About Us
Since 1955, the Cincinnati Herald has been the city’s premiere African American newspaper. Gerald Porter, who had worked with the African American paper, The Independent, and published a small magazine called Talk, started the Herald to fill the void he felt was left after Wendell Dabney’s Union had ceased publication. In the early days, the paper was largely run by Porter who did most of the work in getting the paper out. Over time a small staff was hired and a new manager taken on, which helped the paper flourish. In 1963, Porter died tragically following a car accident; leaving his wife, Marjorie, with a newspaper she did not know how to run and overwhelming debts.
Mrs. Porter was determined to continue the Herald’s success, however, and became the publisher with the help of her son, Bill Spillers. This was no small task for an African American woman without a background in publishing and with debts to pay. An offer from friend, Hartwell Parham to help her with the accounting, led to a marriage between the two. As Mrs. Parham, she and her son kept the paper going for the next several decades.
Spillers took over as publisher from his mother in 1993 and continued to keep the paper going strong. In 1996, the Herald was the sold to the African American owned SESH Communications. It continues to be one of the few voices in Cincinnati for African Americans. When asked in a February 11, 1994 interview what the Herald’s mission was, Spillers replied, “Our primary purpose as a newspaper is to take the general news as it relates to the black community and really tell the black community what that really means in the community.”
