The ''Iowa Bystander'' was an

Iowa Iowa ( ) is a U.S. state, state in the upper Midwestern United States, Midwestern region of the United States. It borders the Mississippi River to the east and the Missouri River and Big Sioux River to the west; Wisconsin to the northeast, Ill ...

newspaper A newspaper is a Periodical literature, periodical publication containing written News, information about current events and is often typed in black ink with a white or gray background. Newspapers can cover a wide variety of fields such as poli ...

serving

African American African Americans, also known as Black Americans and formerly also called Afro-Americans, are an Race and ethnicity in the United States, American racial and ethnic group that consists of Americans who have total or partial ancestry from an ...

s. It was founded in

Des Moines Des Moines is the List of capitals in the United States, capital and List of cities in Iowa, most populous city in the U.S. state of Iowa. It is the county seat of Polk County, Iowa, Polk County with parts extending into Warren County, Iowa, Wa ...

on June 15, 1894, by I. E. Williamson, Billy Colson, and Jack Logan, and it is considered to be the oldest

Black newspaper Black is a color that results from the absence or complete absorption of visible light. It is an achromatic color, without chroma, like white and grey. It is often used symbolically or figuratively to represent darkness.Eva Heller, ''Psyc ...

west of the Mississippi. The paper was first called ''Iowa State Bystander''; the term "bystander" given by its editor, Charles Ruff, after a syndicated column "The Bystander's Notes" written by Albion W. Tourgée, a civil rights advocate who wrote for ''The Daily Inter Ocean''. The name was changed to ''Bystander'' in 1916 by owner John L. Thompson, who published the paper from 1896-1922. Thompson traveled around the state seeking new subscribers, raising the circulation to 2,000 copies, and changed the paper to a 6-column 8-page layout. In 1922, Thompson sold the newspaper to Lawrence Jones who, within 2 years, sold the paper to

World War I World War I or the First World War (28 July 1914 – 11 November 1918), also known as the Great War, was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War I, Allies (or Entente) and the Central Powers. Fighting to ...

veteran and founder of the

National Bar Association The National Bar Association (NBA) was founded in 1925 and is the nation's oldest and largest national network of predominantly African Americans, African-American attorneys and judges. It represents the interests of approximately 67,000 lawyers, ...

, James B. Morris for $1,700. Morris changed the name of the paper to ''Iowa Bystander''. Morris and the paper developed close ties with the

NAACP The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) is an American civil rights organization formed in 1909 as an interracial endeavor to advance justice for African Americans by a group including W. E. B. Du&nbs ...

and fought the rise of the

Ku Klux Klan The Ku Klux Klan (), commonly shortened to KKK or Klan, is an American Protestant-led Christian terrorism, Christian extremist, white supremacist, Right-wing terrorism, far-right hate group. It was founded in 1865 during Reconstruction era, ...

in Iowa. The Iowa Bystander was one of 20 papers represented at the first meeting of the

National Newspaper Publishers Association The National Newspaper Publishers Association (NNPA), formerly the National Negro Publishers Association, is an association of African American newspaper publishers from across the United States. It was established in 1940 and took its current na ...

, formed in 1940 by

John H. Sengstacke John Herman Henry Sengstacke (November 25, 1912 – May 28, 1997) was an American newspaper publisher and owner of the largest chain of African-American oriented newspapers in the United States. Sengstacke was also a civil rights activist and wor ...

, to support newspapers serving Black communities. Also that year, it was identified by ''

Editor and Publisher ''Editor & Publisher'' (''E&P'') is an American monthly trade news magazine covering the news media industry. Published since 1901, ''Editor & Publisher'' is the self-described "bible of the newspaper industry," with offices in Hendersonville, ...

'' as one of Iowa's four "leading Negro publications," along with the '' Tri City Observer'' (Davenport), the '' Iowa Observer'' (Des Moines), and the '' Sioux City Enterprise''.

Notable contributors and editors

* Eleanora E. Tate was news editor of the ''Iowa Bystander'' from 1966-1968 * Jonathan Narcisse, who ran for governor of Iowa in 2010 and

2014 The year 2014 was marked by the surge of the Western African Ebola epidemic, West African Ebola epidemic, which began in 2013, becoming the List of Ebola outbreaks, most widespread outbreak of the Ebola, Ebola virus in human history, resul ...

, was owner from 1990 until his death in 2018. He had transitioned the paper into a digital-only format. * James B. Morris, founder of the

, owned and ran the ''Iowa Bystander'' from 1922-1972 * Robert V. Morris, grandson of James B. Morris and author of ''Black Faces of War: A Legacy of Honor from the American Revolution to Today'', ran the paper from 1979-1983 while he was still a college student *Marie Ross, was news editor for the paper, and won two first-place awards from the

National Federation of Press Women The National Federation of Press Women (NFPW) is a United States–based organization of professional women and men pursuing careers in the field of communications, including electronic, broadcast and print journalism, public relations, marketing, a ...

for her "Personal Touch" column.

References

External links

* * https://archive.org/details/sim_editor-publisher_1971-05-15_104_20/page/34/mode/2up {{African American press Defunct newspapers published in Iowa Defunct African-American newspapers African-American history in Des Moines, Iowa Mass media in Des Moines, Iowa