Launa Q. Newman and her late husband, Cecil Newman, who founded the Minneapolis Spokesman and the St. Paul Recorder, were an effective Black journalist dynamic duo as the two fiercely advocated for the Twin Cities Black communities.
After her husband’s death in 1976, Mrs. Newman eventually took control and ran the two newspapers, later leading a successful merger of the publications into the Minnesota Spokesman-Recorder at the turn of the century in 2000. In the interim, she relinquished the business to her children, Norma Jean Williams and Wallace “Jack” Jackman, before naming granddaughter Tracey Williams-Dillard publisher and CEO in 2007. Even in retirement, Mrs. Newman devoted the rest of her life to community service until her death in 2009.
Perhaps an unheralded local Grand Dame of Black journalism, Mrs. Newman consistently ensured that all facets of the city’s Black life, whether good or bad, were fully told in ways the mainstream media too often refuses.
“I was a troublemaker,” admitted longtime activist Spike Moss. He fondly remembers when Mrs. Newman contacted him and bluntly told him, “She was proud of me standing up. She gave me the balance in terms of what she saw and what I said” and reported it accordingly, Moss added.
“She would come straight to me and get the story for the people, and I was able to carry several victories forward” in advocating civil rights and against discrimination of Blacks by city police and other agencies.
In November 2019, the Minneapolis City Council announced a commemorative honor for Mrs. Newman by renaming the 38th Street corridor “Launa Q. Newman Way.” The corridor runs from East 36th Street to East 42nd Street along 4th Avenue South in Minneapolis.
However, Moss pointed out that more should be done to honor her and her legacy.
“She gave us [Black people] a look of [being] human” as opposed to other media “that would make our people look horrible. They put us all over the papers [whenever] we did something wrong,” said Moss. “So, the only way you could get your social side, your spiritual side, your family, or your community event was through her.
“She took those hits for Black people [who] should have been praised and respected and told the truth always.
“She was against all the abuse and the racism and hate that was thrown at us,” continued Moss. “And she did it so intelligently. She finalized that they always hit home and galvanized our people. So, it also gave them hope.”
Mrs. Newman’s son Wallace “Jack” Jackman hired me in May 1990 to fill an unexpected vacancy on the Spokesman sports page. He quickly recognized that I was more than a sportswriter but a versatile journalist.
Then I met Mrs. Newman, who didn’t know that Jackman had hired me. But she quickly realized my added value to the Spokesman, as did her son.
I helped lay out the paper when the Spokesman was laid out page by page by hand before computers took over this task. Mrs. Newman was surprised that I knew what I was doing; she always approved the pages I had laid out.
But Mrs. Newman was one tough lady. She never backed down or bent whenever we disagreed, which happened occasionally during my first couple of years at the newspaper.
She got extremely angry with me after an editorial I wrote—for a time, I was asked to write weekly editorials in addition to my sports stories. I was very critical of a local white businessman who, Mrs. Newman informed me, years earlier, had invested in the Spokesman.
She didn’t ask me to retract my written thoughts but to create and maintain peace, each week, I would call Mrs. Newman and discuss with her a couple of ideas I was thinking about writing for the next issue. She never said no or rejected my editorials after that.
After I wrote an obituary on the late Sammy Davis, Jr., Mrs. Newman praised it, saying it was very heartfelt and exactly what she had initially hoped I would write.
I also greatly respected Mrs. Newman, who I likened to the Margaret Pynchon character in Lou Grant. Nancy Marchand portrayed the widow of the newspaper’s publisher, who took over running it after her late husband’s death. Mrs. Newman did the same thing and more at the Spokesman until she retired from her journalistic career after 32 years.
Both the fictional character and the real Mrs. Newman were tough but fair. They both appreciated and demanded excellent journalism and expected nothing less.
From then on, whenever we saw each other at the office, especially after Mrs. Newman relinquished daily control and eventually sold the MSR to her granddaughter, Tracey Williams-Dillard, Mrs. Newman would ask how I was doing, how my family was doing and in turn I did the same.
At her funeral, Jack Jackman told me that his mother had great respect for me because I never backed down from her, and she appreciated my years working at the newspaper. Those words still resonate with me to this day.
Moss said “a statue on 4th Avenue and 38th” should be erected in Mrs. Newman’s honor or perhaps renamed a park after her.
“I would love to be a part of whatever group that would do something in her memory,” concluded Moss. “That’s my way of saying thank you for my life and the life I had because she gave me life.”