By: E&P Staff Bay State Banner, the black-interest Boston weekly that looked doomed when it suspended publication in early July, is coming back, its publisher announced Friday.
"The overwhelming support of regular Banner readers and the Boston community has enabled management to restart publication in record time," Publisher Mel Miller announced on the paper's Web site.
Bay State Banner will publish again with its Aug. 6 issue, Miller said.
Miller, who founded the weekly 44 years ago, had said the slump in advertising revenue made the publication unsustainable.
Alarmed by the possibility of losing its only black-owned paper, the city of Boston offered a $200,000 bridge loan through its Redevelopment Authority. The loan was considered unusual because the paper was a frequent critic of Mayo Thomas M. Menino.
Miller, who accepted the loan, said he is working with Next Street Financial LLC, a local financial services firm in Roxbury, on a long-term business plan.
Ironically, the Banner missed one of the biggest race-related stories in Boston because it was not publishing when Harvard professor Henry Louis Gates Jr. was arrested at his home, an incident that led to Thursday evening's so-called "beer summit" at the White House with the Gates, the president and the white Boston Police officer who arrested Gates.
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