In south Minneapolis lives the oldest Black newspaper in Minnesota. Ninety years after its founding, the Minnesota Spokesman-Recorder continues its legacy of telling stories of the Black community in Minneapolis.
A major player in the Twin Cities media scene in the early 19th century, Cecil Newman founded multiple African American newspapers. Newman, who originally worked as a waiter on train cars, co-founded the Twin-City Herald in 1927 before he left the Herald to start the Spokesman-Recorder and the St. Paul Recorder in 1934, according to the Minnesota Historical Society.
The Spokesman-Recorder helped fill the gaps in reporting on the local African American community, University of Minnesota Journalism Professor Sid Bedingfield said.
“He always made the joke that, ‘I didn’t have enough money to begin one newspaper, so I began two of them.’ Nobody quite knows how he pulled that off,” Bedingfield said.
These two papers played a significant role in uplifting the Black community and reporting on issues when major media publications would not cover Black social events, community businesses and social issues in the neighborhood.
Newman was the publisher of the Spokesman and the Recorder until he died in 1976. Even after his death, his legacy lives on.
Tracey Williams-Dillard, the CEO of the Minnesota Spokesman-Recorder, said newspapers like the Spokesman-Recorder are more important than ever.
“I think it’s going to be more important now than ever because now everybody’s scrambling to figure out how to reach the Black community. ‘How do I reach the communities of color?’” Williams-Dillard said. “Because they realized the communities of color are looking towards them for truth because they’re being targeted. So who cares about us? Who’s really telling our story?”
Williams-Dillard, Newman’s granddaughter, started working at the Spokesman at 8 years old helping her grandmother at the addressograph machine, which was used to quickly label addresses for the company.
“I got a chance to see my grandpa and grandma, you know, be around them and the work wasn’t strenuous. I knew what I was doing, so it was just fun,” Williams-Dillard said.
Williams-Dillard said the newspaper has maintained its historic legacy through its connection to the community.
“We write news and information that, again, inspires, informs and educates people,” Williams-Dillard said. “We’re not here to tell people what to do. We’re just here to present the facts, and we’re here to present them in an honest and fair way.”
Abdi Mohamed, who started at the Spokesman-Recorder in 2019 as a freelance writer before becoming the associate editor in 2024, said the Spokesman-Recorder helped him report on his local community. Working for the company helped him feel its historic impact.
“There’s a lot of history there. You feel the history when you walk into the building,” Mohamed said. “So you definitely are aware of the legacy that you’re around, the history that you’re around.”
Mohamed, who now is the program director at the Minneapolis St. Paul Film Society, said his time at the newspaper helped him give a voice to people in his community when mainstream media failed to.
“In the community, people know to come to me to tell a story. I’ve definitely become a figure in that sense of things, which has been great,” Mohamed said. “For marginalized communities such as the African diaspora, African immigrants, Somalis in Minnesota, we have so much coming at us in terms of negative reporting or things people are saying about the community at the national or state level that we really do have to tell the positive stories.”
