This Day in History: 1983-04-30

American journalist, newspaper publisher, and editor Robert C. Maynard becomes the first African American to gain a controlling interest in a major metropolitan newspaper when he purchases the The Oakland Tribune from Gannett. He is widely recognized for turning around the then struggling newspaper and transforming it into a 1990 Pulitzer Prize-winning journal. Maynard was friends with influential New York writers James Baldwin and Langston Hughes, and was also co-founder of the Robert C. Maynard Institute for Journalism Education in Oakland, California. Learn more.