California Eagle

CTL-E-6277 · Publication · newspaper · 1879–1964

VERIFIED evidence grade — build store (JSON graph)

Combined Graph record U-07465 · provenance: build store (JSON graph), record CTL-E-6277.

The California Eagle was a weekly Los Angeles newspaper serving African American readers, published from 1879 to 1964. John J. Neimore founded it in 1879 as The Owl and later renamed it the Eagle. Charlotta Bass, who had arrived in Los Angeles in 1910 and sold subscriptions for the paper, bought it after Neimore's death in 1912, became its editor, and renamed it the California Eagle; her husband, Joseph Blackburn Bass, served as editor until his death in 1934. Under the Basses the paper campaigned against segregation in employment, housing, and transportation, and during the Great Migration it carried practical information on jobs and housing for newly arrived readers. Its circulation reached 60,000 in the 1920s, by 1925 the largest of any African American newspaper in California. Bass owned and operated the paper until 1951, when she sold it to Loren Miller, the paper's former city editor and a civil liberties lawyer. Miller sold the paper in 1963 after his appointment as a Superior Court judge, and the California Eagle ceased publication on January 7, 1964, after eighty-five years. Its offices stood at 4071-4075 South Central Avenue in Los Angeles.

The record

• Also known as: The California Eagle, The Owl, Eagle

Notes

Staged 2026-10-16 under CTL-GOV-006 (Scan Tail Wave 7 — 747 Program, FINAL Wave 13; seventh Scan Tail packet at the founder's 40-record size). Gate A (2026-10-16): Gate A CLEAR (hand-checked 2026-10-16): no California Eagle entity, alias, or variant in the live graph (3,910 entities); the graph holds the Chicago Defender (CTL-E-0266) but no Los Angeles Black newspaper. ID CTL-E-6277 free at staging. Supply: 747 Supply Ledger — Tier 4 corpus scan tail, corpus-gap-candidates-2026-10-15.json ranked #3163. The scan supplied the name string only; every fact is sourced under CTL-GOV-004. SCOPE GATE: The longest-running Black newspaper on the West Coast and the institutional home of Charlotta Bass (Batch E, CTL-E-6278); a core Black Press record beside the graph's Chicago Defender. Vital status: PUBLICATION — not applicable as a life status; the paper published 1879-1964 and ceased publication on January 7, 1964 (Wikipedia entry, accessed 2026-10-16). STATISTICS — Circulation (accessed 2026-10-16): 60,000 in the 1920s, stated as reached by 1925 and the largest of any African American newspaper in California (Wikipedia entry). CONFLICT SHOWN, NOT BLENDED: Cornell University's African American Historical Newspapers guide lists the paper's run as 1879-1966, against the January 7, 1964 cessation date carried in the paper's own reference history; the 1964 date is carried and the 1966 figure is recorded here as an unresolved variant. A UCLA Library catalog summary seen in research also dates Bass's sale of the paper inconsistently with the 1951 date both opened sources support; the catalog page itself could not be opened (service rate limit) and is not cited as a source. MEDIA: photo HELD (named candidate in media spec; no license claimed); chart staged in media spec; video HELD (no matching-entity CTL Short); audio HELD (no rights-cleared matching-entity audio staged); map N/A (publication record). MEDIA LAYER (staged 2026-10-16; full per-asset PHOTO-001 records + embed specs in the packet's staged JSON, Drive packet folder): map = N/A (Publication records carry no map slot.) | visual_assets = HELD: | chart = FILLED (Created for this packet (CTL graphic, CTL-PHOTO-001 lane) from the record's sourced facts.) | video = HELD (No matching-entity CTL Short in the Shorts Link Map (shorts-link-map-2026-10-15.json, 233 rows, checked by nam) | audio = HELD (HELD: No CTL-owned or rights-cleared matching-entity audio exists at staging.)

Relationships

• Charlotta Bass — wrote for
  Charlotta Bass (Batch E, CTL-E-6278) bought the Eagle after founder John Neimore's death in 1912, became its editor, and renamed it the California Eagle, owning and operating it until 1951 (BlackPast.org Bass entry; the paper's reference entry). wrote_for (Publication→Person) is the schema's editorship edge; led_by is Organization-only and cannot carry a Publication endpoint, and no published_by type exists in the matrix.

Referenced by

• Charlotta Bass — affiliated with → this record

Sources

• BlackPast.org, Charlotta Bass (1879-1969) (accessed 2026-10-16) — Bass sold subscriptions for the Eagle, a Black newspaper founded by John Neimore in 1879; after Neimore's death she bought the newspaper, became editor, and renamed it the California Eagle; her husband Joseph Blackburn Bass was the newspaper's editor until his death in 1934; competition from the Los Angeles Sentinel among the pressures that prompted her to sell the Eagle and turn to political activism, which she continued until her death in 1969 — https://blackpast.org/african-american-history/bass-charlotta-1879-1969/ (build store)
• Wikipedia, The California Eagle (accessed 2026-10-16) — weekly Los Angeles newspaper for African Americans, 1879-1964; founded as The Owl in 1879 and later renamed Eagle by John J. Neimore; Charlotta Bass became owner after Neimore's death in 1912, owned and operated the paper, renamed the California Eagle, until 1951; circulation reached 60,000 in the 1920s and was 60,000 by 1925, the largest of any African American newspaper in California; during the Great Migration the paper carried employment and housing information for new arrivals; Loren Miller, formerly city editor, owned the paper after 1951 and sold it in 1963; the paper ceased publication January 7, 1964, after 85 years; offices at 4071-4075 South Central Avenue — https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_California_Eagle (build store)

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Record CTL-E-6277 · Combined Graph record U-07465 · CultureTechLens Knowledge Graph · 2 sources · 2 mapped relationships.
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Researched and maintained by the CultureTechLens research program · CultureTechLens Combined Graph, Release 2026-11-04. Corrections are public: the corrections log.

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