for instance, we didn't have to follow the defender or the afro-american or the norfolk journal and guide>> narrator: robert l. vann turned the pittsburgh courier into a crusader for african-americans, and one of its greatest crusades focused on a deadly secret of the american south, lynching. >> in my lifetime, there were black men and women being lynched all over this nation, and some even burned alive. we could not afford to sit still, keep still, and let that continue to happen. in fact, we had to report it so that everyone would know the truth. >> the courier had one man in the south who was their key person, trezzvant anderson, who traveled about--must have been foot-sore and fatigued, but a marvelous reporter who covered major stories, and then others, some white, whom it employed as freelancers to cover stories that we couldn't get into. i mean, white man got some information on lynching the black reporter might not have been able--couldn't have gotten, because they wouldn't have let him in. >> i started writing for the pittsburgh courier in the 1940s, and the reason i did so is t