EDITOR’S NOTE: This feature we will be focusing on an African–American locally who impacted our history. It would be remiss of us not to include L.M. Cheek’s contribution to the Black Press in this community, and how the newspaper evolved through the years to the current Carolinian.
Beginning in October 1940, The Carolinian presented the public with an eight-page, seven-column newspaper. The Carolinian is an outgrowth of the Carolina Tribune.
The Carolina Tribune had its inception under Claude Whitaker after World War I and was printed in the Orgen Printing Co.’s plant at 115 E. Hargett St. in Raleigh. The plant later moved to 118 E. Hargett St. under the management of C.A. Whitaker and L.M. Cheek.
Around 1922, H.E. Fontillo-Nanton, who had worked with the Carolina Times, assumed the ownership and editor-publisher position of the Carolina Tribune. He published the Tribune until October 1940, at which time the name was changed from the Tribune to The Carolinian.
P.R. Jervay, Sr. assumed the position of editor-publisher-owner of The Carolinian in 1939. Jervay had come into the business with Nanton, who had a position with NYA in Raleigh. Nanton later took a position doing property survey work in Raleigh.
From there, he pursued his doctorate at Iowa State University. This placed him in the education world, where he spent some 25 to 30 years between Texas, South Carolina, Raleigh and Hampton Institute (now (University).
Jervay came to Raleigh from Wilmington, where he aided his father in the publishing of the Cape Fear Journal. Going there from Hampton Institute, where he had been an instructor in Linotyping, he remained there from 1926 until 1939, when he left for Raleigh.
Being a man of insight, Jervay realized that education is the cornerstone of success for the black community. And with that in mind, he created several innovative ideas to help promote education through the pages of The Carolinian.
Every year, The Carolinian publishes an education edition which allows different educational institutions to tell about themselves and explore various issues. The paper also regularly published a school page during the school year called ‘‘Window To Our Public School System.’’
Jervay began his tenure with the following equipment: Michle cylinder press, Model 14 Linotype machine, 9X12X18 job presses, Diamond paper cutter, Boston stitcher, Miller bench saw, type cabinet, miscellaneous type and print shop tools.
Knowing that a quality newspaper must have good machinery and efficient personnel, he set a goal of improving the mechanical equipment. The personnel at the time consisted of only three printers, a salesman, a reporter, some part-time personnel and himself.
The Carolinian’s predecessor, the Tribune, was an eight-page, seven-column newspaper with depressed circulation, scarce advertising and minimal good will. However, the struggle to keep going was accomplished by those who fostered the Tribune and they deserve due credit, as many were good newspaper personnel.
In 1945, The Carolinian enlarged its facility in order to house an eight-page direct print web press to complement other equipment such as an Intertype and Monotype machines. By this time, there had been considerable growth in personnel and necessary equipment.
In order to develop what seemed expedient for capital intake beyond Carolinian revenue, a block of papers were printed comprising at least seven per week covering Raleigh, Wilmington, Fayetteville, Kinston, Greensboro, Winston-Salem, Asheville and sometimes Knoxville and Chattanooga, Tenn. and Charleston and Columbia, S.C. All papers were make-over eight-page format regular eight columns.
After several years, the management decided eight-page papers were noncompetitive on a statewide basis as they could not accommodate news and pictures of North Carolina, which were being sent, in large measure, out of state and marketed back to three major black weeklies.
In 1950, a group of home economics teachers bought the Arcade building from the North Carolina Mutual Life Insurance Co. Subsequently, Ms. Lucy Fuller James, in charge of affairs for the group, requested The Carolinian to move.
In June of 1952, The Carolinian broke ground for its business location at 518 E. Martin St. The plant, containing 20,000 square feet, was of brick and cinderblock construction. A 24-page Hoe stereotype press was installed in the new location and a program of additional pages was inaugurated.
For 10 years, The Carolinian operated with 16 or more pages from what was then an all-letterpress mechanical department, experiencing steady growth in its news content, advertising, circulation and general acceptance in Raleigh and the state.
For seven years, The Carolinian fostered a food show and exposition beginning in the basement of First Baptist Church, thence to Spaulding Gymnasium and finally to Raleigh Memorial Auditorium.
The growth of The Carolinian was not without hardship. During World War II, when the need for armed forces personnel sapped the manpower of business and industry, in fact, every walk of life, the emptied reservoir of printers and newspaper people left a questionable future.
The Carolinian resorted to a training program in all phases of its operation following the period of the manpower shortage. While this program served a need, many of the trainees who became journeymen sought larger cities and plants that paid higher wages.
Even after the training program was disbanded, many of the employees of the newspaper have moved on to greener pastures, especially since the commitment to the black press is less by most of its employees in modern times. Some of The Carolinian’s former employees can be found in government, school offices, metropolitan dailies and other black newspapers.
Jervay retired from his role as publisher in late 1991, and after his death in 1993, the paper experienced a period of flux. Uncertainty about succession to the paper’s ownership, economic recession, problems with aging equipment and the necessity to move from the Martin Street plant due to urban renewal contributed to uncertainty about the paper’s future.
Problems came to a head in 1994, when a number of local and national advertisers left in the wake of the Republican Revolution. This, coupled with a national paper shortage which saw the price of newsprint quadruple over a period of months, produced a very serious situation.
Indeed, dozens of black and smaller community newspapers across the country found they could no longer survive and went out of business during this period.
The Carolinian was forced to cut back seriously on the number of pages it printed, and other cutbacks were instituted, but the paper stayed in business, and slowly, things began to improve.
In 1997, P.R. Jervay, Jr. assumed the position of editor-publisher of The Carolinian. Improvements, both to equipment and production, were made, including the addition of color photographs on the front page and a redesigned look and feel for the paper.
In the past few years, The Carolinian has prospered and expanded. Advertisers have come back, and new features have been added. The Carolinian now averages 14 pages per issue in its Thursday edition and offers a Sunday Digital Edition.
Recognition has increased, as well, with editorials regularly reprinted in the mainstream press and columns and news articles being reprinted in other black press outlets as far away as Dallas and New York City.
Many area media outlets, both print and broadcast, have learned to rely on The Carolinian for firsthand, up-to-date information on the African-American community, and a number of important stories in recent years concerning the community have ‘‘broken’’ in the pages of The Carolinian first.
The Carolinian’s offices are currently located at 1504 New Bern Avenue, and plans are currently under way for further expansion and renovation.
Going into the 21st century with Publisher, Adria Jervay, The Carolinian will keep you posted, not only on its own growth and plans for the future, but on those of the community for which it remains the principal advocate and defender.
