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Andrew W. Cooper
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
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Andrew W. Cooper (August 21, 1927 – January 28, 2002)[1] was an African-American activist during the Civil Rights Movement, businessman, and journalist. He was the publisher and editor-in-chief of The City Sun.[2]
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Cooper was born in 1927 in Brooklyn, New York.[1] He attended Boys High School and Adelphi University.[1] From 1951 through 1971, he was an executive of the F. & M. Schaefer Brewing Company.[3]
In 1965, Cooper brought suit under the Voting Rights Act of 1965 against racial gerrymandering.[1] African Americans and Latinos made up the majority of the Bedford-Stuyvesant neighborhood in which he lived, but the neighborhood was divided among five congressional districts, each represented by a white Congressmember.[4] Cooper opposed districts drawn in what he described as "so tortuous, artificial and labyrinthine a manner that the lines are irrational and unrelated to any proper purpose".[5] His lawsuit, Cooper v. Power, was successful.[1] It resulted in the creation of New York's 12th Congressional District and the election in 1968 of Shirley Chisholm, the first black woman ever elected to the U.S. Congress.[3]
In the 1970s, Cooper left the business world to become a journalist.[4] He started the Trans-Urban News Service (TUNS) in 1977, with the dual goals of training minority journalists and producing reporting that was relevant to their communities.[4] The Public Relations Society of America gave TUNS its top award in 1979 for its multi-part series on racial tensions between blacks and Jews in Crown Heights.[6] Cooper wrote a weekly column, "One Man's Opinion", for the Amsterdam News and also wrote for The Village Voice.[3]
Cooper founded The City Sun, a weekly newspaper that covered issues of interest to African Americans in New York City, in 1984.[2] According to The New York Times, The City Sun had a circulation of 18,500 in 1987.[7] Financial difficulties forced Cooper to shut down The City Sun in 1996.[8]
Cooper was recognized as Journalist of the Year by the National Association of Black Journalists in 1987 for his work at The City Sun.[9]
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