AS WE approach the celebration of our national bicentennial, it is appropriate that we pay tribute to the black press in our country. Since the early Nineteenth Century, America's black newspapers have championed the cause of equal opportunity and justice. They have staunchly defended the very principles on which our nation was founded and sought full expression for those principles in our daily lives.
I know that I am joined by countless fellow citizens during this observance in giving special recognition to the crucial role of the black press in perpetuating and preserving the legacy of freedom we cherish.
GERALD R. FORD
Note: Black Press Week, sponsored by the National Negro Publishers Association, was observed March 1016, 1975.
Gerald R. Ford, Message on the Observance of Black Press Week. Online by Gerhard Peters and John T. Woolley, The American Presidency Project https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/node/256898