Carrie Best always loved to write, from the time she wrote her first poem at age 4, through her middle years as a prolific writer of letters to the editor. So it seems not so strange that in 1946, while in her 40s she made the leap to publishing her own newspaper.
The Clarion, the first newspaper published in Nova Scotia expressly for its black citizens, was born as an 8'' X10 '' single sheet -- a community bulletin designed to serve New Glasgow's black population. But Best had bigger things in mind, and by 1947 had incorporated as Clarion Publishing Company Limited and was publishing a small broadsheet, whose aim it was to work for the betterment of race relations. Her backers were Lemuel B. Mills a New Glasgow contractor and Dr. A.E. Waddell, a prominent Halifax doctor.
Among her first big stories, was the case against Viola Desmond, the Halifax beautician arrested, charged and fined for sitting in the whites-only seats at New Glasgow's Roseland Theatre. The Clarion published from 1946 to 1956, and was revived briefly as The Negro Citizen in 1977.