February is Black History Month, a time to honor, celebrate, and recognize the contributions of Black and African Americans nationally and within our communities. We strive to celebrate Black history past and present at Seward Co-op, and this Black History Month, we wanted to highlight a community partner: Minnesota Spokesman-Recorder (MSR). In August of 2024, MSR celebrated their 90th anniversary as the state’s oldest Black-owned business and longest-running Black newspaper. It initially began as two separate entities, The Minneapolis Spokesman and the St. Paul Recorder, led by civil rights activist Cecil E. Newman. In 2000, the two papers merged into the Spokesman-Recorder, which has been a family-owned business throughout its lifetime. Currently, the CEO is Newman’s granddaughter, Tracey Williams-Dillard, who took over in 2007.
Seward Co-op will be open from 8 a.m. to 8 p.m. on Thursday, June 19.
Kitty corner from where the Friendship store sits in the Bryant neighborhood is the location of the building Newman build in 1954 to house the newspaper. Bryant has been, and remains a neighborhood with a larger Black population and is notable for many things. It’s the neighborhood where the musician Prince grew up and where Moe Burton started the Bryant-Central Co-op in the 1970s. It’s where the Sabathani Community Center still thrives and where the Tilsenbilt Homes Historic district is—single family homes built as part of the first interracial housing project in the country. It’s where MSR grew, too. For over 90 years MSR has communicated hyper-local and relevant information catered to the Black and African American community.