Transcripts

SPEAKER: Now, when did your family begin publishing these papers?

CONNIE CHIVERS: I want to say that my father, Curtis Chivers, worked very closely with Cecil Newman, who was the founder and publisher of the Spokesman. They worked together almost 40 years. Cecil E. Newman was the founder and publisher, and they worked together for almost 40 years.

SPEAKER: Now, what's your earliest memory from your family tied to these newspapers?

CONNIE CHIVERS: Well, I remember my father telling us that he was working part time on the newspaper with someone that he had met on the railroad. He met Mr. Newman when they were working as porters. And Mr. Newman was always writing then, and he was interested in the paper. And he began his work with the paper in the late 1930s working part time.

And then he always had other work that he went to. It wasn't until after the Second World War that he went to work for the Spokesman on a full-time basis. He would always bring work home with him. And he loved talking to people about the paper. One of his great loves was being able to communicate with people about things that were going into the paper.

SPEAKER: So what philosophy do you think has emerged behind the two papers that your family publishes?

CONNIE CHIVERS: The Newman family is the original publisher. My father was advertising manager.

SPEAKER: OK. With a philosophy?

CONNIE CHIVERS: I think the philosophy was that the paper should spring from the needs and wants of the community, specifically, the Afro American community. But they always wanted to be in a position to interpret this paper and share it with the general community. That was very important to them. So the earlier papers had a lot more social news than the paper has had during the last few years.

They have always done a lot with church news. That was very important because it reflected the different religious practices and the different activities that were going on in the community in the church to keep the people going. And the paper was always filled with articles on the churches, as well as various community organizations.

SPEAKER: I wonder if you feel that the media in general in Minnesota is doing a responsible job of covering the Black community.

CONNIE CHIVERS: Well, I think it's very hard for them because they do need the help of the smaller papers because a large paper, a monopoly, like the Star Tribune has to think of the total community. And they have to think about the total commercial aspect of it, the advertising, and so on and so forth.

And although there has been a great deal of improvement in their coverage of the various minorities-- and we have to consider several minorities now-- I still think they need the support of these smaller papers to get down into the various communities to get the news in or the events that are important to them.

SPEAKER: I'm wondering if there are any moments, stories perhaps, that stand out in your mind as the papers went to press that might have served as snapshots of the community over the years.

CONNIE CHIVERS: Well, whenever they built a new church-- I remember when they had worked very hard to have a building fund for a new St. Peter's Church, St. Peter's African Methodist Episcopal Church, our old church had burned down. It was on 22nd in Elliott. And after a couple of years of working towards one building, it was very exciting for them to come out and break ground for the new church, which is now at 401 East 41st Street, just off 4th Avenue South and 40th in South Minneapolis.

And I remember one of the key figures that attended that groundbreaking was Hubert Humphrey. And this was a person that my father knew from his community associations. And that was one of the biggest events that I remember that was covered in the paper.