The Gospel of the Sit-In

During the 1960s, Austin lent his talents and his newspaper in support of the direct action movement in Durham and throughout the state. Unlike many other black leaders in the city, he immediately and enthusiastically embraced an early sit-in in Durham that began in 1957, three years before the more celebrated Greensboro lunch counter sit-ins. He also aided a boycott of white retail businesses that refused to hire black workers by publishing the names of those businesses in the Carolina Times. This strategy was quite effective in forcing white businesses to hire African Americans. Austin’s efforts and those of countless civil rights activists led to major freedom struggle successes with the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965.

Introduction

During the twentieth century, black journalists played an essential role in the struggle for equal rights in America. Operating in the racially oppressive South, determined black publishers, editors, and journalists illuminated racial discrimination, while advocating black voter registration and equal educational opportunity. Austin, who edited and published the Carolina Times from 1927 to 1971, was one of the most fearless and effective of these journalists. He boldly challenged white supremacy and racial segregation for over four decades, from the years prior to World War II through the modern civil rights era.

Epilogue

After Austin’s death in 1971, his daughter Vivian Edmonds published the paper from 1971 until 2002. Under Edmonds’ leadership, the paper continued to provide an important voice for the black community, especially during the 1970s and 1980s, when blacks succeeded in increasing their political power in the city and county of Durham. Since 2002, Edmonds’s son Kenneth has published the newspaper. Austin’s daughter and grandson have carried on Louis Austin’s legacy of speaking truth to power, providing a critical voice for the black community in Durham.

It Was a Wonder I Wasn’t Lynched

During the second half of the 1960s, Austin developed a complex relationship with the Black Power movement. During these years, he continued to fight for school integration and black political power. Austin worked closely with the Durham Committee on Negro Affairs, leading to the election of more black officials in Durham and throughout the state. When, in the midst of public school integration, white officials shut down many black schools and fired black principals and teachers, Austin publicized these injustices and backed lawsuits to protect black educators’ jobs. While he criticized the Black Panthers and other organizations that employed violent rhetoric and advocated black separatism, Austin championed the efforts of local activist Howard Fuller, who was considered a militant by many during that era. Austin also backed efforts by Fuller and other activists to combat poverty and ensure fair and decent housing for African Americans.

We Want Equality Now

During the decade following the Brown decision, Austin worked relentlessly for public school integration, as North Carolina’s government officials implemented policies to stop or stall enforcement of the Brown decision. When southern white conservatives cried out for states’ rights in denouncing the Brown decision, Austin denounced their claim as a sham, whose sole purpose was to perpetuate white supremacy.

No Man Is Your Captain

Born in 1898, Louis Austin came of age in rural Halifax County in eastern North Carolina, during an era of increasing oppression of African Americans. Raised in the African Methodist Episcopal church, Austin was greatly influenced by his father, a barbershop owner, who taught his children that all people were equal before God. Austin moved to Durham in 1921 to attend the National Training School, now North Carolina Central University. In Durham, Austin encountered a black community with a thriving black middle class and many successful black businesses, notably North Carolina Mutual Life Insurance Company and the Mechanics and Farmers Bank, two of the largest black-owned financial institutions in the nation.

Segregation Must and Will Be Destroyed

During the postwar decade leading up to the Brown v. Board of Education decision, Austin played a central role in increasing black voter registration, working with the Durham Committee on Negro Affairs, leading to the election of the first black member of the Durham city council in 1953. He also made important efforts to integrate public facilities. He organized an integrated football game in Durham, between a white team and a black team, which was hailed as the first racially integrated football game in the South. Austin continued to prioritize the fight for equitable public education for African Americans in the postwar years. Austin pursued a dual strategy, pressing for integration, particularly in higher education, while fighting for equal funding for black schools and equal salaries for black teachers.

Double V in North Carolina

During World War II, Austin was North Carolina’s leading advocate of the Double V strategy during World War II, fighting for victory at home against racist injustice, while supporting US efforts against the Axis powers abroad. Austin shined a bright light on the contrast between the United States government’s wartime rhetoric of fighting for freedom in Europe and Asia, and the oppression experienced by blacks every day on the home front. Unlike many black leaders in North Carolina, Austin supported A. Philip Randolph’s March on Washington Movement, which compelled President Franklin D. Roosevelt to issue an executive order that banned racial discrimination in defense plants. Despite being harassed by several federal government agencies, including the FBI and the IRS, Austin refused to tone down his attacks on the US and North Carolina governments for perpetuating racially oppressive policies. In 1944, Austin revitalized the Durham branch of the NAACP after a white bus driver murdered a black soldier. The bus driver, who was exonerated by an all-white jury, shot the soldier, who had initially refused to accommodate to Jim Crow seating.

We Have Got to Fight for Our Rights

In 1927, Austin purchased the Carolina Times and transformed the newspaper in to a vital part of the black freedom struggle in North Carolina. He prioritized printing the truth and giving a voice to the black community in Durham and throughout the state. He never focused on the newspaper as a moneymaking enterprise, as he attacked any one, who, he believed, stood in the way of freedom and equality for all people. As a result, black and white businesses often withdrew advertisements from the paper, leaving the paper in precarious financial condition. In 1933, Austin helped bring the Hocutt case, the first legal attempt to integrate southern higher public education. He also co-founded the Durham Committee on Negro Affairs in 1935, which sought to increase black political participation and improve black life in Durham. Austin was elected justice of the peace in 1934, a victory that was hailed by the Pittsburgh Courier as the beginning of the New Deal in the South. He helped expand black voter registration and moved blacks from the Republican to the Democratic Party, a strategic move to increase black political influence in the one-party state.