The impact of the Joplin Uplift newspaper
JOPLIN, Mo. — The Joplin Globe may be the only newspaper in Joplin these days — but it wasn’t always the case.
When a new mural appeared in downtown Joplin, it helped bring awareness to Joplin Uplift — the name of a newspaper published in Joplin between 1926 to about 1932 for the Black community.
“The things that were based around that Uplift Movement had to do with bringing power to black people at that time when they were really powerless in many ways”
Black community historian Nanda Nunnelly said there were other publications of this type, but none that lasted as long as the Uplift. And she said it was named after the nationwide negro Uplift Movement.
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“Was the idea that the empowerment of Blacks could come through education, communication and political involvement in their community.”
The uplift was the work of primarily two people.
Ag and his wife Fanny Tutt operated the Uplift out of their home in Joplin even though Nunnelly said there’s no evidence that either had any formal journalism education or training.
“They worked well together, he was the editor and she was the circulation manager for the Joplin Uplift.”
But community service was nothing new for Tutt, who served his country in World War I, and Fanny opened their house to African Americans traveling through the Joplin area by listing their house in the Green Book.
“Its important for them to to be able to direct people to places where they could lodge, places to eat, places to get gasoline, we really take that for granted, it was that hard, that was what she did.”
Augustus Tutt would also go on to start a restaurant before his death in 1934, and his wife would become a teacher at Lincoln High School and is one of the founding members of what would become the Minnie Hackney Community Service Center.
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Nunnelly said to call the couple trailblazers is an understatement.
“We have reports, history reports here of the KKK literally marched in Schifferdecker Park during some of those years, so to think you have a Black man and his wife who were starting a newspaper and circulating a newspaper and talking about what was happening in Joplin, it was very important, that was a way of getting information out.”
