INDIANAPOLIS (WISH) — The Indianapolis Recorder is turning 125 years old. In the time since the publication’s establishment, it’s been constant in it’s work to give the local African American community a voice. The once two-page church bulletin started 30 years after slavery, somehow withstanding the test of time.

To be black in 1895 for many meant you didn’t have a voice. But when ink hit paper those voices rang loud and clear. The Indianapolis Recorder saw to that.

“You have to think about it 1895 our stories weren’t told at all,” said editor Oseye Boyd.

At 125 years, it’s the fourth oldest black newspaper in America. Boyd is one of the people helping it press on.​

“I think for most journalists who happen to be black you have this kind of desire to work for black-owned media to actually do something for your community,” she said.

As a black paper in the 1800s, founders George P. Stewart and Will Porter couldn’t get a bank loan. And the paper would experience similar barriers even through the 1980s and early 90s. Yet, somehow the work continued.​

“So I brought us into the computer age. And I had to use my personal credit that of myself and my husband to get a lease approved to provide the recorder with computers,” said former writer Eunice Trotter.

Trotter’s journalism career has taken her around the country. ​

“You know what my goal was. To tell it like it is and that’s always been my goal to tell the truth to tell the stories that need to be told.”

She got her start with the Recorder as a teenager in the 60s. Back then it was the pulse of the black community. Everything you needed to know you could find it in the Indianapolis Recorder.​

“You’re going to have to envision a time when there were no cell phones no computers, your telephone numbers began with letters,” she said.

Seeing the paper still in print 125 years later, Trotter says is evidence of the grit, stamina and determination of the founding family. ​And those qualities, in this century, just might keep it alive many more years.​

The paper will hold it’s century and a quarter celebration at the Madam Walker Legacy Center this summer.