Defining political culture as a fundamental, culturally important value system that forms a context in which media content judgments and other professional behaviors can be described or evaluated in a meaningful way, this paper analyses two minority press systems as they relate to their political culture contexts. The two systems are the black American press, which represents the minority press of the industrialized pluralistic society, and the black African press, which represents the third world press as a minority in the context of the international community. The paper argues that the professionalism of a press system should be defined and evaluated in the context of its political culture objectives, functions, and clientele. It then presents content analyses and survey data to show that both the black American and the black African press systems perform important identity, leadership, informational, and organizational functions for their audiences. The paper concludes that, industrial and economic problems notwithstanding, minority press systems are not necessarily examples of professional underdevelopment in journalism, but rather that they may be the epitome of the highest ideals of journalism. (Author/FL)