On Sept. 5, 1974, the first front page of the Winston-Salem Chronicle made a declaration in type large enough to occupy much of the sheet: “We Salute All the People of Winston-Salem.”
The paper cost 20 cents. Below that greeting were reports about a professional association admitting its first Black members, a new principal, an A. Philip Randolph Institute chapter and a small-business workshop. Even a dispute over a noisy rooster found room.
It was a statement about whose lives deserved attention. A Black community newspaper could confront exclusion and still have space for a neighbor’s complaint. It could insist on justice without surrendering the ordinary details of living.