The ''Atlanta Voice'' is an African-American community newspaper serving the greater
Atlanta metropolitan area
Metro Atlanta, designated by the United States Office of Management and Budget as the Atlanta–Sandy Springs–Alpharetta, GA Metropolitan Statistical Area, is the most populous metropolitan statistical area in the U.S. state of Georgia and the ...
. The paper is published weekly on Fridays.
Founded in 1966 by Ed Clayton and J. Lowell Ware,
the paper now distributes 40,000 copies via 600 metropolitan locations and offers digital content via a website and social media. Today, the paper is published by Janis Ware, J. Lowell Ware's daughter, who took over the paper after her father's death in 1991. The paper's motto is "A people without a voice cannot be heard."
The Atlanta Voice is a member of the
National Newspaper Publishers Association (NNPA), a trade group of more than 200 Black-owned media companies in the United States.
History
The Atlanta Voice was created by Ed Clayton and J. Lowell Ware in 1966 out of the basement of Ware’s house.
According to Ware's daughter, the paper was established "out of the Civil Rights movement," and is considered to be the only paper that regularly featured
Martin Luther King Jr. and other Civil Rights activists.
Ed Clayton had been a nationally-known journalist in Chicago who published a biography of Dr. King in 1964. In 1965, Clayton moved to Atlanta with his wife
Xernona Clayton
Xernona Clayton Brady (née Brewster, born August 30, 1930) is an American civil rights leader and broadcasting executive. During the Civil Rights Movement, she worked for the National Urban League and Southern Christian Leadership Conference, w ...
to help Dr. King with public relations and speech writing. Clayton died in 1966, after helping to launch the Atlanta Voice.
Xernona Clayton
Xernona Clayton Brady (née Brewster, born August 30, 1930) is an American civil rights leader and broadcasting executive. During the Civil Rights Movement, she worked for the National Urban League and Southern Christian Leadership Conference, w ...
wrote a column for the Atlanta Voice and maintained a close friendship with Dr. King's wife,
Coretta Scott King.
J. Lowell Ware purchased a building and created his own press for the paper, due to printing restrictions imposed by White-owned printing presses. The Atlanta Voice's press was the first and only Black-owned press in the southeastern United States until it ceased its printing operations in 2003.
Ware moved the offices for the Atlanta Voice to Mechanicsville in 1972, vowing to revitalize the community. In 1989 J. Lowell Ware co-founded the Summech Community Development Corporation Inc. with community activist Rosa Burney to revitalize the south-Atlanta Mechanicsville community.
Janis Ware, J. Lowell Ware's daughter, became owner and publisher of the paper after his death in 1991. She also inherited the Summech Community Development Corporation from her father.
Awards
In 2011, Janis Ware (owner and publisher) was given the Pioneer Black Journalist award by the Atlanta Association of Black Journalists. In 2019, she was elected as the first vice president of the National Newspaper Publisher’s Association.
In 2020, the paper's sales manager, Robert DW Jackson won the Sales & Marketing Industry of the Year Award from the Georgia Minority Business Association.
See also
*
African Americans in Atlanta
Black Atlantans are residents of the city Atlanta who are of African American ancestry. Atlanta has long been known as a center of black wealth, higher education, political power and culture; a cradle of the Civil Rights Movement and th ...
References
External links
* {{URL, www.theatlantavoice.com
African-American newspapers
Newspapers published in Atlanta