Little Known Black History Fact: T. Thomas Fortune - Page 2
The paper bravely reported on subjects like the anti lynching movement. The printing press of the Memphis Free Speech and Headlight newspaper owned by pioneering anti-lynching activist Ida B. Wells was destroyed after one of her reports went public. Fortune gave Wells the platform to continue her nationwide reporting. Fortune sold The New York Age in 1907 after a mental breakdown.
It happened during his partnership with Booker T. Washington, which they formed in the 1890s. Fortune believed that while the men shared a goal of uplifting the Black race, Washington’s method was more passive than his own. The pressures of defying the white power structure but Fortune needing Washington’s financial support for the New York Age split the men apart ideologically.
Still, Fortune served as the ghostwriter for Washington’s first autobiography. Fortune continued to write, although financial struggles after Washington’s death in 1915 and other issues plagued him. However, he regained some of his stature writing for Marcus Garvey’s Universal Negro Improvement Association and its paper, The Negro World in 1923. Fortune worked for the paper until his death in 1928, and was positively eulogized in the Black press.
(Photo: State Archives of Florida)
