The Call (Kansas City)

The Call (Kansas City)

Kansas City The Call, or The Call is an African-American newspaper founded in 1919 by Chester A. Franklin. It serves the black community of Kansas City, Missouri and Kansas City, Kansas. Before 1827 when the African American newspaper Freedom’s Journal was published there was no journalistic source for African Americans to refer to for getting a sense of pride in their community and understanding current events in their own lives, and there especially were no means of empowerment for the black community to be found within popular publications owned and operated by whites. Since 1827 the black press has existed, but it proved very difficult to keep these outlets afloat for more than a couple of years due to the target audience (educated free blacks) being too small to financially support the papers as well as not receiving funding to make them successful. In addition, many of these papers were solely aimed towards blacks in the South and largely ignored Northerners. That is why Kansas City’s The Call is so impressive. Founded in 1919 by C.A. Franklin, The Call is still in existence today, celebrating its 84th anniversary, and is known as one of the top six African American weeklies in the nation.