History

WHAT PAPER TELLS YOUR STORY?

We began telling your Stories in 1966!

Fifty-six years later … we’re still telling them

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Elise F. Allen, Founder

The Traveler Weekly Newspaper was started in 1966, by Elise F. Allen and the Traveler Printing and Publishing Company. The newspaper started out as a single 8 ½ x 11 sheet of paper with local news items and Allen’s editorials, but then grew to a tabloid size the following year.

With the onset of The Traveler Weekly Newspaper in 1966, Elise became the first African-American woman in Illinois to edit and publish a newspaper. She felt that the city of Peoria needed a newspaper that focused on African-American issues, concerns, and accomplishments and it gave her a vehicle to voice her thoughts and concerns. The goal of her editorials was geared toward provoking a positive dialogue and a forum for change. The newspaper continues to focus on the true principles of democracy and to keep it a living reality to all Americans, without regard to race, color or creed.

The Traveler Weekly, has earned over a dozen awards in the field of excellence in journalism. In humanitarian circles, Elise Allen has been presented numerous awards including the prestigious Martin Luther King Jr. Commemorative Leadership Award received in 1989. Throughout the 1990’s and the new millennium, Elise Ford Allen’s passion for equality for minorities and the disadvantaged has earned her a place of honor in the realms of civil rights activists. An award was established in her name in 1985 for the Roosevelt Magnet School.

Angela Henry, Managing Editor

“We not only want to take part in solving our own problems, but also in making the true principles of democracy a living reality to all American’s without regard to race, color or creed; the dignity of the individual, and their civil rights must be defended always. The real test today is the ability and desire of all of us to meet Americans as Americans and all people as equals.”