' even received funding directly from theExpansion and name change
In January 1888, Adams opened a regional office for the paper in Chicago. His brother, Cyrus Field Adams, ran it. This brought the ''Western Appeal'' to even more readers. Other regional offices followed: Louisville in August 1888, St. Louis in April 1889, Dallas in August 1892, and Washington, D.C. in March 1901. Each Saturday, each of these offices published an edition of the newspaper. Each edition had the same national news, feature articles, and editorials, but carried its own local and social news. The word "Western" was dropped from the paper's name in 1889, to reflect its national reach. By this time, Adams owned ''The Appeal'' outright and supervised both its business and editorial sides. Like other papers of its time, ''The Appeal'' served as a community organizer. It was a place for African Americans to express their frustrations, find common ground, and call for action. After 1900, with the growth of African-American civil rights organizations such as the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) and the Urban League, the influence and importance of newspapers like ''The Appeal'' began to decline.Later years
As the twentieth century progressed, ''The Appeal'' slowly got smaller and closed its regional offices. Its last regional office, Chicago, closed in 1913. ''The Appeal'' continued publication in St. Paul, and Adams remained its editor until his death on September 3, 1922. Adams's son, John Jr, took over ''The Appeal'' and hired a young graduate student, Roy Wilkins, as editor in April 1923. The newspaper struggled, however, and it was sold to a competitor, the ''Northwestern Bulletin'', later that year. The two papers were merged and published as the ''Northwestern Bulletin-Appeal'' for several years, until that company went out of business in 1925.Notes
References
*Taylor, David Vassar. "The Blacks". ''They Chose Minnesota: A Survey of the State's Ethnic Groups'', edited by June Drenning Holmquist, 73-91. St. Paul: Minnesota Historical Society Press, 1981. *_____. "John Adams and the Western Appeal: Advocates of the Protest Tradition". Master's thesis, University of Nebraska at Omaha, 1971. *_____