Credit: From the Collections of the Pennsylvania Department, The Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh
The national reach of the Pittsburgh Courier during the 1930s made its editor Robert Vann a powerful voice in the African- American community. Vann's support of the Democratic party won him appointment to five important state committees in Pennsylvania and then thrust him upon the national stage. In 1935, President Franklin Delano Roosevelt appointed the former tobacco worker from North Carolina the nation's first black assistant attorney general.
