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Dr. Frances Murphy Draper
(As they would like it to appear in both print and online)
Dr. Frances Murphy Draper
(Prefix, Middle, and Suffix where applicable)
Affiliation: AFRO
Title:Publisher
Point of Contact:
(If different from above)
Phone Number: 00000000000
Email: [email protected]
Session Name: Resistance and the Black Press (Valerie Maholmes)
Bio:
Chairman, Publisher
AFRO-American Newspapers
Dr. Frances Murphy Draper has been an influential community leader in her native Baltimore for decades, with leadership positions in journalism, a church she founded and education.
In February 2018, Draper was named chairman of the board and publisher of the AFRO-American Newspapers, which was founded in 1892 by her great-grandfather. She was president of the company from 1987 to 1999.
“The AFRO has been at the forefront of the ever-changing media landscape for 130 years,” she told a local news outlet recently. “Today, we offer a wide variety of platforms to get the word out, including a robust array of social media products. However, our basic mission of championing our people, our causes, our hopes, dreams, and aspirations are likely stronger than ever. Black lives have always mattered and continue to matter to us.”
In 2002, Draper became the founding pastor of the Freedom Temple African Methodist Episcopal Zion Church in south Baltimore – a position she is retiring from in December, 2022.
Known by the nickname “Toni”, Dr. Draper received a bachelor’s degree in Spanish language education from Morgan State University and was on the university’s Board of Regents for 25 years before stepping down in 2020. Draper also has master’s degrees in education (Johns Hopkins University), business administration (University of Baltimore) and pastoral counseling (Loyola University Maryland). In 2006, she received a Doctor of Ministry degree in preaching and leadership from the United Theological Seminary in Dayton, Ohio.
A sought-after speaker and author of two books, Dr. Draper serves on the boards of the National Newspaper Publishers’ Association, the Y of Central Maryland, the Advisory Board of Results Baltimore and is a founding member of Word in Black (wordinblack.com). She also is a member of the Executive Alliance and Delta Sigma Theta Sorority, Inc., a national public service sorority co-founded in 1913 by her grandmother, Vashti Turley Murphy. In 2021, the Local Media Association (LMA) named Dr. Draper “Content and Audience Innovator of the Year” and in 2022 the National Newspaper Publishers Association (NNPA) named her “Publisher of the Year.”
Comments:
Should her name be listed as Dr. Toni Frances Draper or Dr. Frances Murphy Draper? -CTL