Historian spotlights Roanoke s rich past surrounding Gainsboro Library wsls.com - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from wsls.com Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
Behind the headlines, examining the history and future of The Roanoke Tribune
Newspaper has served the community for more than 80 years.
Updated:
Tags:
ROANOKE, Va. – Any given week on Wednesday afternoon, The Roanoke Tribune is serving the city’s Black community, rolling off the presses.
But the journey from the newsroom – to the presses – and eventually to the public, certainly follows the road less traveled.
And an old road at that.
While Rev. Fleming Alexander started the newspaper in 1939 and since 1971, his daughter, Claudia Whitworth, has been the one behind the headlines.
“When I graduated from Christiansburg Institute, I came down to help daddy which he didn’t ask for, didn’t want. But I was determined to do so,” Whitworth said.
Producer Chuck Kleine films Rosemary Ketchum
Scratch the surface of most any grassroots movement in Appalachia, past or present, and you’ll find women at its heart. Strong women feature prominently throughout Appalachian history, and they continue to push the region forward today.
This week on
Inside Appalachia, we’re revisiting a show that originally aired last fall, that prominently features bold mountain women who are making a difference in their communities.
We hear what happens when Abigail Washburn and Wu Fei combine Appalachian and Chinese folk music. We also meet the driving force behind a family-owned Black newspaper that’s been publishing since 1939. Claudia Whitworth began working there for her father in 1945, and three quarters of a century later still takes an active role as publisher of the Roanoke Tribune. And we’ll meet Rosemary Ketchum, a community activist who ran for city council in Wheeling, West Virginia. We’ll learn how she became West Virginia’