Indianapolis Recorder

It was the early years of the Great Depression, and parents were struggling to make ends meet. So Fannie Caldwell Stewart, owner and publisher of the Indianapolis Recorder, and her son, Marcus C. Stewart, decided that the city’s African-American newspaper was going to throw a picnic for its carriers and their families. That August 1930 […]

Everyone knows Bill Mays. If you don’t, you probably know little about Indianapolis business.

Tickets just went on sale for the U.S. Cricket National Championships in August. But wondering (aloud) what we might have paid for instead has already made for compelling sport.

The players of Crispus Attucks High School wrote a new chapter in the book of Hoosier basketball lore—one in which underdogs could be kids from urban ghettos, could grow up shooting in alleys and parks, could be black and be a vital part of the glory of the game.

“I feel like we are doing this by ourselves and fighting a losing battle,” says Rev. Charles Harrison.

By decisively winning the 1926 Gold and Glory Sweepstakes, Charlie Wiggins, a humble mechanic from Indy’s south side, earned the nickname “The Negro Speed King”—almost 65 years before Willie T. Ribbs would become the first black driver to qualify for the Indianapolis 500.