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1923–1971
The city's Black newspapers: The national directory record carries four Black newspapers published in South Bend before the civil-rights era's own paper arrived. The South Bend Forum, a weekly, dates from 1923. The South Bend Journal, also a weekly, dates from 1928 and was edited by William D. LaMarr. The South Bend Herald-Times belongs to the 1950s. The newspaper directories also list a South Bend Record, 1951–1967. Of these papers' editors beyond LaMarr, their offices, and their ends, the directory record reached for this chapter says no more, and the gap stands as printed. The fuller telling belongs to The Reformer, the weekly the city's African-American community produced from 1967 — the paper whose movement record, its "Free Legal Help" column directing readers to the law firm of J. Chester and Elizabeth Allen, its Urban League coverage, and its place in the campaigns of those years, is carried whole in the Black History chapter. Its publication record here is short and stands in two forms: the run digitized on Michiana Memory covers 1967 to 1970, and the directory list of Indiana's African-American newspapers gives the paper's course as 1967 to 1971. The Reformer's founder and publisher are not named in the records reached for this chapter; the gap is printed, and the paper's own surviving issues on Michiana Memory are the named source that would close it.
Sources:
- "List of African American newspapers in Indiana," compiled from the Library of Congress directory records — the South Bend Forum (weekly, 1923), the South Bend Journal (weekly, 1928, edited by William D. LaMarr), the South Bend Herald-Times (1950s), and The Reformer (weekly, 1967–1971).
- Michiana Memory (St. Joseph County Public Library) — The Reformer (1967–1970), "a newspaper produced by the South Bend African-American community"; the end-year difference between the two records is printed in the entry.
- The Black History chapter of this record — The Reformer's content and movement record, including the Allens' "Free Legal Help" column.