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of politics, for the scope of this community newspaper was much broader than that.
The Afro covered international, national, and local news it deemed interesting to
the Black community. It reported on religion, sports, all types of community
organizations, entertainment and culture, and "society" (in the sense the community
upper crust). It combined sensationalistic reporting of sex and violence with
serious and sometimes moralistic editorials and columns. It had stories of
considered to be of special interest to women. It ran poems and fiction by Black
authors. It had a magazine section, a regular person-on-the-street column, and an
often lively letters to the editor column."
Moreover, by the early 1930s, the Afro was far more than a newspaper of just
the Baltimore community. In addition to two issues a week focusing mainly on the
Baltimore and Maryland market, the Afro published a Washington, D.C edition,
and a national edition (which had special news pages for Richmond, Philadelphia
and other nearby cities) distributed far to the northeast and southeast and beyond.
The size of the Afro's circulation alone indicated that it was a major national
presence among African Americans. From a readership of only 250 in 1900, the
Afro's circulation grew to 2,910 in 1910, to 20,149 in 1920, and to 40,432 in 1930. In
1935, circulation would reach 58,978, the third largest for a Black newspaper in the
country. Only the Pittsburgh Courier and the Chicago Defender had more
readers.
Nevertheless, on the eve of the Depression, the vast majority of the Afro's
readers were located in the Baltimore metropolitan region and, despite its more
national characteristics and influence, even its national edition had an
unmistakable Baltimore and Maryland tone, especially on the editorial and opinion
pages. And the Afro monopolized the Black newspaper market in the Baltimore
area. While as many as 31 Black community newspapers were founded along with
the Afro in the later 19th century, and while at least six Baltimore-published papers
competed in that community in the 1900 through 1912 period, by the 1920s
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