Portland Observer Section II Thursday. February 23, 1978 Page 13
gram attracts. In a nation that
has been nurtured on the idea of
the press as an independent force
within our society, serving the
public freely and without favor,
there is reason to question whe
ther this institution, which is
growing increasingly monopolis
tic, now serves the many or the
few.
A V oid to Be Filled
But to return to the past. From
the earliest days of the nation,
the concept of a free press was
meaningless to at least one group
of Americans - the Blacks. The
majority were slaves and the
principal interest of the press in
their condition was to support
their continued enslavement.
The colonial, post revolution and
pre-Civil War press carried ad
vertisements for their sale or
their capture if they ran away
from their masters. For those
Blacks who were free, the press
of that time ignored them, except
when it found the opportunity or
had the urge to villify them.
1' ifty years after America pro
claimed herself a nation, the first
faint rumblings of the abolition
movement were being heard in
the land although friends of the
Black man, whether free or
slave, were difficult to find. In
deed, the animus toward Blacks
frequently spilled over into print.
The attitude of the worst practi
tioners of the villification of
Blacks was typified by the activi
ties of the the editor of the New
York Enquirer who seemed to
take a perverse pleasure in
launching vicious attacks against
them, encouraging slavery and
denouncing all thought of free
dom for the enslaved. While the
Enquirer was particularly racist,
other newspapers were not far
behind. But it was the Enquirer
and its unwillingness to give
Blacks a fair hearing in the "free
press", that led directly to
launching the first Black owned
newspaper in America.
The
paper, appropriately titled Free
dom's Journal, made its first
appearance March 16, 1827. Its
editor was John Kusswurm,
America's first Black college gra
duate. In his maiden editorial.
Kusswurm set forth the principal
reasons why the paper had come
into being; reasons that seem as
pertinent today in explaining the
need for the Black press as they
were in 1827.
“We wish to plead our own
cause," he wrote. “Too long have
others spoken for us. Too long
has the public been deceived by"
misrepresentations in things
which concern us dearly, though
in the estimation of some mere
trifles; for though there are
many in society who exercise
toward us benevolent feelings;
still (with sorrow we confess it)
there are others who make it
their business to enlarge upon
the least trifle, which tends to
the discredit of any person of
colour; and pronounce anathe
mas and denounce our whole
body for the misconduct of the
guilty one."
There was no question that
there was a void to be filled by
the Journal and it was able to
secure agents really salesmen -
to distribute the paper through
out New England, New York,
Pennsylvania and the District of
Columbia, and even Virginia and
North Carolina, as well as Haiti,
Canada and England. One of its
original subscribers was David
Walker, who later became an
agent for the paper in Boston.
Walker contributed occasional
articles and regularly advertised
his clothing store in its pages.
Two years after the Journal first
appeared, Walker was to assure
his own place in history by the
writing and publication of his
"Appeal to the Colored Citizens
of the World,” the first sustained
assault on the institution of slav
ery by an American of African
descent and one that caused
slaveowners to quake at its pos
sible impact on Blacks.
The life of Freedom’s Journal,
however, was not to be a long
one, or even a smooth one. A
difference of opinion quickly de
veloped between Russwurm and
his partner in the venture, Sam
uel E. Cornish. Russwurm favor
ed the return of Blacks to Africa,
and Cornish opposed the idea.
Six months after the beginning of
the paper, Cornish quit because
of the dispute. Russwurm con
tinued to publish for another
year and then left America per
manently for Liberia. Cornish
returned to the paper, changed
its name to Rights for All and
continued to publish for a short
period of time before the paper
disappeared into the shadows of
history.
When the Journal expired,
Cornish began editing another
Black newspaper. The Weekly
Advocate, which first appeared
in January 1837, and with a name
change to The Colored America,
was to remain in business until
1842. A sympathetic critic said
of the short-lived paper that “its
columns were filled with excel
lently selected and original mat
ter. It ably advocated the eman
cipation of the enslaved and the
elevation of the free colored
people.”
Freedom and civility toward
Blacks were the dominant
themes that appeared not only in
the first two Black papers, but in
the 40 or more that-were to
appear prior to the Civil War.
Not content to stand on the
sidelines while others did battle
for them, Blacks found their own
newspapers to be the best me
thod of telling their story and in
the process developed an institu
tion that they themselves could
control.
Many of the papers were
short-lived and all of them were
under extreme financial pres
sures.
No editor, given this
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