GOOD NEWS FIRST

Natasha Day
May 24, 2023
17 min read

How a one-time novice publisher has helped to keep Austin’s black community informed for almost 50 years

Tommy Wyatt, long-time publisher and resident of Austin, Texas has many a story to tell and he has told them in his own weekly paper, The Villager, since 1973. For the past 47 years, The Villager has been fueled by his skill in raising money from local advertisers, and his desire to keep the city’s black population informed about what’s happening in the world and in their backyards. Wyatt has seen the paper go through many uncertainties over the past five decades, for starters, his own lack of publishing knowledge. Today, the challenges are the manydevelopments in technology and the changing demographics of Austin’s once-predominantly black East Side.

Villager, “My business and my livelihood number one.” Being able to provide content for his community and not have someone else speak for them is very important to Wyatt. Keeping the paper alive has been a struggle at times but Wyatt has prevailed. Wyatt’s main concern now is preserving the legacy of The Villager after almost half a century of being in print. At 82 years old, Wyatt is still at the helm of operations

The Villager circulates 6,000 printed papers weekly. It’s a free publication that has relied on advertisers to survive for as long as it has. Lack of funding has consistently put a strain on black newspapers. “We’re dealing with primarily minority family-owned businesses and so forth; they can’t afford to put an ad in the Austin American-Statesman.” In the early years, Wyatt would scale the advertising rate for small businesses so they could afford to put an ad in The Villager. Wyatt pointed out that even though it was hard they both helped each other out, “I couldn’t have made it without them.”

Demographics on the East Side of Austin have changed drastically since Wyatt moved here from Lubbock, Texas, in 1962. Wyatt described how black journalists who once worked for black newspapers have gone on to work for bigger mainstream publications, which has contributed to a decrease in black newspapers. Linda Jackson, the Director for Civic Engagement and Community Outreach at Huston-Tillotson University, has had a partnership with Wyatt throughout the years.” Jackson commended The Villager for being able to keep up with the changing times by establishing a website that readers can reference as well as the printed edition. “As a journalist, he was one of my ‘must meet’ contacts to ensure that the University's information would reach the broader community.” Jackson said she has watched the paper grow and expand. “If Central Texas did not have a community newspaper such as The Villager, our community engagement would not exist at the level it does today.”

There were other black newspapers in Austin in addition to The Villager. The late publisher Akawsi Evans had a paper called Nokoa the Observer. Wyatt defined Evans' paper as more “radical” than The Villager. Evans and Wyatt were very good friends for decades; they served as radio hosts on “The KAZI Breakfast Club.” Former University of Texas journalism professor George Sylvie remembers Wyatt and Evans being “joined at the hip” until Evans’death in 2019.

“Pardon my language, it was the shit, you had to check in to see what they were going to chat about,” Sylvie said, adding that Evans and Wyatt were the go-to guys for many years. Sylvie met Wyatt about 20 years ago, “Being African-American, I was interested in what our local press was doing and how it was accomplishing its mission.” Sylvie and Wyatt worked together with the Texas Publishers Association when Sylvie sought help for a grant. “I don’t know where Austin would be without Tommy, particularly East Austin, Rosedale, that area, he has been and is an institution,” he said.

Wyatt moved to Austin to work for an insurance company. Not knowing anyone in town, he relied on a black publication, the Capital City Argus, for resources. The publisher for the Capital City Argus passed away from a heart attack playing bridge one night. Wyatt said that the people who preceded her had a different outlook. Wyatt and his late wife, Barbara, decided to start a black business registry. East Austin was segregated back then, the black residents lived on the east side of Interstate-35. “UT was segregated, downtown was segregated, who cares, everything we needed was on our side of town.” He recalls, with a reminiscent look in his eye, a movie theater that used to be on East 12th Street.

“That’s one thing that I was excited about when I came here, I had never seen that many black-owned businesses,” he said. His hometown of Lubbock didn’t have many at the time. “That was cotton picking country, maybe a barber shop or something like that...when I came here whatever you needed, somebody had it.” The black business registry was Wyatt's first experience at publishing. “If somebody new came to town and was looking for a plumber or electrician, just open up the black business registry and you can find that,” Wyatt said. The black business registry lasted until about five years ago.

The name of The Villager came from a young lady who was a student at Huston-Tillotson University. “She helped me come up with the name, we decided this was our village, so we called it The Villager.” In the early years Wyatt needed a lot of help to get the paper up and running; fortunately he had connections. “I was lucky, the guy who was a photographer for the black registry was married to a lady whose father was the dean for the school of journalism at the University of Texas, and she was a graduate from University of Texas in journalism,” he said.That woman and one her colleagues were both fired from the Austin American-Statesman for being in interracial marriages. They brought their journalistic skills and worked for The Villager in its first few years. Their hard work helped to advance the paper by working as reporters, also by helping Wyatt to use new technology in the Villager newsroom.

Note: Consider giving readers a sampling of a couple of headlines on typical stories and a brief description of what they cover, to give a feel for what’s in the paper.

**Wyatt’s office**

The desire to tell your own story is nothing new to the black community. For over a century, there have been thousands of black newspapers. The first black newspaper there is a record of was The Freedom’s Journal, which was published in New York City in 1827. It was a weekly four-page paper with four columns. The publishers of the paper were two gentlemen, Samuel Cornish and John Russworm. The publication provided readers with something that was tangible proof that African-Americans could in fact read, write, and have insight. Black newspapers also provided something intangible; they instilled a sense of hope and pride in black communities.

Revolutionary investigative journalist Ida B. Wells was at the forefront of informing people from all over the country of the violence that was happening in the South. Wells was part owner of the Memphis Free Speech newspaper at the time, and after bringing her discoveries to light the offices were burned down. Wells had to move to New York and never returned to Memphis. Putting their lives on the line was a part of their regular work, but it was important for them to be able to tell their own stories and paint their communities in an uplifting and truthful light. In the early 1900s there were more published newspapers than any other time before or after. There were many other groundbreaking and historical publications like The North Star, Chicago Defender, and the California Eagle.

Note: You might consider letting readers see Wyatt in his office at the top of the piece—I’d keep the description brief so it doesn’t fight Wyatt for the spotlight, but it might help locate your readers inside The Villager and give them a sense of place. You could then come back to a fuller description here.

The Villager’s offices have moved more than a few times since it started, but has always resided on the East Side. At the moment it sits in an almost abandoned-looking shopping center on the corner of East 12th and Springdale. Wyatt’s office is in a large room to the right of the entrance. An analog clock, Dallas Cowboys fan memorabilia and plaques of various awards lean up against the window. Email notifications periodically ring in the background, along with “Live with Kelly & Ryan” on the TV adjacent to a cluttered desk.

Wyatt’s son Thomas has a desk in the main room in the office. He works for the paper, picking it up from the printer in Georgetown and delivering it every Thursday. Thomas is also in charge of the website. Practically growing up in The Villager offices, Thomas started working for the paper when he was around 7 by helping his dad with deliveries. As a kid Thomas said he didn’t really understand the significance of the paper. “When you’re little, you really don’t understand what’s going on,” Thomas explains. “My dad was always going to city council meetings and I would sit in the stands. Growing up the son of a black publisher you get to see the work that’s being put into it, and how hard it was.”

Thomas knew prominent black politicians and police officers in Austin. He knew how imperative it was to read and to constantly be informed. “If you’re on the outside like many of my friends were, you didn’t know that stuff.” The insight Thomas had got him in trouble a few times in school. “Teachers would talk about what was going on in the city of Austin and my classmates they’d listen to it like ‘Okay.’ I’m sitting here thinking, ‘No, it’s not like that,’” Thomas said. When you’re the son of a black publisher you get to see a lot of stuff that ordinary people just don’t see.” Making the website accessible is important to him, but the actual paper is what he takes pride in. “You can have digital, that’s okay, but keep a newspaper.” Thomas is in his early 50’s now and has left Austin a few times, but always returns to The Villager to help his father and to further the influence he started back in 1973.

The Austin History Center held an exhibit honoring The Villager earlier this year. The exhibit “Our Community Voice: Photographs from the Villager Newspaper- Photography Exhibition” was curated by photo archivist Madeline Moya and African-American community archivist Kymberly Keeton. It featured almost 5,000 photographs through the decades from TheVillager pages from the 70s to 2010. “I personally will always be thankful for having the opportunity to organize and create a setting for African-American people to celebrate their past, present, and future,” Keeton said. She also expressed that it was a great experience to be in Wyatt’s presence and many other supporters of the newspaper.

((For our last interview we talked,-- You might avoid mentioning the interview per se, and just use a short transition sentence to indicate Wyatt’s response to publishing in a time of COVID “Nothing’s changed for us,” said Wyatt about COVID-19, although the print shop was an hour behind because it had to lay some of its employees off. “My lady-friend and I haven’t seen each other in five days.” Wyatt has been seeing a woman for the past 20 years. Since the virus has gotten more serious, they just talk over the phone. He said he misses watching sports, particularly tennis, and will miss playing golf this Saturday. He gets up to grab a framed picture on his desk of him and his three golf buddies on the course together. Wyatt said people always ask when he is going to retire. “When you retire you die. I enjoy living,” he said. He says that the Villager has served him personally in many ways, “It has provided me with independence number one and gratification when I can see the smile on people’s faces when they see their name and faces in the paper.” Wyatt then responds simply “I’ve enjoyed Austin.”

WORD COUNT: 2360

Natasha: Thanks for your hard, smart work on this story in a demanding semester. Despite our need to pivot to socialyy distanced reporting, you stuck with your idea and got the job done—congratulations! This story has evolved nicely from the first draft and thanks for your attention to the reporting, research, organization and drafting—all those long-form storytelling elements we studied this semester. I also appreciate the way you were always ready to discuss our reading of assorted long-form articles and the good ideas you brought to the effort. Please keep us posted about developments in your storytelling future! All best, TD

Vincent’s comments: Solid work Natasha. I would’ve liked to see a bit more progress from the last draft to this one, but nonetheless I think you have a pretty good story here. It’s been cool to see the progress from the beginning of this semester and watch the story develop. I think you could do something with this story with some more tinkering and revisions. Good work overall! It’s been a pleasure having you in class this semester, and I hope you enjoy your break! Take care.

Assignment grade: 95

Course grade: A

GOOD NEWS FIRST

How a one-time novice publisher has helped to keep Austin’s black community informed for almost 50 years

Tommy Wyatt, long-time publisher and resident of Austin, TX has many a story to tell and he has told them in his own weekly paper, the Villager, since 1973. For the past 47 years, The Villager, has been fueled by his skill in raising money from local advertisers, and his desire to keep the city’s black population informed about what’s happening in the world and in their backyards. Wyatt has seen the paper go through many uncertainties over the past five decades, for starters, his own lack of publishing knowledge. Today, the challenges are the many developments in technology and the changing demographics of Austin’s once-predominantly black East Side.

Almost every city in the United States has at one point had a black newspaper. Blacknews.com reports that there are currently about 200 different black newspapers in 150 cities, some cities having more than one. Wyatt calls the Villager, “My business and my livelihood number one,”. Being able to provide content for his community and not have someone else speak for them is very important to Wyatt. Keeping the paper alive has been a struggle at times but Wyatt has prevailed. Wyatt’s main concern now is preserving the legacy of The Villager after almost half a century of being in print. At 82 years old, Wyatt is still at the helm of operations.

The Villager circulates 6,000 printed papers weekly. It’s a free publication and has relied on advertisers to survive for as long as it has. Lack of funding has consistently put a strain on black newspapers. “We’re dealing with primarily minority family-owned businesses and so forth;they can’t afford to put an ad in the Austin American-Statesman.” In the early years Wyatt would scale the advertising rate for small businesses so they could afford to put an ad in The Villager. Wyatt pointed out that even though it was hard they both helped each other out, “I couldn’t have made it without them.” Wyatt was a big supporter of HEB since the first East Side of Austin location was built off of Springdale Rd. Today, HEB is one of the paper's biggest advertisers todate.

There were other black newspapers in Austin in addition to The Villager. The late publisher Akawsi Evans had a paper called Nokoa the Observer. Wyatt defined Evans' paper as more “radical” than The Villager. Evans and Wyatt were very good friends for decades, they served as radio hosts on “The KAZI Breakfast Club.” Former University of Texas journalism professor George Sylvie remembers Wyatt and Evans being “joined at the hip” until Evans’untimely death in 2019.

The name of The Villager came from a young lady who was a student at Huston-Tillotson University. “She helped me come up with the name, we decided this was our village, so we called it The Villager.” In the early years Wyatt needed a lot of help to get the paper up and running; fortunately, he had connections. “I was lucky, the guy who was a photographer for the black registry was married to a lady whose father was the dean for the school of journalism at the University of Texas, and she was a graduate from University of Texas in journalism,” he said.That woman and one her colleagues were both fired from the Austin American-Statesman for being in interracial marriages. They brought their journalistic skills and worked for The Villager in its first few years. Their hard work helped to advance the paper by working as reporters, also by helping Wyatt to use new technology in the Villager newsroom.

Wyatt said that telling the good news of black people in Austin is what has helped The Villager to stand out from other local publications. He claims that if there was a story about a black person in the Austin American-Statesman it would be hard to find, “Unless they committed a crime or did something bad, it’s on page one, always.” He writes a column every week called “Rappin’ Tommy Wyatt which consists of a multitude of topics from politics to tributes. Milestone wedding anniversaries and high school graduation announcements are common topics in the paper, along with an entertainment section and a sports section. “It’s beena great partnership” said entertainment reporter Naomi Richard about working with Wyatt. Having a background in IT, Richard has helped the paper spread its wings in the social media world of Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. Richard has worked for the paper for seven years, starting out as a photographer, her many impressive photos can frequently be seen on the front page. The Villager has given her and many other black journalists the experience and exposure to work in a once very marginalized field.

The Villager’s offices have moved more than a few times since it started but has always resided on the East Side. At the moment it sits in an almost abandoned-looking shopping center on the corner of East 12th and Springdale. Wyatt’s office is in a large room to the right of the entrance. Email notifications periodically ring in the background, along with “Live with Kelly & Ryan” on the TV adjacent to a cluttered desk. Wyatt’s son Thomas has a desk in the main room in the office. He works for the paper, picking it up from the printer in Georgetown and delivering it every Thursday. Thomas is also in charge of the website. Practically growing up in The Villager offices, Thomas started working for the paper when he was around 7 by helping his dad with deliveries. As a kid Thomas said he didn’t really understand the significance of the paper. “When you’re little, you really don’t understand what’s going on,” Thomas explains. “My dad was always going to city council meetings and I would sit in the stands. Growing up the son of a black publisher you get to see the work that’s being put into it, and how hard it was.”

Thomas knew prominent black politicians in Austin and police officers. He knew how imperative it was to read and to constantly be informed. “If you’re on the outside like many of my friends were, you didn’t know that stuff.” The insight Thomas had got him in trouble a few times in school. “Teachers would talk about what was going on in the city of Austin and my classmates they’d listen to it like ‘Okay.’ I’m sitting here thinking, ‘No, it’s not like that,’” Thomas said. When you’re the son of a black publisher you get to see a lot of stuff that ordinary people just don’t see.” Making the website accessible is important to him, but the actual paper is what he takes pride in. “You can have digital, that’s okay, but keep a newspaper.” Thomas is in his early 50’s now and has left Austin a few times, but always returns to The Villager to help his father and to further the influence he started back in 1973.

In the midst of a global pandemic when most businesses have been forced to scale down operations Wyatt said “Nothing’s changed for us,” about COVID-19. Although the print shop they’ve done business with for decades was an hour behind because it had to lay some of itsemployees off. “My lady-friend and I haven’t seen each other in five days.” Wyatt has been seeing a woman for the past 20 years. Since the virus has gotten more serious, they just talk over the phone. He said he misses watching sports, particularly tennis, and will miss playing golf this Saturday. He gets up to grab a framed picture on his desk of him and his three golf buddies on the course together. He said that everyone knows better than to ask him about doing anything on a Saturday because everyone knows he’ll be playing golf. Wyatt said people always ask when he is going to retire. “When you retire you die. I enjoy living,” he said. He says that the Villager has served him personally in many ways, “It has provided me with independence number one and gratification when I can see the smile on people’s faces when they see their name and faces in the paper.” Wyatt then responds simply “I’ve enjoyed Austin.”

Sources

-Tommy Wyatt 512-476-0179

-Thomas Wyatt (son) 512-476-0179

-Toni Cirilli (reference archivist) mailto:Toni.Cirilli@austintexas.gov

-Kymberly Keeton kYmberly.Keeton@austintexas.gov (African-Amercian community archivist)

-Linda Jackson (HT University) lyjackson@htu.edu 512-505-3006

-Professor George Sylvie g.sylvie@utexas.edu 512-517-7092

-Naomi Richard naomi.richard@earthlink.net 512-796-1547.

GOOD NEWS FIRST

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