What is the history of the Dallas Express newspaper and how has its editorial mission changed over time?
Executive summary
The Dallas Express began as a Black-owned weekly in the Jim Crow era, tracing origins to William E. King’s Dallas Bee (1892/1893) and positioning itself as “the South’s Oldest and Largest Negro Newspaper,” with a stated motto of “Champion of Justice, Messenger of Hope” and a consistent editorial focus on exposing lynching, segregation, and voter suppression that white papers often ignored [1] [2] [3]. Its mission as an advocate for Black Dallasites persisted through ownership changes and financial struggles until the paper ceased publication around 1970–mid-1970s, and the Dallas Express name has since been revived in the 2020s by an unrelated, ideologically different online outlet—an evolution that has provoked debate about legacy and intent [2] [3] [4].
1. Origins and founding editorial mission, 1892–1920s
Founded by William E. King—first as the Dallas Bee in 1892 and renamed the Dallas Express in 1893—the paper presented itself as a “plain, every day, sensible, conservative newspaper” while filling a reporting gap by publishing stories mainstream Dallas papers omitted, particularly on lynching, mob violence, segregation, and voting restrictions during the resurgence of the Ku Klux Klan in the 1920s [1] [3] [2]. The Express blended local social pages, women’s and household columns, ads for Black businesses, and national dispatches from the Associated Negro Press, aiming to “cover the state like a blanket” and serve as both information source and community record [1] [5] [6].
2. Editorial stance in practice: advocacy, restraint, and complexity
While consistently condemning racial violence and political disenfranchisement, the Express’s editorials sometimes reflected complex, and by later standards troubling, positions—D Magazine cites a 1920s editorial that marked approval that a Black man received a trial following a rape conviction—a reminder that advocacy papers also operated within the social norms and pressures of their era [7]. Yet the dominant through-line in archival issues is advocacy: campaigning against segregation, publicizing bombings and attacks on Black families, and elevating community institutions and businesses when white-owned outlets minimized or misreported these realities [3] [6] [7].
3. Institutional shifts: ownership, economics, and decline, 1920s–1970s
Financial instability in the mid-1920s led to a sale in 1930; the Southwestern Negro Press under Travis Campbell—who had been the paper’s printer and was white—ran the paper until a group of Black businessmen regained control in 1938, an episode that underscores the interplay of race and capital in the paper’s survival [2]. Ownership continued to change: Carter W. Wesley of the Houston Informer purchased it around 1970, plans to move it to Houston fell through, and amid declining circulation the historical Dallas Express ceased publication in the mid-1970s—Library of Congress records mark regular publication from 1893 until around 1970 [2] [3] [5].
4. Archival legacy and contemporary access
More than a thousand issues and tens of thousands of pages have been digitized and preserved—UNT’s Portal to Texas History and the Library of Congress offer extensive archives—allowing historians to treat the Express as a primary source on Black Dallas life, news networks like the ANP, and the press’s role in resisting Jim Crow-era violence and disenfranchisement [5] [3] [8].
5. Name revival and contested modern mission
Decades after the original paper went defunct, the Dallas Express name was revived in the 2020s by an online outlet with a markedly different editorial posture; investigative reporting and local criticism characterize the new site as right-leaning or “pink slime” media that appropriates the historic brand while denying legal or institutional continuity, a reuse that has sparked accusations that the revival obscures the original Black-owned paper’s legacy and may serve political agendas distinct from the historical mission [4] [7] [9]. Advocates for preserving the historical record point to the archival material and question whether the contemporary outlet’s occasional historical nods sufficiently acknowledge the paper’s original role as an advocate for Black Dallasites [4] [1].
6. Bottom line: continuity and rupture in mission
The Dallas Express’s core identity for roughly eight decades was as a community advocate and chronicler of Black life and injustices in Dallas and Texas, sustained through reporting and editorial opposition to racial violence and political exclusion; economic pressures and changing media markets ended that run in the 1970s [1] [2] [3]. The 21st-century reuse of the name represents a clear editorial rupture: the brand survives, but its mission and political posture do not map neatly onto the historical paper’s advocacy role, producing a contested legacy that scholars, journalists, and community members continue to debate [4] [7].