Background
Prattis, Percival Leroy was born on April 27, 1895 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States. Son of Alexander and Ella (Spraggins) Prattis.
Pittsburgh Courier Company 813 Pioneer Infantry
Prattis, Percival Leroy was born on April 27, 1895 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States. Son of Alexander and Ella (Spraggins) Prattis.
Educated Christianburg Industrial Institute, 1908-1912, Hampton Institute, 1912-1915, Ferris Institute, 1916-1917. Doctor of Laws, Wiley College, 1944.
Prattis served as a Battalion Sergeant Major in the United States. Army during World War I, headquartered in the Company 813 Pioneer Infantry, stationed in France for nearly a year in 1918 and 1919. He was honorably discharged from his duties on July 23, 1919. P.L. Prattis began his journalism career in 1919 as the editor of the newly formed Michigan State News in Grand Rapids, Michigan.
In 1921, he moved to Chicago, Illinois, to become the city editor of the Chicago Defender, which was the most influential African American weekly newspaper in the country at the beginning of World War I. In 1923, Prattis was hired as the city editor of the Associated Negro Press in Chicago, a position for which he travelled internationally on assignment and interviewed prominent world figures.
He moved to Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, in 1936 to take a position with the Pittsburgh Courier. Their daughter, Patricia Prattis Jennings, became a renowned pianist for the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra.
When the Pittsburgh Courier was in financial jeopardy during the 1960s, Prattis donated $33,000 of his own money to help stabilize the paper. On February 29, 1980, Prattis died at the Veterans Administration Hospital in Aspinwall, Pennsylvania.
Burial was at Homewood Cemetery, Pittsburgh.
Prattis was honored posthumously for his part in African American media and service to the Pittsburgh Courier at the 100th anniversary celebration for the Courier.
Served as a battalion sergeant major, United States Army, World War I. Member National Committee to Abolish Discrimination in the Nation’s Capital. Conducted survey for Pittsburgh Courier, 1949, England, France, Germany, Italy, Holland and Belgium, relative impressions made by Negro soldiers in Europe.
Member Citizen’s Federal Committee on Education Officer National Order Honor and Merit (Republic of Haiti).
Married Helen Marie Sands, March 11, 1939.