Page:The Afro-American Press.djvu/414

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THE AFRO-AMERICAN PRESS.

the women and the Afro-American race as a whole. She hopes to write a book of some value to our literary world. She is alive to all the interests of our race; and since journalism is her mission, she is ever on the alert to ascertain some way in which to make it a success. As a writer, the reader may readily learn how Mrs. Mossell ranks, by her very pleasing and interesting articles, "Power of the Press" and "Women in Journalism."

In writing to The New York Age concerning the means by which success may come to us in journalistic work, she says: "I hold that no colored journal yet has done all it could do for itself, or has had all done for it that might have been by its friends. Now I have some suggestions to make, which I believe would help our papers to succeed. I have never yet seen a colored newspaper sold on the streets by a newsboy. "We sell at the newsdealers; we get subscriptions; we sell through agents; but the main means why white papers succeed, we do not use at all. Sunday morning I am awakened by the white boys shouting their papers. The Sunday Mercury, with its colored column, 'Items on the wing,' is sold all through the street. Now we live in sections; our boys would not have to walk their legs off. See to it that boys are put on the streets Sunday morning, and on Saturday night where colored people market. Call out the name of the paper and what it contains of interest. Hundreds of papers would be sold.

"Next, the papers could contain more valuable articles. Let The Age, The Indianapolis Freeman, Detroit Plaindealer, Washington People's Advocate, and Philadelphia Sentinel, or others in widely separated sections, form a syndicate and pay the best colored writers to write on a given subject. Each could pay three or five dollars, and good articles could be written. Very few people take all these papers; so even if they do not appear on the same date, it would be of little