Fortune, Timothy Thomas (1956–1928)

US journalist, editor, and civil rights activist. He worked on a succession of newspapers, mostly concerned with protecting and advancing the rights of black Americans. He founded the Afro-American League, the forerunner of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People.

He was born in Marianna Township, Florida. Freed from slavery in only 1865, he witnessed his father's stormy career as a Reconstructionist politician in Florida. He trained as a printer, worked on a black American newspaper and became friendly with Frederick Douglass. The Globe and The New York Freeman, renamed The New York Age, were two of the most influential papers he worked on. Because he at times criticized the Republican Party and argued for self-help among black Americans, he was regarded by some as too conservative. He was also active in founding several other black American professional organizations apart from the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, and he worked closely with Booker T Washington. He also edited The Negro World, the organ of Marcus Garvey's Back to Africa movement.