CARL MURPHY

Carl Murphy was an African-American Journalist, publisher, civil rights leader, and educator. Murphy served as a professor of German and chairman of the German department at Howard University between 1913 and 1918. In 1922, he became the Baltimore African newspaper and developed it into one of the largest circulated black newspapers in the nation. Murphy used its editorial pages to push for the hiring of African Americans by Baltimore's police and fire departments; to press for black representation in the legislature; and for the establishment of a state supported university to educate African Americans. With his guidance the paper collaborated with The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People on numerous civil rights cases. In the 1950s the newspaper joined forces with the NAACP in the latter's suit against the University of Maryland Law School for its segregationist admission policies. As a community activist, Murphy also helped to build the Maryland branch of the NAACP into one of the largest in the country. Carl Murphy died in 1967.

WILLIAM W. BROWNE

William W. Browne was a businessman who became active in the self-control movement. He argued that alcohol consumption among Black Americans wasted precious money and led to crime and disenfranchisement. After becoming a Methodist minister he urged the formation of "fountains" to pool money and buy land. Soon, the True Reformers of Virginia called Browne to restore its stagnant organization because his vision extended into business activity. Eventually, he established a group whose objective was to stop crime, decadence, poverty and misery while promoting joy, peace, and abundance. Browne died of cancer in 1897 and his bank collapsed 11 years later from mismanagement and embezzlement.