Page:The Afro-American Press.djvu/362

From Wikisource
Jump to navigation Jump to search
This page has been proofread, but needs to be validated.

In November of the same year a very excellent offer was made him by the proprietor of The New York Globe to take the Boston correspondence of that paper, which was accepted. Shortly after, The New York Globe suspended publication, and when T. Thomas Fortune established The New York Freeman, Mr. Street was requested by him to act in the same capacity for The Freeman in Boston as he had done for The Globe, and he did so from November, 1884, to March, 1888, when he gave it up to go to Zion Wesley College, Salisbury, N. C, to take charge of the agricultural department, which the faculty had decided to institute.

Returning to Boston in the summer of 1885, he was engaged by the editor of The Boston Beacon, the leading white society paper, to furnish it matter. The proprietors, on finding that a black man was employed in such a position, objected to it, and of course he had to go.

Though feeling keenly the prejudice with which he had to contend, he was not disheartened, but rather resolved not to give up the contest for a fair and equal chance in the race of life. Accordingly, in about five or six weeks, he went to The Boston Evening Record and asked if they would like to buy whatever news he might have. The city editor said "Yes," and the colored news-gatherer went to work to collect the matter. Every man in the office was white; in fact, it might be said right here that there was not a colored man on any of the Boston dailies, at that time, and it was supposed by all that he was connected with The Boston Record. Item after item was brought in, accepted and published.

One day Street went to the Boston museum of fine arts to possess himself of some news which none of the other papers had learned of. In making inquiries about it, one of the authorities of the institution asked him for what paper he sought the information; the reply was, The Boston Record, and the official cheerfully furnished the facts, so that a