Charlotta Bass, publisher, managing editor, and reporter of the California Eagle from 1912 to 1951, used the newspaper as a powerful tool in her pioneering fight for social justice and equality in Los Angeles and the nation.

Her newspaper career spanned forty years, through World War I and World War II, the Great Depression, the Central Avenue Renaissance in Los Angeles, the California Legislature's investigations on "un-American" activities, and the early civil rights movement. Throughout all these eras and changing times, the California Eagle was Bass' voice in her social activism. She used the newspaper, and her weekly editorial column, "On the Sidewalk," as instruments to fight for change.

Charlotta Bass in front of the Eagle's printing plant, 1929-1934.

Bass practiced "advocacy" journalism, which challenges today's notion that news reporting should be "unbiased." In advocacy journalism, the newspaper openly takes a stand and presents the news from that position. Moreover, in advocacy journalism, the newspaper is not merely reporting information but is involved in the process of making the news. Although journalists of the black press often practiced a community journalism in which the newspapers published platforms and the publishers were community leaders, Bass's level of activism was extraordinary. See the platform of the California Eagle, published December 19, 1930.

Like most black newspapers of that period, the California Eagle served as a source of both information and inspiration for the black community, which was largely ignored or negatively portrayed by the white press. With national and international coverage, the California Eagle brought black Angelenos in touch with struggles for civil rights taking place in other parts of the country and across the globe. The paper also helped to bring Los Angeles-based civil rights struggles to the national stage.

Committed to producing a quality newspaper, in 1926-27 Bass spent three months taking journalism courses at Columbia University. Upon her return, she created her "On the Sidewalk" column, which appeared weekly on the front page of the California Eagle from 1927 to 1951. "On the Sidewalk," and her other editorial contributions to the newspaper, were the medium through which Bass created, framed, and led battles to bring about social and economic equality for oppressed people. She was not content with merely describing unjust conditions, but used the columns to promote direct-action campaigns to bring about reform.

With offices located on Central Avenue in the heart of Los Angeles's black community, the California Eagle promoted black businesses and the hiring of African Americans in the area, initiating the local "Don't Shop Where You Can't Work" campaign. The paper also included news about politics, religion, sports, and entertainment in the black community. An article in the April 4, 1924, issue of the Eagle gives the circulation as 60,000, including state and national distribution. At that time, the Eagle had 12 employees and published 20 pages a week. The N.W. Ayers & Sons "Directory of Newspapers and Periodicals for 1940" reports a circulation of 17,600 in Los Angeles. Neither circulation figure may be completely on the mark. Unquestionably, however, the Eagle was one of the largest black newspapers on the West Coast into the thirties and continued to be influential for most of its existence.

Beginning in 1938, the Eagle also produced a 15-minute newspaper-of-the-air, which was broadcast six nights a week on radio station KGFJ. The show was off the air for awhile but sometime around 1940 the Eagle began presenting "The California Eagle Hour" every Sunday over station KFVD. The program provided information about news, sports, social events, and other activities in Los Angeles' black community.

In April 1951, amid accusations of being a Communist that took a financial toll on the newspaper, Bass published her last issue and sold it soon after. In 1960, she wrote and published Forty Years, an autobiography that highlighted the achievements of the California Eagle.

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