The Tri-State's only Black-owned newspaper has new ownership as Sondra Matthews retires

EVANSVILLE, Ind. — After almost 40 years in operation, Our Times, the Tri-State’s only Black-owned paper, has new lead.

Sondra Matthews, founder of Our Times, sold the paper to the Adrian M. Brooks Sr. Foundation, which took over operations March 25.

“Journalism has been very good for me,” Matthews told the Courier & Press.

Raised in Evansville, Matthews started her journalism career here. After sending letters to the editor of a Black-owned paper in Milwaukee, the paper's management eventually asked her to write a weekly column, which she did for 13 years before returning to Indiana.

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Matthews was honored with the Martin Luther King Jr. Scholarship to the University of Evansville to study journalism. After graduating in 1977, she went to work for an advertising company in the city.

During her time at the agency, she was involved in Democratic politics and her workplace was in charge of managing Michael Vandeveer's mayoral campaign. She would allow campaign workers to use her office to have coffee meetings with the community.

These connections, along with her experience with public housing — Matthews grew up in Lincoln Gardens — helped her earn an appointment running the city's housing authority.

From Inner City Reporter to Our Times

That's also when Matthews started her first newspaper, the Inner City Reporter. She said she did it after seeing how the local media was covering the story of the city’s mistreatment and firing of a Black executive director.

One of Matthews' friends had an aunt who published a paper in Peoria, Illinois. Matthews would go there each Saturday morning to have the Inner City Reporter printed.

Eventually, Matthews said her advertising agency employer told her she had to choose: Advertising or journalism. Some 40 years later, the paper is still having a successful run.

“We believe that Sondra has done a really great job of just capturing what's going on in Black culture,'' said Rasheedah Jackson Ajibade, Our Times' senior editor.

With the help of a few community members and her nephew, DeMarco Hampton, who passed away in 2015, Matthews transformed the paper from the Inner City Reporter into a monthly paper called In Our Times.

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From there, the paper was printed in Mount Vernon, Indiana, and then later in Henderson, Kentucky. These days, the printing is done upriver in Owensboro.

“(The paper) started in protest … Everything I’ve done, it’s been because I was protesting,” Matthews said.

Now 78, Matthews said she knew it was time to put down her notepad and pass the baton onto someone else.

“I just physically could not continue to serve the community very well with (my) health issues,” she said. “And I was just getting tired. I've been doing it for almost 40 years.”

Not wanting the community to lack a Black newspaper, the Rev. Adrian Brooks Sr. said he jumped at the opportunity to take over.

The foundation, which has had a close relationship with Matthews for years, wants to continue to tell African-American stories.

“They're gonna take the paper to much higher levels, I have no doubt about it,” Matthews said.

And according to the new staff, that’s the goal.

“We definitely want to continue to tell positive stories that uplift the Black community… and highlight Black excellence,” said Jackson Ajibade. “We want to inform the community of different things that affect us in terms of culture, health, education ... all aspects of our lives.”

Rayonna Burton-Jernigan covers diversity and culture-related topics and can be contacted at rbj@courierpress.com or (812) 454-1765.

This article originally appeared on Evansville Courier & Press: Our Times: Evansville Black-owned newspaper has been sold