Timothy Thomas Fortune

Timothy Thomas Fortune (October 3, 1856 – June 2, 1928) was an orator, civil rights leader, journalist, writer, editor and publisher. He was born during slavery in Marianna, Jackson County, Florida to Emanuel and Sarah Jane Fortune.

Early life

Fortune started his education at Marianna's first school for African Americans after the Civil War. He worked both as a page in the state senate and apprenticed as printer at a Jacksonville newspaper during the time that his father, Emanuel, was a Reconstruction politician in Florida. At one time he also worked at the "Marianna Courier" and later the "Jacksonville Daily-Times Union". These experiences would be the start of a career wherein he would go on to have his work published in over twenty books and articles and in more than three hundred editorials.

Education

Although he was mostly self-taught, in 1875 Fortune enrolled in Howard University to study law. He changed to journalism after two semesters before leaving school altogether to begin work, in 1876, at the "People's Advocate", a newspaper in Washington, D.C.

New York Journalist

When Fortune moved to New York City in 1881 and began a process whereby over the next two decades he would become known as editor and owner of a newspaper named first the "Globe", then the "Freeman", and finally the "New York Age".

Upon arrival in New York, Fortune began working as a printer. He became part owner of various publications, ultimately founding the "New York Freeman" in 1884. That same year he published a book "Black and White: Land, Labor, and Politics in the South." Four years later "The Freeman" took the new name of "The New York Age" and set out to become "The Afro-American Journal of News and Opinion".

In Chicago on January 25, 1890 Fortune co-founded the militant National Afro-American League to right wrongs against African Americans authorized by law and sanctioned or tolerated by public opinion. The league fell apart after four years. When it was revived in Rochester, New York on September 15, 1898, it had the new name of the "National Afro-American Council", with Fortune as President. Those two organizations would play a vital role in setting the stage for the Niagara Movement, NAACP and other civil rights organizations to follow. Fortune was also the leading advocate of using Afro-American to identify his people. Since they are "African in origin and American in birth", it was his argument that it most accurately defined them.

With Fortune at the helm as co-owner with Emanuel Fortune, Jr. and Jerome B. Peterson, the "New York Age" became the most widely read of all Black newspapers. It stood at the forefront as a voice agitating against the evils of discrimination, lynching, mob violence, and disenfranchisement. Its popularity was due to Fortune's editorials which condemned all forms of discrimination and demanded full justice for all African Americans. Ida B. Wells's newspaper "Memphis Free Speech and Headlight" had its printing press destroyed and building burned as the result of an article published in it on May 25, 1892. Fortune then gave her a job and a new platform from which to detail and condemn lynching. His book "The Kind of Education the Afro-American Most Needs" was published in 1898. He published "Dreams of Life: Miscellaneous Poems" in 1905. After a nervous breakdown, Fortune sold the "New York Age" to Fred R. Moore in 1907, who continued publishing it until 1960. Fortune published another book "The New York Negro in Journalism" in 1915.

Fortune and the Negro World

Fortune went to work as an editor at the UNIA's house organ, the "Negro World", in 1923. At its height the "Negro World" had circulation of over 200,000. With distribution throughout the United States, Canada, Europe, Africa, the Caribbean, and in Central America it may have been the most widely distributed newspaper in the world at that time. During his tenure at the "Negro World", Fortune rubbed shoulders with such literary luminaries as Zora Neale Hurston, W.A. Domingo, Hubert Harrison, and John E. Bruce, among others.

Fortune moved to Red Bank, New Jersey in 1901, where he built his home, Maple Hill. [Horner, Shirley. [http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9F0CE5DD1031F930A35753C1A965958260 "ABOUT BOOKS"] , "The New York Times", October 3, 1993] . Accessed December 19, 2007. "Timothy Thomas Fortune, a pioneering black journalist, who went on to start The New York Age, once the nation's leading black newspaper, moved to Red Bank in 1901. His Red Bank home, Maple Hill, is a National Historic Landmark."] The house was placed on the National Register of Historic Places on December 8, 1976 and the New Jersey Register of Historic Places on August 16, 1979. [ [http://www.nationalregisterofhistoricplaces.com/nj/Monmouth/state.html NEW JERSEY - Monmouth County] , National Register of Historic Places. Accessed November 21, 2007.]

Fortune died in 1928 at age 71 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

References

External links

* [http://www.pbs.org/blackpress/news_bios/ Soldiers without Swords Biographies]
* [http://www.aaregistry.com/african_american_history/1189/Tuskegees_pointman_Timothy_Fortune Tuskegee's point-man, Timothy Fortune]
* [http://www.galeschools.com/black_history/bio/wells_i.htm Ida B. Wells-Barnett]
* [http://college.hmco.com/history/readerscomp/rcah/html/ah_032400_fortunetthom.htm The Reader's Companion to American History]
* [http://www.nationalregisterofhistoricplaces.com/NJ/Monmouth/state.html T. Thomas Fortune House]
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* [http://dbs.ohiohistory.org/africanam/page1.cfm?itemID=11843 Letter from T. Thomas Fortune to George Myers]
* [http://memory.loc.gov/learn/lessons/rec/congress.html After Reconstruction: Problems of African Americans in the South]
*Find A Grave|id=358