About The Montgomery advertiser. [volume] (Montgomery, Ala.) 1885-1982
Montgomery, Ala. (1885-1982)

The Montgomery Advertiser

The Montgomery Advertiser was first published in 1829 as a result of merging the Planters' Gazette, owned at the time by printer Edward W. Thompson, with the Alabama Journal, owned by Georgia Governor George Washington Bonaparte Towns. The paper would become the leading newspaper of the Confederate States by 1861, but prior to that, it maintained united coverage of Montgomery with differing political perspectives as the owners belonged to the clashing Whig and Democratic Parties. Continuing into the twentieth century, the paper has slanted conservative. Today it is the largest of Alabama's 22 daily published newspapers.

The Advertiser's main purpose was to communicate area business, reporting on the daily events and issues pertaining to the citizens of what would become the state's capital city in 1846. During the turn of the twentieth century, the paper dismissively covered racial tensions in the area. When describing a "serious practical joke" played upon a young boy, the Advertiser reported, "The Callen negro went to a doctor as fast as he could. He was nauseated before he reached the physician, whether from imagination cannot be told" (October 28, 1902). The report further explained that after a stomach pump, the boy had ingested sulphur-coated matchstick heads that had been hidden inside a gifted dessert. The same antagonistic reporting would reemerge during the civil rights movement in the latter half of the century. A March 25, 1956 editorial by Edward Baptist Teague warns of the potential backlash for school segregation by whites after the upcoming presidential election by decrying "A plank affirming their [i.e., African Americans'] determination to secure for their wards, the Negro race, every advantage resulting from close association with white people. No states' rights plank will be adopted and the whole platform will be what the South does not desire."

It was under the direction of editor Grover C. Hall from 1910-26 that the Advertiser would come to speak out against the Ku Klux Klan and racial discrimination. This was also the first time the Advertiser was awarded one of two Pulitzer Prizes for Hall's editorials against "gangsterism, floggings, and racial and religious intolerance." The second Pulitzer was awarded to journalist Harold E. Martin who wrote an exposé in 1970 about a commercial scheme for using Alabama prisoners for drug experimentation.

During the first part of the 21st century, the paper hired its first African American executive editor, Wanda Lloyd, and publisher and president, Samuel P. Martin. The Montgomery Advertiser still publishes daily with an identical online outlet concentrating on coverage of Alabama state politics while providing insight into national news.

Provided by: University of Alabama Libraries, Tuscaloosa, AL