Connecticut WWII-era newspapers offer view of black life
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}This Nov. 29, 2018 photo shows an original April 23, 1949 copy of the New England Bulletin, a black-owned and operated weekly newspaper in Hartford, Conn. Old microfilm of this and other incarnations of the newspaper are being digitized so they can be available online as part of the United States Newspaper Program. This issue highlights the first person to take advantage of a Connecticut law that granted blacks equal membership to the Connecticut National Guard. (AP Photo/Susan Haigh)
A group of Connecticut newspapers detailing African-American life in the Northeast during World War II now has a more modern readership.
The weeklies were recently added to the Chronicling America Project, a partnership between the National Endowment for the Humanities and the Library of Congress to create a national digital database of historically significant U.S. newspapers.
Connecticut's latest additions mark the first black-owned and operated newspapers from a Northeast state. They're also some of the first newspapers published during the World War II era that have been added to the project.
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}Besides chronicling the lives of African Americans in Connecticut's capital city of Hartford and the region, the newspapers pushed for social, economic and political change. For example, they pushed for the hiring of black city firefighters and bus drivers.