“We Have Got to Fight for Our Rights”: Louis Austin, the Carolina Times, and the 20th-Century Black Freedom Struggle

This paper focuses on Louis Austin and the Carolina Times, the leading Black newspaper in North Carolina, during the early-to-mid-20^th century. Based in Durham, North Carolina, Austin and the Carolina Times pushed for Black voter registration, backed the NAACP and teacher salary equalization lawsuits, promoted black public education, and organized legal action to integrate primary, secondary, and higher education during the Great Depression.

During World War II, Austin was the key proponent of the Double V Campaign, backing the United States in the war against the Axis Powers, while fighting for racial justice at home. While the white press, including the Durham Morning Herald and the Raleigh News and Observer backed efforts to suppress the Black voter, and stop Black protest movements, the Black press, and notably, the Carolina Times, refused to back down, despite violent threats, as well as surveillance by the FBI. Austin’s activism helped African Americans make gains in public education, voter registration and political influence, and in the justice system. It also laid the foundation for the modern civil rights movement of the 1950s and 1960s.