story of the African American press, The

New Crisis, The, Jul/Aug 1999

American newspapers and magazines published by African Americans focused on black political, social, and cultural issues.

The Black Press has represented the spectrum of African American opinion for nearly 150 years. The black press has enabled African Americans to: 1) define their own identity; 2) create a sense of unity by establishing a communication network among literate blacks and sympathetic whites; 3) present events from a black perspective; 4) highlight black achievement ignored by the mainstream press; and 5) work for black equality.

The first black newspaper in the United States was Freedom's Journal, founded March 16, 1827 in New York City by John B. Russwurm and Samuel E. Cornish, who used it as a forum to discuss slavery and its related issues, and to enable blacks in various states to exchange ideas, such issues as whether blacks should strive for full citizenship, or whether blacks should opt for separation and repatriation in Africa. Cornish, an integrationist, and Russwurm, a separatist, disagreed on that issue, and six months after the paper's founding, Cornish left. Russwurm continued to publish Freedom's Journal until March 28, 1829, when he moved to Liberia, living there until his death in 1851.

Cornish began editing Philip A. Bell's Weekly Advocate in 1837. Later called the Colored American, it published until 1842, and is noted for its high editorial quality and militant call for black unity and full citizenship for black Americans. It was also likely published in New York and Philadelphia, which would make it the first African American newspaper to operate in more than one city with different editions.

More African Americans began to publish in the mid-nineteenth century. Most publications were in New York City, but several others existed such as Cleveland's Alienated American, Pittsburgh's Mystery, published by Martin R. Delaney, the first African American graduate of Harvard, and Albany's Elevator, published by Stephen Myers.

African American newspapers were understandably a northern phenomenon before the Civil War. However, the Daily Creole began publishing in New Orleans in 1856, although its editors were pressured by whites into an anti-abolitionist position. The Daily Creole was followed by the New Orleans Tribune, which appeared in July of 1864, and is considered the first African American daily.

Most newspapers of this era were similar in that they depended on their publisher's personal resources or contributions from white sympathizers to supplement their small subscription income. Approximately 40 newspapers were published before the Civil War, the most important of which was Frederick Douglass' North Star, whose goal characterized black publishing: "The object of, the North Star will be to attack slavery in all its forms and aspects; advocate universal emancipation; exact the standard of public morality; promote the moral and intellectual improvement of the colored people; and to hasten the day of freedom to our three million enslaved fellow country-men."

Black publishing proliferated after the Civil War. An estimated 575 black publications began by 1890. Most quickly failed, but many survived, most notably the Philadelphia Tribune. Founded in 1884, it continued to be published into the 1990s, making it the oldest continuously published black newspaper in the U.S.

The explosion of black newspapers after the Civil War resulted from increasing literacy and greater mobility among African Americans combined with a further need for advocacy, in the battle against segregation, disfranchisement, and lynchings. Migrants to the North experienced poor conditions and discrimination that was stifling, if not as debilitating as in the South. Thus the black press was still a protest organ for African Americans. However, as the century ended, protest had to be disguised because of the nation's conservative political shift.

Booker T. Washington, considered the spokesman for black America during this era, wielded great power among the black press by controlling advertisements, loans, and political subsidies. The journalist most closely associated with Washington was T. Thomas Fortune, considered the dean of black journalism. He learned the newspaper trade beginning as a typesetter, and was one of the only African Americans to write for white dailies, the New York Sun and the Evening Sun.

Fortune was firmly committed to racial equality. However, his newspaper, the New York Age, experienced the same monetary problems as other black newspapers. He relied on Washington's financial support and was therefore obligated to write editorials that Washington favored. Some journalists resisted the conservative trend and the muted editorial tones that it demanded from black newspapers. Ida B. WellsBarnett repeatedly risked her life in the South to report about atrocities suffered by blacks. William Monroe Trotter, who founded the Boston Guardian with George Forbes in 1901, formed the first organized resistance to Washington's ideas and later, with W.E.B Du Bois, organized the foundation of the Niagara Movement, forerunner to the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP).