African American NewspapersEdit This Page From FamilySearch Wiki
African-American newspapers came into existence before the Civil
War as a medium of expression of abolitionist sentiment. In
1827, Samuel Cornish and John B. Russwarm started the first
African-American periodical, called Freedom's Journal. Freedom's
Journal initiated the trend of African-American papers
throughout the United States to fight for liberation and rights,
demonstrate racial pride, and inform readers of events affecting
the African-American community. Unfortunately, because the
African-Americans able to support the paper and the white
abolitionists were few, the paper ended its circulation in 1830.
Also, during the antebellum South, other African-American
newspapers came about. One of these, the North Star, founded by
Frederick Douglass, had the same fate as Freedom's Journal. As
African-Americans migrated from fields to urban centers,
virtually every large city with a significant African-American
population soon had African-American