T. Thomas Fortune

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Fortune, T. Thomas (1856-1928)
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T. Thomas Fortune was an African American journalist, editor, and speech writer. Born a slave and raised in Marianna, Florida, with minimal formal education, Fortune worked in print shops during his late childhood. By his early 20s Fortune became a journalist and editor. As such he made good use of his newspapers, the Globe, New York Freeman, and New York Age in his efforts to spread his message of resistance to racial oppression.

The short-lived National Afro-American League (1890-93), predecessor to the NAACP, also served as an outlet for that message which included the right of black self-defense against white violence, restoration of civil and voting rights in the South, women’s rights, workers’ rights, the end of lynching, the promotion of interracial marriage and the end of European colonialism. Fortune popularized the term “Afro-American,” acknowledging both African and American traits in persons of African descent.

Through the Age, Fortune earned the reputation as the most influential black editor and journalist of his era. Seen by some as the successor to Frederick Douglass, Fortune was soon eclipsed by Booker T. Washington, particularly after the Tuskegee educator gave the Atlanta Compromise Speech in 1895.

Despite his reputation for militancy Fortune allied himself with Washington. Fortune’s complex relationship with Washington extended back to the 1880s. The two men used their mutual respect and affection to further their respective careers. Washington financially supported the Age and used his political influence to get Fortune several writing jobs within the Republican Party. Fortune was Washington’s ghostwriter, editor, and speechwriter. Yet, Fortune’s frequent defense of Washington’s policies in the Age cost him the support of many African Americans and his political influence and reputation waned in the first decade of the 20th Century.

Fortune slipped into obscurity after 1907 after he sold his interest in the Age and severed his affiliation with Washington. For the next decade he battled alcoholism and depression, emerging briefly to serve as editor of Marcus Garvey’s Negro World from 1923 to 1928, the year he died.

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