Bass, Charlotta Spears (1880–1969)

African-American editor and civil-rights advocate. Name variations: Charlotta A. Bass; Charlotta Spears. Born Charlotta Spears, Oct 1880, in Sumter, South Carolina; died April 12, 1969, in Los Angeles, California; dau. of Hiram Spears and Kate Spears; m. Joseph Bass (newspaper founder and editor), mid-1910s (died 1934).

Sold subscriptions for newspaper The Eagle (later The California Eagle) in Los Angeles (1910–12); managed and edited The California Eagle, focusing on social activism (1912–50s); won libel suit brought by Ku Klux Klan against newspaper (1925); worked for Wendell Wilkie's presidential campaign (1940); was the 1st black grand-jury member at Los Angeles Co. Court (1943); ran unsuccessfully for Los Angeles City Council (1945) and for Congress (1950); testified before Tenney Committee on suspicion of being "un-American" (1946); helped found Progressive Party (late 1940s); visited Paris and Prague for Peace Committee of the World Congress (1950); was 1st black candidate for vice presidency, representing Progressive Party (1952); helped establish several organizations to assist minorities, including Progressive Educational Association (1917), Industrial Business Council (1930), and Home Protective Association; argued for creation of permanent fair-employment practices committee and equal rights for minorities; supported banning of atomic bomb (1950) and end to Cold War and Korean War.

See also autobiography, Forty Years: Memoirs from the Pages of a Newspaper (1960).