William Trent Andrews was born March 1864 in Sumter, South Carolina. Andrews was a graduate of Fisk (1890) and Howard Law (1892) and had completed one year of instruction at West Point (1885) at a time when very few Black cadets were permitted to attend. After relocating to Baltimore about 1917, he began the Daily Herald, a daily Black newspaper. After two years, it was reduced to semi-weekly and then weekly publication, but Andrews managed to keep it in print until 1931. During a particularly harsh heat wave in Baltimore in late July and early August 1940, Andrews was found unconscious in his car. He died two days later in the hospital.