Editor, civil rights activist, educator

In a lifespan of seventy-eight years Carl James Green-bury Murphy managed to achieve major success in three areas. He is most noted for his career as president and chief editor of one of the nation’s leading black newspapers, the Baltimore Afro-American . However, his works as a civil rights activist as well as an educator are equally notable.

Carl Murphy was born in Baltimore on January 17, 1889. He was one of ten children born to John Murphy Sr., and Martha Howard Murphy. His parents believed that the education of blacks was vitally important in the struggle for racial equality. Martha believed that Carl was her most scholarly child primarily because he had graduated second in his class of forty at Baltimore’s Douglass High School. Beginning at an early age Carl became engaged in the national debate among African American leaders regarding the best methods of educating the race and providing leadership in a segregated society. While one faction of the leadership supported education for the masses, others supported the idea of limiting resources for the “talented tenth” of the race. The Murphy family’s position was that all African Americans needed proper training in both academics as well as in trade skills. Issues about education, race relations, and leadership roles in charting a new direction for the African American community would later resurface for Murphy while he was the head of the Baltimore Afro-American newspaper.

While this debate continued at the national level, Murphy and his friend Jimmy Waring Jr. were receiving tutorial lessons by a fellow named Paul Brock. Waring’s father, who was principal of Douglass High School, brought Brock into the school to work with selected students. Brock would often times refer to Carl, Jimmy, and two other students as the “talented tenth.” The title gave Murphy the desire to pursue higher education. He believed that the most educated among African Americans had the responsibility to assist in the improvement of the race. Brock’s belief in Murphy’s ability to succeed prompted Murphy to consider college. In the early 1900s Murphy entered Howard University. He graduated in 1911 with a B.A. in German. He then had the opportunity to study at Harvard University. He was one of only two blacks in Harvard’s Graduate School, and by 1913 he was awarded an M.A. in German. Murphy left the United States before the outbreak of the First World War to study at Jena University in Germany; the outbreak of the war, however, caused him to return home in October 1914.

Prior to joining the Baltimore Afro-American newspaper, Murphy became a German professor at Howard University. Murphy taught Vashti Turley, an education major at the university and co-founder of Delta Sigma Theta, the sorority for black professional women. The two courted and eventually married in 1916. Vashti Murphy began a career as an elementary school teacher in Washington, D.C. Between 1916 and 1918 Carl Murphy worked part-time for the Afro-American as an associate editor, while he taught full-time at Howard. Later John Murphy Sr. wrote a letter to Carl asking him to leave Howard and return to work for the Afro-American full-time. During the summer of 1918 both Carl and Vashti left Washington for good to join his father and his brothers at the Afro-American news organization.

Carl Murphy replaced George F. Bragg as editor of the newspaper. Murphy’s presence and immediate success at the Afro-American won him his family’s faith and support. Following the death in 1922 of their father, Carl Murphy was elected by his family as president and chief editor of the newspaper.

Murphy’s forty-nine year tenure as editor and head of the Afro-American Company began in 1918 and ended in 1967. During his term Murphy covered a range of issues both at the national and international level. He used the editorial page to challenge local, national, and international injustices ranging from lynching, race and gender discrimination, poor housing, and poor schools, to full citizenship for all Americans. He launched an editorial attack against the U.S. government for its military occupation of Haiti. Murphy sent Afro-American reporters abroad to describe the experiences of black soldiers during the Second World War. Following the war, he wrote in support for the decolonization of Africa. He frequently communicated with prominent leaders and the many organizations they represented. These included Thurgood Marshall, the NAACP legal counsel and later U.S. Supreme Court Justice; NAACP leader Walter White; Urban League executives Eugene K. Jones and Lester Granger; Mary McLeod Bethune of the National Council of Negro Women; scholars W. E. B. Du Bois, Carter G. Woodson, Rayford W. Logan; and countless others.

In a 1992 interview with Fern Ingersoll, Frances L. Murphy II, Murphy’s youngest daughter, gave a description of her father’s dedication to civil rights struggles and to the leadership of the newspaper. She provided detailed accounts of conversations that took place between Murphy and influential black leaders such as Crisis editor and scholar W. E. B. Du Bois; former newspaper editor for the Kansas City Call and NAACP executive secretary Roy Wilkins; educator and activist Mary McLeod Bethune; and African American congressman Oscar DePriest. Breakfast meetings were conducted away from the Afro-American ’s main office often in the Murphy home to avoid interruption. NAACP campaigns, political conferences, and political hopefuls sought support from Murphy through the Afro-American news.