Fitzgerald Publishing Company

Fitzgerald Publishing Company was one of the first Black-owned comic book publishers in America, founded in New York City in 1966 by Bertram A. Fitzgerald Jr. (1932–2017) — a Harlem-born accountant who had no background in publishing but was driven entirely by mission: to create comics that inspired and educated African Americans by representing their history and achievements. The company's flagship publication was Golden Legacy Illustrated History Magazine — 16 full-color, 32-page educational comic book biographies of Black historical figures including Toussaint L'Ouverture, Harriet Tubman, Frederick Douglass, Crispus Attucks, Benjamin Banneker, Matthew Henson, Thurgood Marshall, Martin Luther King Jr., Alexander Pushkin, and Alexandre Dumas. Published from 1966 to 1976, Golden Legacy reached an approximate total of nine million copies distributed to schools, libraries, churches, and civil rights organizations including the NAACP and the Urban League. Shut out of mainstream newsstand distribution due to the Black history focus, Fitzgerald leveraged his accounting background to broker a landmark deal with Coca-Cola — Coke paid printing costs in exchange for back-cover ad space and bulk distribution. Similar corporate sponsorships followed with AT&T, Avon, McDonald's, Exxon, Columbia Pictures, and others. Notable contributors to Golden Legacy included artist Leo Carty, cartoonist Tom Feelings, and writer Joan Maynard. Fitzgerald's second title, Fast Willie Jackson (1976–1977), was an integrated teen humor comic in the Archie tradition — 7 issues with mainstream newsstand distribution, nearly optioned for animation by Filmation (the studio behind Fat Albert). A devastating 1983 fraud by a con artist who falsely claimed to have purchased the rights led to a five-year court battle, two heart attacks, and Fitzgerald's eventual exit from publishing. He later worked for the New York City Mayor's Office. In 2005 Fitzgerald received the Glyph Comics Pioneer Lifetime Achievement Award at ECBACC. He passed away on January 10, 2017. Golden Legacy titles remain in print through golden-legacy.com.