[7] During the summer, the paper grew from four to eight pages, but struggled with circulation and financial solvency due to a small market and lack of interested advertisers.

[7] In the fall of 1910, original founder Edwin Nathaniel Harleston left the paper for financial and creative reasons,[8] and Vann became editor.

As editor, Vann wrote editorials encouraging readers to only patronize business that paid for advertisements in the Courier and ran contests to attempt to increase circulation.

Under Vann, the "Local News" section of the Courier covered the social lives of the upper- and middle-class members of Pittsburgh's Hill District.

Most significantly, the paper extensively covered the injustices on African Americans perpetrated by the Pullman Company and supported the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters.

[15] Vann wrote to gain support for causes such as improved housing conditions in the Hill District, better education for black students, and equal employment and union opportunities.

Du Bois over issues such as President Calvin Coolidge's grants of clemency to black soldiers involved in the Houston Riot[17] and Vann's allegations that James Weldon Johnson embezzled money for personal use from the NAACP and the Garland Fund.

Vann saw this as an achievable step on the path to integration of the military, but the NAACP leadership, primarily Walter White, publicly disagreed with this half-measure, despite the protests of Thurgood Marshall.

Largely neglected and even ill-treated (staff stenographers often refused to take dictation from him because he was black),[22] Vann could not get an appointment to see the Attorney General and in fact may never have met the man while in Washington.