From the letterhead on the sheet in the typewriter it's evident that this young woman is working for The People's Voice. Founded in 1942, it was a black-oriented newspaper focused on civil rights issues, though it also featured articles on blacks in the entertainment industry and was one of the first U.S. newspapers to report on apartheid in South Africa. Its founder was the charismatic Harlem minister and civil rights leader Adam Clayton Powell, who a couple years later began a colorful (to put it mildly) 30-year career in Congress.

Always very liberal, The People's Voice took a more radical turn in the postwar years when Communist Party leader Benjamin Davis began exerting behind-the-scenes influence over its content. This led to accusations that it was a subversive publication. Already struggling financially, The People's Voice shut down in 1948.