New Negro Supplement

For the first time this week, ten major U.S. dailies, from the New York Journal American to the Los Angeles Herald-Examiner, carried a fat, 40-page monthly supplement written largely by and for Negroes. Called Tuesday,* and distributed on either a Sunday or a Tuesday, it begins with a claimed circulation of 1,400,000, and may provide some stiff competition for the leading Negro magazine Ebony, which has a solid circulation of 725,000.

No Crusades. Tuesday concerns itself mainly with Negroes--and, in the first issue, with successful, middle-class Negroes. It has articles on CBS Reporter Joan Murray, Golf Pro Charlie Sifford, Comedians Godfrey Cambridge, Dick Gregory and Nipsey Russell, a Chicago law firm of four Harvard-trained Negroes, and Marian Anderson at home. It runs a Washington column that focuses on news of Negro politicians and civil rights, a teen page, and reviews of books about Negroes. It also has a "Tuesday Opportunities" section, which emphasizes that there are plenty of job chances for Negroes.

"Newspapers have too long given a negative picture of Negroes," says Publisher W. Leonard Evans Jr., 50. "We want to provide a balanced picture." Evans also hopes to win white readers, who constitute an estimated 15% of Tuesday's audience. Published in Chicago and selectively distributed, Tuesday is delivered to Negro areas, integrated neighborhoods and some white suburbs. Says Evans: "We're not interested in a social crusade, but we want to start a constructive dialogue."

Little Preaching. Evans, a Chicago advertising man, started such a dialogue in 1953 by putting together the first Negro network of some 40 radio stations. To his surprise Evans found that more whites than Negroes were listening to some of the stations. That convinced him to play the Negro angle in print. He sold the Negro-supplement idea to newspaper publishers, got financing from the First National Bank of Chicago, and recruited a biracial board that includes Sausage Manufacturer Henry G Parks Jr., Labor Mediator Theodore W. Kheel, and former CBS-TV Network President Louis G. Cowan.

If Evans can maintain the pace of his first issue, many whites as well as Negroes may become Tuesday fans. The articles are brightly written, with scarcely a trace of preaching. Some of the pieces--such as an examination of Africans' reverence for Charles de Gaulle --are more informative than the standard fare of other Sunday supplements.

*From the verse: Monday's child is fair of face, Tuesday's child is full of grace. Tuesday is also the traditional closing day for Negro weekly newspapers.

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