Black Press

By: Hayward Woody Farrar

Source:

 Encyclopedia of African American History, 1619-1895: From the Colonial Period to the Age of Frederick Douglass

Black Press

The oppressed black communities of the antebellum North produced a variety of published materials. Benjamin Banneker's almanac was one of the earliest black periodicals. In the years preceding the advent in 1827 of the first black newspaper, Freedom's Journal, African American activists and orators published pamphlets protesting slavery and racial segregation, exclusion, and disfranchisement. Black pamphlets were prototypical media platforms for the public protest that black newspapers would later embody.

George Parker, in a studio portrait photograph of the 1870s, made by Hossack's Palais Royal Gallery at 4 East 14th Street in New York City. The caption read: “Geo. Parker, Editor ‘The Freeman,’ now ‘N.Y. Age.’”

New York Public Library, Photographs and Prints Division, Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture; Astor, Lenox, and Tilden Foundations.

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Among the most important pamphlets of the era was A Narrative of the Proceedings of the Black People, during the Late Awful Calamity in Philadelphia, published by Absalom Jones and Richard Allen in 1794. In the pamphlet Jones and Allen, prominent African American community leaders and the founders of the African Methodist Episcopal (AME) Church, praised the conduct of Philadelphia's black community during a cholera epidemic and thus countered charges of looting and pilfering. Prince Hall, the founder of a black Masonic chapter, published A Charge Delivered to the Brethren of the African Lodge in 1797, calling for African Americans to unify in protest against the racism of the era.

The abolition of the slave trade in 1808 inspired numerous celebratory orations, most of which were published. These speeches included Absalom Jones's “Thanksgiving Sermon on Account of the Abolition of the African Slave Trade,” Peter Williams Jr.'s “Oration on the Abolition of the Slave Trade,” and Joseph Sidney's “Oration, Commemorative of the Abolition of the Slave Trade.” All recounted the horrors of the slave trade and praised its abolition. Daniel T. Coker and James Forten, two of the most important black activists of the era, published pamphlets in 1810 and 1813—A Dialogue Between a Virginian and an African Minister and Letters from a Man of Colour—respectively, exposing the inequities and absurdities of slavery and calling on enlightened whites to aid in its abolishment. Russell Parrott's pamphlet, titled An Oration on the Abolition of the Slave Trade and published in 1814, like earlier orations celebrated the end of the slave trade and further called for the end of slavery. These and many other pamphlets provided the earliest outlets for African American protest in the early national period and were inspirations for the antislavery movement.

African Americans soon needed more elaborate outlets in order to protest and to see their lives and accomplishments reported, which white newspapers would not do. Indeed, white newspapers published only the most negative African American news and constantly editorialized on the innate inferiority of African Americans. The most notorious example of this was the New York Enquirer, which harshly criticized free blacks and called for their exile to Africa; the Enquirer became the focal point of African American protest against racism in New York City.

In early 1827 a group of African American leaders met in New York City at the home of Boston Crummell to discuss what to do about the Enquirer. Those present included Nathaniel Paul, a Baptist minister from Albany; Richard Allen, a cofounder of the AME Church; Samuel Cornish, a Presbyterian minister and vocal abolitionist; and John Brown Russwurm, the third African American to graduate from an American college, having received his degree from Bowdoin, in Maine, in 1826. The men present at the meeting decided to establish a newspaper that would give fair and balanced reportage of the black community, crusade for the abolition of slavery, and oppose the American Colonization Society, which was founded in 1816 to advocate sending free blacks to Africa.

Freedom's Journal first appeared in New York City on 27 March 1827. It was four pages long, with four columns of news and opinion; the paper would be issued weekly. Cornish served as the senior editor and Russwurm as the junior editor. Cornish, in fact, also helped establish the American Anti-Slavery Society. He was aware of how newspapers had helped unite colonists in their struggle against British rule and believed that black newspapers could similarly unite readers in the struggle against racist oppression. Cornish had expressed antislavery and black uplift viewpoints in articles written for white newspapers before doing likewise with Freedom's Journal. Russwurm, too, had become active in the antislavery movement prior to the black newspaper's publication.

Freedom's Journal covered local, national, and international news and published African American birth, death, and wedding announcements in New York City. To inspire its audience, the paper published biographies of a variety of prominent blacks, such as the poet Phillis Wheatley, the shipbuilder Paul Cuffe, and the Haitian revolutionary Toussaint Louverture. Freedom's Journal's essays and editorials not only protested racial oppression in New York and elsewhere but also lectured readers on behavior and deportment, emphasizing chastity, thrift, industry, and piety. As a weekly, most of the journal's news coverage resembled that of a magazine more than that of a newspaper; this style of reporting became the norm for black newspapers.

As the publishers wanted Freedom's Journal to be more than a local publication, they distributed the paper throughout the North. Among those who aided in the distribution was David Walker, a free black Boston clothing salesman whose pamphlet Appeal to the Coloured Citizens of the World jump-started the antislavery movement. Freedom's Journal's weekly circulation was eight hundred, which was not a low number given that the free black population in the 1820s North was insubstantial, totaling less than 300,000—with the number of literate blacks even lower. Also, white dailies in the North did not have high circulations either; the largest New York daily had a circulation of 4,000.

When Cornish left Freedom's Journal in September 1827 to concentrate on his church work, Russwurm became the sole publisher. Over time, Russwurm, disillusioned by American racism, began favoring the ideas put forth by the American Colonization Society. Pro-colonization editorials and essays started appearing in Freedom's Journal, fatally alienating readers. Consequently, Freedom's Journal folded in March 1829. Russwurm then joined the American Colonization Society and immigrated to Liberia, where he eventually became the governor of Maryland County. The development was ironic, considering that Freedom's Journal had been founded in part to combat the American Colonization Society. Samuel Cornish tried to revive Freedom's Journal through a new version called Rights of All in May 1829. However, he had neither the time nor the resources to sustain the newspaper, which ceased publication in October of that year.

Freedom's Journal did not last long—only two years—foundering in the end due to the instability of its publishers. Yet, in its news and editorial format, its wide distribution, and its themes of protest against racism, the paper inspired its African American readers, instilled them with middle-class values, and set the pattern for the many black newspapers that would follow throughout the nineteenth century. As such, Freedom's Journal may have been the most influential African American newspaper of all. After the collapse of Freedom's Journal and its successor, the Rights of All, in 1829 no known black newspaper appeared in the North until the Colored American in 1837. There may have been attempts to create black newspapers in the years between 1829 and 1837, but no copies of such publications exist.

Taking up the slack in those years were two publications. One was Walker's Appeal, authored by David Walker, a black clothing dealer and Freedom's Journal agent in Boston. In 1829 he published an expanded version of a speech in a seventy-six-page pamphlet he called the Appeal to the Coloured Citizens of the World. In it he denounced not only slavery but also Thomas Jefferson's racist beliefs, which Walker claimed spread ideas of black inferiority throughout the world. Walker called for immediate and complete civil, political, and social equality for African Americans—a goal he saw as a fulfillment of God's will. If necessary, he argued, blacks should resort to violence to overthrow slavery and racial oppression.

In the decades preceding the Civil War the free black community in the North struggled both for their own freedom from racial oppression and for the freedom of their enslaved southern brethren. Black newspapers reflected these twin struggles in their own fight for survival—a fight that most black newspapers in the antebellum era lost in a relatively short time. Northern black communities were too poor to give long-term support to black newspapers or magazines; and such enterprises had no chance of existing in the South, where the population of free, literate blacks was even smaller and any opinion challenging slavery and white supremacy was quickly suppressed. Nonetheless, black journalists in the years leading up to the Civil War strove against all odds to create viable newspapers that would serve their communities. Thirty black newspapers were published between 1827 and 1861.

Though it was not a newspaper, David Walker's Appeal was the most explicit antislavery publication of its time and eloquently expressed the rage and frustration of black Americans. Later these feelings found an outlet in the black press. Walker's Appeal quickly became notorious throughout the United States. It was banned in the South and denounced by white officials in the North. Its publication probably led to Walker's mysterious death in Boston a year later. Still, the Appeal was openly and widely circulated throughout black communities in the North and secretly read by both free and enslaved blacks in the South. It encouraged black abolitionists and helped generate black support for the first antislavery newspaper, the Liberator.

While also not technically a black newspaper, theLiberator filled a void in the black community. Its editor and publisher, William Lloyd Garrison, was active in the antislavery movement beginning in 1828 and was a supporter of Freedom's Journal. Seeing that the movement needed a media outlet, Garrison established theLiberator, printing the first issue on 1 January 1831. By that time the antislavery movement was gaining momentum in the North, and the Liberator became the voice of proponents of immediate abolition. Eighty percent of its initial subscribers were African American, and they provided the majority of its readership from that time forward. (The newspaper sent African American agents throughout northern black communities to solicit subscriptions.) Northern black organizations also supported theLiberator through block subscriptions and donations.

TheLiberator gained African American support by attacking southern slavery and northern racism in its editorials and emphasizing African American achievements and events in its news sections. It also published black birth, death, and wedding announcements and carried advertising from black businesses. The black support theLiberator gained in its early years was necessary to its survival because whites constituted only 30 percent of its readers. As the abolition movement gained momentum in the North, however, the Liberator gained white readers, and its coverage of African American activities dropped accordingly. At the same time, Garrison guarded his standing as the voice of the antislavery movement carefully and discouraged any and all competitors, especially those who were black.

The Colored American and its Successors

TheLiberator could not completely fill the vacuum left by the absence of a regional or national black newspaper. To meet this need, the Colored American appeared in 1837. It was originally named the Weekly Advocate and was published by Philip Bell, who had been chosen for the position by a committee of black abolitionists in New York City. Its first issue appeared on 7 January 1837 and was four pages long. Like its predecessor, Freedom's Journal, the Weekly Advocate struggled to gain enough subscriptions and circulation to make it viable.

Then Samuel Cornish, returning to journalism after a seven-year hiatus, joined the Weekly Advocate and changed its name to theColored American. As he did with Freedom's Journal, Cornish justified the Colored American's existence by proclaiming the need for a newspaper that would protest slavery in the South and racism in the North, provide a media outlet for the African American population of the North, and uplift the African American community it served socially, morally, and intellectually. The Colored American criticized racism in the antislavery movement and monitored the white press's coverage of African Americans. Like Freedom's Journal, the Colored American covered the everyday lives of its readers, providing them with a positive reflection of their lives—something they did not find in the white press.

The Colored American always operated on a shoestring, lacking sufficient subscription revenue, circulation, and advertising to make it prosperous. It survived from 1837 to 1842 through donations from black community groups and the personal financial contributions of its editors and publishers: Philip Bell, Samuel Cornish, and Charles Bennett Ray. Its financial problems became terminal in December 1841, however, and it ceased publication. The Colored American lasted twice as long as Freedom's Journal, and its example spawned several black newspapers and magazines in the antebellum North.

At the same time the Colored American was being published, two black magazines appeared: the Mirror of Liberty and the National Reformer. The Mirror of Liberty was published by David Ruggles and was devoted to promoting antislavery causes and issues; it featured poetry, politics, women's issues, and letters to the editor. David Ruggles's poor health kept him from putting out more than five issues in three years.

TheNational Reformer apparently operated out of Philadelphia and was published by William Whipper, one of the richest black men of the era. As the voice of a black uplift group called the American Moral Reform Society, the National Reformer called for black self-help and self-improvement as well as full civil and political rights for African Americans and complete racial integration. It filled sixteen pages and had a layout similar to that of the Mirror of Liberty. Distributed up and down the East Coast, the magazine lasted only two years, between 1838 and 1839, despite having more resources to support it than did most black publications. Other black newspapers and magazines that emerged in the 1840s included the Peoples' Free Press (1843–1844), theMystery (1843–1847), Genius of Freedom (1845–1847), theEvangelist (1845–1848), and the Ram's Horn (1847–1848). The Ram's Horn was the first newspaper believed to have employed Frederick Douglass.

Frederick Douglass, Journalist

As the leading African American voice of the antislavery movement, Frederick Douglass wanted a newspaper to publicize his antislavery activities, express his opinions of the African American freedom movement, and compete with William Lloyd Garrison's Liberator. After supposedly working for the Ram's Horn for a short time to gain experience, Douglass started the North Star in Rochester, New York, in December 1847. Determined to avoid the failures of previous black newspapers, Douglass amassed sufficient capital and printing equipment to keep his newspaper going for thirteen years—and hired talented staffers such as Martin R. Delany, who had founded theMystery. The North Star emphasized the antislavery movement in its news coverage, but like other black newspapers, it covered black community activities throughout the North and published verse, fiction, and book reviews as well as births, deaths, and society news. Douglass was not shy about editorializing, so his columns dotted the paper.

In 1851 the North Star, needing an infusion of funds, merged with the Liberty Party Paper, the newspaper of the antislavery Liberty Party, to form Frederick Douglass' Paper. This publication continued Douglass's crusade for abolition and enabled him to become the symbol of the antislavery movement. Douglass's newspapers became the most well known and widely read of all black publications during the years before the Civil War.

See also Abolitionism; Allen, Richard; American Colonization Society; Antislavery Press; Banneker, Benjamin; Bell, Philip Alexander; Black Abolitionists; Black Church; Black Uplift; Civil Rights; Coker, Daniel T.; Cornish, Samuel; Cuffe, Paul; David Walker's Appeal; Delany, Martin Robison; Douglass, Frederick; Economic Life; Entrepreneurs; Forten, James; Frederick Douglass' Paper; Freedom's Journal; Free Speech; Garrison, William Lloyd; Garrisonian Abolitionists; Hall, Prince; Jones, Absalom; Language; Liberty Party; Literacy in the Colonial Period; Literature; Newspapers; North Star; Oratory and Verbal Arts; Parrott, Russell; Paul, Nathaniel; Political Participation; Racism; Ray, Charles B.; Reform; Ruggles, David; Russwurm, John Brown; Slave Trade; Toussaint Louverture; Walker, David; Whipper, William; Williams, Peter, Jr.; and Work.

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