Stanley co-founded and became sole publisher of The Louisville Defender, the city's leading Black newspaper that he led for 38 years.
The Louisville Defender published in the face of regular threats and attacks, persevering under Stanley's belief that "racism is not insoluble.
[3] After Robert Abbott died in 1940, the Defender incorporated as its own private business with Stanley as one of three co-owners.
According to his son, Kenneth Stanley, there were three other Black papers at the time and the Defender was known for "its militancy," earning scorn from white Louisville.
In 1950, the city's major newspaper, The Courier-Journal, wrote,“Much of the credit for the even and amiable pace Kentucky has maintained in its working out of race relations problems must be given the Defender.”[4] After World War II ended, the U.S. Secretary of War James Forrestal named Stanley to a panel of inspectors to review troop conditions in occupied Europe in 1946.
In 1950, Stanley authored the Commonwealth Senate Resolution Bill #53 in the Kentucky General Assembly, leading to the end of institutional segregation in higher education.
Stanley was elected national president of Alpha Phi Alpha in 1955[3] and there had correspondence with fraternity member Martin Luther King Jr.[7] Kentucky Governor Bert Combs commissioned Stanley to explore the establishment of a human rights commission for the commonwealth,[3] which was established by law in 1960.