THE POWER OF THE PEN.

A biography of activist journalist Andrew Jackson (A.J.) Smitherman is presented, with focus given to his work arguing for the equality and improved social conditions of African Americans. He was born in 1883 in Childersburg, Alabama, and worked for the Oklahoma African American newspaper "Muskogee Cimeter" following college. He would later establish his own paper, "The Tulsa Star," and moved to Buffalo, New York, where he founded the newspaper "The Buffalo Star." The Tulsa Race Riots of 1921 are discussed.