Black media mourns loss of newspaper pioneer – pridepublishinggroup.com

The Black Press of America is mourning the loss of one of its most influential and visionary leaders. Thomas H. Watkins, founder, chief executive officer, and publisher of the New York Daily Challenge (New York City’s first Black-owned daily newspaper) passed away last week at the age of 88, closing a remarkable chapter in American journalism and Black enterprise.
In a statement, the National Newspaper Publishers Association paid tribute to Watkins’ enduring impact on the industry and the community he served.
“The National Newspaper Publishers Association (NNPA) is saddened by the passing of one of the publisher icons of the Black Press of America, Thomas H. Watkins,” the organization said. “As a former NNPA chairman and publisher of the New York Daily Challenge, Afro Times, New American, Jersey City Challenge, Patterson-Passaic Challenge, and the Newark Challenge, Thomas Watkins was a decades-long trailblazer who published New York’s first Black-owned daily newspaper. We salute the legacy of Thomas H. Watkins and we express our sincerest condolences to the Watkins family. May his memory be a blessing to all.”
Watkins founded the New York Daily Challenge in 1968, during a period of profound social upheaval and racial reckoning in the United States. At its height, the newspaper reached thousands of readers daily, generated nearly $30 million in annual revenue, and employed dozens of African Americans from its headquarters in Bedford-Stuyvesant, Brooklyn. From the outset, Watkins challenged assumptions about the limits of Black-owned media, attracting advertising support from major corporations such as Pfizer, General Electric, and Ford—even in the paper’s first year of operation.
Now marking its 56^th anniversary, the Daily Challenge has earned a reputation as an award-winning publication known for fearless reporting, candid coverage of high-ranking politicians and prominent public figures, and a global perspective on the Black experience. Under Watkins’ leadership, the paper demonstrated that Black-owned media could be both economically viable and editorially uncompromising.
A lifelong advocate for the power of the Black voice and the Black dollar, Watkins came from a lineage deeply rooted in the struggle for racial justice and self-determination. His grandfather argued before Congress for federal protections for Black Americans against lynching. His father played a pivotal role in more than tripling the circulation of the Amsterdam News, New York’s oldest Black newspaper and the first fully unionized Black newspaper in the United States.
Watkins himself often framed the mission of Black media in stark, unapologetic terms. “The question isn’t why do we have one African American newspaper,” he was known to say. “It’s why don’t we have more?”
Over the decades, he built a Black print media empire, founding and acquiring multiple publications, including the Afro Times, New American, Jersey City Challenge, Patterson-Passaic Challenge, and Newark Challenge. A profile in The Atlanta Daily World once observed: “When you talk to Thomas Watkins, Jr., you sense a force of will that cannot be diverted from its goal. For Watkins, the ultimate goal is the economic independence of Afro Americans.”
From 1989 to 1992, Watkins served as president of the NNPA and remained active in the organization for decades thereafter. Beyond journalism, he was a sought-after speaker, delivering keynote addresses for international nonprofit organizations such as the United Way and at institutions including Bethune-Cookman University and Johnson C. Smith University.
A member of Omega Psi Phi fraternity, Sigma Pi Phi fraternity, the Comus Club, and the Reveille Club, Watkins lived in Brooklyn until his passing, continuing to advocate for Black economic empowerment and media ownership well into his later years.
He is survived by his brother, Kevin Thomas Watkins; his daughter, Kerri Watkins; his son, Thomas H. Watkins III; and eight grandchildren. His legacy endures not only through the institutions he built, but through the generations of journalists, publishers, and community leaders inspired by his unwavering belief in Black self-determination.