As the Courier celebrates its 105-year of existence the woman who was a central figure in its success never received her due.
Robert L. Vann built the Pittsburgh Courier into one of the most circulated and powerful Black newspaper in the country. But it was his wife who took it to the next level as the greatest Black newspaper in the country.
As George Barbour, former city editor of the Courier once stated, “Mrs. Jesse Vann was a quiet easy going leader who devoted her life to uplifting Black people even though those around her received most of the glory.”
First as the wife of Robert Vann she was in the background as he was out front building the paper into a giant. But his death in 1940 forced her out front. Taking over as the president and treasurer of the Board of Directors, she made sure that, as the principle share holder, she controlled the decisions as president, and the money as treasurer.
The first ingenious move she made was keeping Ira Lewis as the manager handling the business side of the paper as the executive editor and Bill Nunn Sr., in charge of the editorial side as the managing Editor of the paper. So the Courier continued to maintain its upward trajectory spearheaded by the Double V campaign during World War II.
“My husband’s death meant that I was faced with making one of the greatest decisions of my life: whether to remain at home or to accept the responsibility of managing the newspaper business he had left—and I chose the latter,” Jesse Vann said in one of her many speeches. “I have never regretted my choice. By not pretending to know more than I really did, I was able to gain the cooperation of the employees. Together we have been able to carry on successfully.”
The Double V campaign was victory at home and victory overseas. Robert Vann had fought for integration of the military as well as integrating the country as a whole. Jesse Vann not only kept this fight going but grew the paper to its highest level of 357,000 or 450,000 depending on who you talk to.
Then came the death of Ira Lewis in 1948 which forced her to become more visible as the leader of the most powerful paper in the country, many predicted the paper would crumble but she maintained a strong force on the editorial floor with Nunn still by her side until he retired in 1956 and in the board room where she had another strong force that over shadowed her in civil rights activist and NAACP crusader Daisy Limpkin, who served as the vice president of the board of directors.
By 1953, the Courier published sixteen regional editions, totaling 250,000 copies. The decline in circulation according to Hazel Garland and Bill Nunn Jr., both long time employees of the Courier, was the ending of the war, integration of the military, advances in civil rights, more White papers covering Black news and more and more Black newspapers were published after seeing the success of the Courier, especially in southern states. But what really hurt the most was after the 1950s more Black papers were published in the South which couldn’t prior to that, and the decline of the Pullman Porters who delivered the papers to the southern states who were starving for news, about and by Blacks.
According to Nunn Jr., the local edition peaked at around 33,000 with the bulk of papers’ sales being national and other cities.
Jesse Vann was not only the president and publisher of the Courier, and a leading civic leader. She was an active crusader for the improvement of race relations, education, and public welfare. She served on the national boards of many diverse organizations, from the Urban League to the Newspaper Publishers Association, and she was a member of the governor’s Committee on Industrial Race Relations. She was also appointed a member of President Eisenhower’s International Development Advisory Board.
During an era when social biases kept most women out of the political arena, Daisy Lampkin was an invaluable supporter of the adolescent NAACP, having been active in the fight for women’s suffrage in the United States she turned her energies to the Black Civil Rights Movement during the 1920s and assumed an official position with the NAACP in 1930.
Lampkin became a key fundraiser for the organization and was highly respected for her tireless enthusiasm and persuasive skills. She was also a prominent figure in Pittsburgh’s Black community through her involvement in a myriad of organizations and her role as vice president of the Courier. She was not only a force in the civil rights arena she could raise money, which Jesse Vann understood.
In Pittsburgh, Lampkin is remembered for her achievements as an advocate for social change and for her remarkable personal attributes.
Jesse Vann always kept strong people around her. On the editorial side it remained to be Nunn Sr., and later Bill Nunn Jr., along with City Editor P.L. Prattis who became senior editor upon the retirement of Nunn Sr.
But as she, Lampkin, Nunn Sr., and Prattis got older there was no one with their genius to take their place. She sold the paper to Black millionaire S.B. Fuller in 1962. She died in 1967 at the age of 82.
Despite being the principle owner, and head of the paper for 22 years, with paper being the number one circulated paper in the country for most of them, Jesse Vann received very little credit for being one of the greatest Black newspaper publishers, male or female, of all time. When most people talk about great Black women in the newspaper business her name is seldom mentioned. But George Barbour who worked for her as a reporter and as an editor, said he loved her so much that he gave her one his most prestigious awards.
“She was a wonderful woman as a person, a leader in both editorial and business. I loved her,” said Barbour.
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