Claude Albert Barnett (September 16, 1889 – August 2, 1967) was an American journalist, publisher, entrepreneur, philanthropist, civic activist, Pan-Africanist, and founder of the Associated Negro Press (ANP).
[1][2][3] The (ANP) documented the Civil Rights Movement in the United States of America, and struggles for independence in Africa.
Claude Barnett, Robert S. Abbott, and John H. Johnson were three of the most influential African-American media entrepreneurs in the 20th century.
Earl Morris is quoted as saying that Barnett was an "unofficial Secretary of State", and probably the best informed American on Negro countries in the world.
[7] His great-grant grandparents were free Negroes in antebellum Raleigh, North Carolina, and at a young age he went to live with his grandmother in Matoon, Illinois.
[7][8] Barnett's competitors in the cosmetic industry were Annie Malone and Madame C. J. Walker and to boost his business Florence Mills and Ada "Bricktop" Smith began to advertise his beauty products.
Barnett traveled to Africa three times in 1960, going to Congo-Brazzaville, the DRC Congo, Liberia, Tunis, Tunisia, Tripoli, Libya, Accra, Ghana, Freetown, Sierra Leone, and Dakar, Senegal, and Nigeria.
[16] In 1961, through Barnett's efforts the Supreme Life Insurance Company of Chicago hosted and entertained guest visitors from 19 African Countries.
During his five decades career Barnett had become associated with and intimate with many of luminaries in history, such as Booker T Washington, Marcus Garvey, Ralph Bunche, Sekou Toure, Gamal Abdul Nasser, Nnamdi Azikiwe, Jawaharlal Nehru, and Nancy Cunard.