The newspapers section includes selected, transcribed articles from two major African-American owned newspapers--the Charlottesville Reflector and the Richmond Planet. Thomas J. Sellers edited and owned the Reflector, and we have only one surviving short run of it (a year and a half). Sellers writes about the local black community, the pain of segregation, and the success of black businesses, churches, and fraternal institutions. Sellers' perspective ranges across many national events, including the Scotsboro cases, the depression, and the New Deal. We selected a range of newspaper articles from the Reflector for inclusion in this collection--editorials, social announcements, letters, and reprinted pieces.

The Planet was edited by John Mitchell and was one of the largest and most widely read black papers in Virginia. The Planet had a "Charlottesville correspondent" who reported on news from the African-American community that was of interest to Richmond readers. We selected articles from or about Charlottesville or Albemarle for inclusion in this collection. While we have compiled over 1,000 articles in this collection, we have not finished this project and the collection should not be considered complete.