T. Thomas Fortune
“The Black Radical You Never Heard Of.”
Biography of T. Thomas Fortune
Timothy Thomas Fortune (born October 3, 1856 in Marianna, Florida; died June 2, 1928, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania) was a leading African-American journalist, editor, publisher, and civil rights advocate. He was born into slavery, educated after Emancipation, worked as a printer’s apprentice and a page in the state senate, then moved into journalism. Over his career, he founded or edited several Black newspapers, most notably The New York Age. Fortune was a vocal critic of injustice, an organizer (co-founder of the Afro-American League), and a thinker who challenged racial inequality through both activism and writing.
Newspapers & Periodicals (editor/writer)
New York Globe → New York Freeman → The New York Age (editor/owner across evolutions). The Freeman was published by Fortune in 1884; The New York Age listed him as editor (1887–1907).
Negro World (editorial work in the 1920s under Marcus Garvey).
Archival evidence of Fortune’s New York Age articles (1890–1898) is preserved at NYPL/Schomburg; the scrapbook also includes pieces in (or about him from) papers such as the New York Sun, Brooklyn Daily Eagle, Texas Morning News, etc.
Learn more about Fortune and his work at the T. Thomas Fortune Foundation & Cultural Center
Learn more at T. Thomas Fortune’s official website.
