Grant Dungee - The Central Call Grant Dungee

Grant Dungee and “The Central Call”

Grant Dungee 1869 -1941, was the founder, editor and publisher of ‘The Central Call’, the first newspaper in Cumberland County, Virginia. This website was created to honor his memory and his accomplishments.

The son of Shed Dungee, a two-term member of the Virginia State Legislature and Mary Coleman Dungee, Grant and his sister Nannie P. Dungee attended Saint Paul’s College in Lawrenceville, Virginia and returned home to Cumberland and became educators.

Grant and his sister Nannie taught at a number of schools in the area, the Benson School, Sugar Fork School, Bethlehem School and Trent’s Mill School. He also worked with his uncle R.T. Coleman, at the local “Lucyville” resort and published “The Central Call” for over 25 years until his passing. Besides current events and local news, Grant also reported on the politics that impacted the African American communities in the late 19th and early 20th century.

In the August 14, 1920, Central Call, he wrote about the upcoming election. This was the first election that both men and women could legally vote, yet most African Americans could not because of poll taxes and literacy tests. His front-page editorial noted that the political landscape was changing.

Grant Dungee wrote articles for many newspapers. He wrote John Robinson’s front-page obituary for the Richmond Planet. The Richmond Planet was a major African American newspaper known throughout the South. John Robinson was a free African American before the Civil War who was elected to represent Cumberland County in the 1868 Virginia Constitutional Convention and the Virginia Senate.

On October 14, 1944, Luther P. Jackson named Grant Dungee in a New Journal and Guide newspaper article about voting rights in Cumberland County. Luther P. Jackson stated, “The Late Grant Dungee published a paper and advocated constantly that his people should become full-fledged citizens but unfortunately the voice of Dungee was a lone voice crying in a wilderness.”

Through perseverance and determination, with money raised by the community and donations in 1952, the new African American school in Cumberland County was built about two miles from ‘The Oak Hill Plantation’ where Shed Dungee, Grants father was enslaved.

To see more images of the original ‘The Central Call’ and articles by Grant Dungee – ‘Click Here’