“What we do here at the Call and Post isn’t a matter of life and death … actually it’s a bit more serious than that.” -- A worn and aged-yellowing sign in the hallway of the C&P.

By KEVIN ‘CHILL’ HEARD
Managing Editor

“What we do here at the Call and Post isn’t a matter of life and death … actually it’s a bit more serious than that.” -- A worn and aged-yellowing sign in the hallway of the C&P.

When you work for a mainstay in the African American community such as the Call & Post newspaper, you inevitably run into people who have either worked for the paper or know someone who has.

Ninety-five years is a long time. How many businesses have come and gone in those 95 years? We announced your great-grandmother’s 100th birthday and your child’s high school graduation.

We reported when your cousin performed in the play and when your uncle robbed the bank! At some point of time, somebody from the Call & Post put people you knew in the paper. Yeah, the “People’s Paper.” It’s not just what they call us, it’s who we are.

In one way or another, we, as a community, have all worked for the Call & Post but now we are specifically looking those whose actually helped keep the internal operations running, the folks who got a paycheck (or at least some cash on a semi-regular basis), a byline or some sort of hook-up for putting in time on behalf of the paper.

We’re even trying to track down interns.

You’d be surprised at the names and numbers of journalists, interns and regular contributors that have come through our hallowed halls (some famous and some infamous).

To celebrate our 95th anniversary, we are looking to tell the story of how we got this far, what we’ve endured along the way and why we so dearly advocate for Black people.

First “know thyself” says the wise man… So, we are in search of the communal microcosm that is “us” -- the familial “we.”

If you drove a Call and Post truck, wrote an article, sold an ad, took a picture, ran the printing press, worked in the darkroom, answered phones at the front desk, sold subscriptions, bundled stacks of papers, melted wax to stick on the back of velox paper and pasted it on a layout page with a hand roller, we are looking for you to tell your story.

Some of my co-workers have been known to suggest that some of the best Call & Post stories are the ones that “don’t” make it into the paper -- the ones that have been passed on from generation to generation of C&P workers while new employees add to the scores of on-the-job antics and out-of-the ordinary occurrences that only happen at a Black newspaper.