Carl Murphy (January 17, 1889 – February 25, 1967) was an African-American journalist, publisher, civil rights leader, and educator.
He was publisher of the Afro-American newspaper chain of Baltimore, Maryland, expanding its coverage with regional editions in several major cities of the Washington, D.C., area, as well as Newark, New Jersey, a destination of thousands of rural blacks in the Great Migration to the North.
At its peak, the Afro-American published nine national editions, in a total of 13 major cities[1] including Baltimore; Washington, D.C.; Richmond, Virginia; and Newark, New Jersey.
Murphy supported the election in 1935 of Lillie Mae Carroll Jackson to the presidency of the local NAACP branch.
[citation needed] With Murphy's leadership, the Afro was deeply involved in helping organize Martin Luther King Jr.'s August 1963 "March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom".
In addition, Murphy was prominent in the Republican Party: he was appointed as a member of President Herbert Hoover's 1930 Commission to Haiti.
[1] Following the landmark U.S. Supreme Court Decision in Brown v. Board of Education (1954), Thurgood Marshall publicly acknowledged a debt of gratitude to Murphy.
[citation needed] Carl Murphy died on February 25, 1967, the day the Maryland General Assembly repealed a 306-year-old state law banning interracial marriage.
Carl Murphy met his future wife, Vashti Turley, while she was a student in his German class at Howard University.