John Herman Henry Sengstacke, who founded the Negro Newspaper Publishers Association in 1940, heads the largest group of black-owned newspapers in the United States and is publisher of the only black-owned daily newspaper in the United States. In 1992 the Biographical Center of Cambridge, England, named Sengstacke its "International Man of the Year 1991-92," honoring his many achievements as an internationally known leader in the field of social justice.

Descended from a long line of Christian ministers, Sengstacke was born on 25 November 1912 in Savannah, Georgia, to the Reverend Herman Alexander Sengstacke and Rose Mae (Davis) Sengstacke, a missionary worker. The couple lived in nearby Woodville, Georgia. One of six children--three boys and three girls--the future editor and publisher was introduced to journalism at an early age. His father edited and published a small weekly newspaper, and an uncle, Robert Sengstacke Abbott, was publisher of the Chicago Defender, a weekly newspaper...