The shrinking black newspaper industry has lost another lion. Wilbert A. Tatum, publisher emeritus and board chairman of the New York Amsterdam News, died on Wednesday, Feb.25, at the age of 76. His passing occurred in Croatia after a brief illness, reports Richard Prince's Journal-isms column. Tatum had been in Croatia on vacation with his wife, Susan.

Founded in 1909, the Amsterdam News was, by the 1940s, one of the leading black newspapers in the nation. The paper's influence reached well beyond its Harlem home, and Malcolm X, W.E.B. DuBois, Roy Wilkins and Adam Clayton Powell, Jr. were among the luminaries who contributed columns and articles. Involved with the paper in various capacities since 1971, Tatum eventually acquired a controlling interest. ...

Wilbert Tatum led the paper into the 1990s, with a short detour in 1993, during which he had a brief stint as head of the New York Post. In 1997, his daughter, Elinor Tatum, became publisher and editor-in-chief of the Amsterdam News.

Tatum was "an iconic and vitally important figure in both journalism and civil rights," said activist Rev. Al Sharpton in a released statement. "I first met him when I was a teenager involved in civil rights work in New York and have known him over 30 years. His courage, his tenacity, his sagacity and his advocacy [are] unparalleled in African American journalism. We have lost a great advocate, a penetrating writer, an unmatchable institution builder and, for me, a great friend and father figure."

"Bill's footprint on the history of news, New York and the business of black-owned media will never be filled," said Gary Anthony Ramsay, president of the New York chapter of the National Association of Black Journalists, in a released statement.

Funeral arrangements are pending.