Outrage and freedom

If you had to choose a newspaper to put into a time capsule or send to outer space as representative of the black press, look no further than the Jan. 11, 1990 Banner.

The lead story, “Stuart murder unraveling like Hollywood movie plot,” encapsulates everything wrong with race in America, telling of the notorious case in which a black man, if not Boston’s entire African American community, was wrongly implicated in a white suburbanite’s murder of his pregnant wife.

Yet the same issue tells of the triumphs and glories — literally — of the race, with the premieres of the Civil Rights Movement documentary series “Eyes on the Prize Part II” and “Glory,” the compelling movie about the black Civil War troops comprising Massachusetts’ famed 54th regiment.

Need a little more? Then jump ahead to the Feb. 15 issue, documenting one of the greatest triumphs of the decade: the release of Nelson Mandela from prison after 27 years. More than just a report from across the ocean, the South African leader’s walk into freedom came in large part due to the strident efforts of Boston’s anti-apartheid campaign, from protests against Krugerrand sales to the city’s pioneering role in divestiture. To that, add one more page: the “In the news” feature the next week about a young Harvard law student named Barack Obama, whose ambitions included “going into government and politics.”

Those aspirations would have to wait, as the Banner’s second decade opened with little significant progress on the electoral front as Mel King sought higher office as a U.S. representative in 1986 but again fell short.

On the ground — and under it — was a more parochial concern: the opening of the Southwest Corridor Orange Line and dismantling of the Washington Street elevated, for which the MBTA promised “equal to or better service.” That at one point included a trolley line.

Twenty years later, it still hasn’t arrived.