A Look Behind of the Nation's First African-American Newspaper

KPBS | By KPBS Public Broadcasting

Published April 26, 2007 at 9:15 AM PDT

This story was published more than 18 years ago.

Freedom's Journal was the first African-American newspaper in the United States. Author Jacqueline Bacon discusses how her new book traces the influence of the newspaper that used information in its

Alan Ray (Guest Host): Nearly 40 years before the Civil War, black Americans got their first newspaper. Freedom's Journal was first published on March 16, 1827 in New York City by Sameul E. Cornish and John B. Russwurm. In their first issue, the Cornish and Russwurm wrote, "We wish to plead our own cause. Too long have other spoken for us." It wasn't a newspaper as we know them. Cornish and Russwurm described their goal as "the dissemination of knowledge . . . for the moral, religious, civil and literary improvement of an injured race."

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Jacqueline Bacon , author of the book Freedom's Journal: The First African-American Newspaper .