"City Son" Biography of Cooper, Late publisher of Legendary Newspaper: Book Signing Monday

The City Sun broke many news stories scooping the city’s large circulation daily newspapers on several occasions. The City Sun also helped launch the careers of many reporters who’ve gone on to make their own names in journalism.

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[Books/Politics/Media]

For fans of The City Sun newspaper, this is a book signing you won’t want to miss on Monday, July 2, 2012.

“City Son: Andrew W. Cooper’s Impact on Modern-Day Brooklyn,” by Wayne Dawkins.  The author reading & signing is at 6 p.m. at  Sankofa International Academy, 1670 Fulton St. (between Schenectady and Troy avenues).

Remember the legendary newspaper “The City Sun” published by the late Andy Cooper in Brooklyn? The City Sun broke many news stories scooping the city’s large circulation daily newspapers on several occasions. The City Sun also helped launch the careers of many reporters who’ve gone on to make their own names in journalism. Journalists
who once worked at The City Sun or wrote for the paper include: Wayne Dawkins, Errol Louis,
Milton Allimadi, Peter Noel, Hugh Hamilton, Utrice Leid, Maitefa Angaza, Karen
Carillo, and many others.

Background: In 1966, a year after the
Voting Rights Act began opening the polls to millions of southern
Blacks, Black New Yorkers challenged a political system that weakened
their voting power.  Andrew W. Cooper (1927-2002), a beer company
employee, sued state officials in a case called Cooper v. Power. In
1968, the courts agreed that Black citizens were denied the right to
elect an authentic representative of their community. The 12th
Congressional District was redrawn. Shirley Chisholm, a member of
Cooper’s political club, ran for the new seat and made history as the
first Black woman elected to Congress.


Cooper became a
journalist, a political columnist, and then founder of Trans Urban News
Service and The City Sun, a feisty Brooklyn-based weekly that published
from 1984 to 1996. Whether the stories were about Mayor Koch or Rev. Al
Sharpton, Howard Beach or Crown Heights, Tawana Brawley’s dubious rape
allegations, The Daily News Four trial, or Spike Lee’s filmmaking
career, Cooper’s City Sun commanded attention and moved officials and
readers to action.


Cooper’s leadership also gave
Brooklyn–particularly predominantly Black central Brooklyn–an
identity. It is no accident that in the twenty-first century the borough
crackles with energy. Cooper fought tirelessly for the community’s
vitality when it was virtually abandoned by the civic and business
establishments in the mid-to-late twentieth century. In addition, scores
of journalists trained by Cooper are keeping his spirit alive.


About
the author:
Wayne Dawkins, Newport News, Virginia, is assistant
professor of journalism at Hampton University in Hampton, Virginia. A
former newspaper reporter and editor, he is the author of Rugged Waters:
Black Journalists Swim the Mainstream and Black Journalists: The
National Association of Black Journalists Story, as well as a
contributor to Black Voices in Commentary: The Trotter Group and My
First Year as a Journalist.

Jocelyn Cooper, Andy’s widow will also be at the signing.
 
Come hear biographer Wayne Dawkins tell Cooper’s epic story at Sankofa Academy on Monday, July 2, 2012.  Take the “A” train or the “C” train to Utica Avenue, in Brooklyn. Location is one block from station.

RSVP [email protected]  or [email protected]  
212-481-7745 
 
        •        Hardcover: 304 pages 
        •        Publisher: University Press of Mississippi (July 1, 2012) 
        •        Language: English 
        •        ISBN-10: 1617032581 
        •        ISBN-13: 978-1617032585   
        •        List Price: $35 
 
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