The newspaper was founded in 1964 by Jesse Lewis Sr. in order to give the local Black community a greater voice during the civil rights struggle. Lewis wanted to provide an alternative to the
News and Post-Herald, which only mentioned Black people in a negative light, and the
Birmingham World, which Lewis felt only focused on discrimination. The paper did not own its own printing press and sometimes struggled with getting their printer to print the paper because of its anti-segregation stance. In 2019 the paper was sold to The Foundation for Progress in Journalism (FPJ), a non-profit created honoring Lewis, with the aim to promote minorities advancement in journalism. ==References==