User:Adjoajo/claude

Claude Albert Barnett was a journalist, publisher, entrepreneur, philanthropist, civic activist, and founder of the Associated Negro Press in 1919. He started the first international news agency for black newspapers. He was an advocate against segregation in the military and blood supply. The (ANP) documented the Civil Rights Movement in the United States of America, and struggles for independence in Africa. Associated Negro Press was a Pan-African news service. Claude Barnett, Robert S. Abbott, and John Johnson were three of the most influential African American media entrepreneurs in the twentieth century. They were based in Chicago. Barnett is said to have advanced the role of the Black Press, by press coverage, news sharing, advertising, public relations, and to professionalize Black journalism.

Barnett was a Pan-Africanist and encouraged expatriation. He was one of the most influential African Americans of his day, and was known as an unofficial diplomat.

He was an activist in journalism and international diplomacy. Barnett advised African emerging governments.

Early Life
Barnett's great-grant grandparents were free Negroes in Antebellum, Raleigh, North Carolina. After he was born he went to live with his grandmother who lived in Mattoon, Illinois. Barnett attended elementary school in Mattoon, and Oak Park, Illinois. His first job after graduating from Tuskegee was working the post office in Chicago. While working at the post office he saw thousands of newspapers, magazines, and advertising information. While working at the post office he got the idea to start a mail-order business. He was twenty years old.

Career
Barnett graduated from Tuskegee Institute in 1906 with a degree in engineering. While at Tuskegee Barnett learned from Booker T Washington the importance of forming networks of associates.

After graduating from Tuskegee he worked as a postal clerk, and then as an advertising salesman in Chicago till 1915. Early in his career he along with others started a mail order business, and cosmetic company called Kashmir Chemical company.

Barnett's competitors in the cosmetic industry selling beauty products to African Americans were Annie Malone and Madame C.J. Walker. To boost his business he was able to get Florence Mills and Ada "Bricktop" Smith to advertise his beauty products. They were featured in his advertisements.

In 1918, Barnett was working for the Chicago post office service in the evenings and selling ads in the daytime.

In 1919, he started the Associated Negro Press. Which was a service to provide news outlets with news stories. He build a team of freelance Black news reporters. In 1950 the (ANP) serviced 200 newspapers across the United States of America, and internally into the West Indies, and Africa. He was the director of the (ANP) for half a century. The (ANP) supplied black news of interest to black citizens. It supplied opinion columns, book reviews, movie reviews, poetry, cartoons, and photographs. It supplied news coverage of events within the African American communities in America. It gave news coverage of events in Africa and the African diaspora.

He was a trustee for the Tuskegee Institute from 1932 to 1965.

In 1934, Barnett married Etta Moten. Etta was a popular concert singer and actress. Together they raised Etta's three daughters by a previous marriage to Curtis Brooks. His marriage to Etta broadened his network of contacts. He joined her on some of her concert tours. They were married for 33 years until his death.

During WWII Barnett and others put pressure on the U.S. government to accredit black journalist to be war correspondents.

In 1940, Barnett was a principal organizer of the The Exhibit of American Negroes in Chicago, Illinois. He served as a consultant to the Secretary of Agriculture from 1942 to 1953 to improve the conditions of Black tenant farmers.

In 1950, Claude and his wife Etta Moten were members of the U.S. delegation to Ghana's Independence celebration.

Barnett was a board of directors member for Tuskegee Institute till 1965.

He served as board member of the Phelps-Stokes Fund.

Barnett was the director of the Associated Negro Press (ANP) for almost a half century.

Barnett retired in 1966.

Quotes
Barnett is quoted as saying, "next to the Negro Church, the black press was the the most powerful influence operating within the Negro community". Claude Barnett

Awards

 * 1949 - Chevalier Order of Honor and Merit presented by the president of Haiti Eugene Magloire
 * 1952 - Awarded the honorary title, “Commander of the Order of Star of Africa", by the President William V.S. Tubman of Liberia