A History of African American Newspapers in New England: Rhode Island

By Kenneth J. Cooper



All of the state’s black papers appear to have been based in Providence. Perhaps the first was the New England Torchlight, published by J.W. Henderson from 1890 to 1896.1


One staffer, John C. Minkins, rose to the editorship of the daily Providence News. He led the small evening paper for five years, until 1910. He claimed that accomplishment made him the first black editor of a white daily in the country. Minkins had started at the paper as a reporter in 1891.2



Minkins was born in Norfolk, Va., where he started his career, and lived in Pawtucket during the 50 years he worked for newspapers in Rhode Island. He seems to have gone back and forth between white- and black-owned papers. He did stints at the daily Pawtucket Times and Evening and Sunday Telegram, and served as a correspondent for Hearst Newspapers, Boston Globe and New York dailies. As a reporter, he made his reputation covering the Lizzie Borden trial in New Bedford, Mass. for the Telegram in 1893. 



In 1911, Minkins bought the Rhode Island Examiner, a black weekly he published until 1914. The paper focused on community issues that dailies had been ignoring. He was 90 when he died in 1959. In 2005, he was inducted into the Rhode Island Journalism Hall of Fame. 



Minkins’ Examiner faced competition from the Advance, a weekly from 1906 to 1914. It then became a monthly and survived until 1936. It is not clear whether its demise came before or after the Boston Chronicle launched its Providence edition, which lasted into the 1950s, possibly until 1960.



The weekly Citizen appeared in 1968, the monthly North Star in 1977 and the Ocean State Grapevine in 1986, which expired that same year. The last started as the monthly Ebenezer Grapevine, published by Ebenezer Baptist Church in Providence.3



The Providence American is the state’s surviving black newspaper. It was founded in 1986 by Frank Graham, who had been the first black newscaster at a Providence television station. The paper was sold in February 2006 to Peter Wells, who currently is the publisher and editor-in-chief. The paper is distributes 10,000 free copies in Rhode Island and southeastern Massachusetts. The American started as a bi-weekly and then published weekly for four years before resuming a bi-weekly schedule in January 2007.4