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About Portland observer. (Portland, Or.) 1970-current | View Entire Issue (Feb. 23, 1978)
Page 14 Portland Observer Section II Thursday, February 23. 1978 limited market, could expect to make money front such papers and indeed most of them had to depend on their own funds, or money from contributors both Black and white, to keep publish ing. But the tradition of an independent Black press was established, and this was to prove more important than the longevity of any individual publi cation. The most prominent Black newspaper of the pre-Civil War period was the North Star, founded and edited by Frederick Douglass, one of the towering figures in Black history. It was first published in Rochester, New York on November 1, 1847, and was named North Star the celestial reference point which escaping slaves used to guide them on the trek to the North and freedom. In the first issue. Douglass set forth his credio: "The object of the North Star will be to attack slavery in all its forms and aspects, advocate uni versal emancipation, exact the standard of the colored people; and to hasten the day of freedom to our three million enslaved fellow countrymen.” The paper s name was changed in 1851 to Frederick Douglass Pa wr, as much to capitalize on the powerful appeal of his name by that time he was widely known as one of the era s most * ... *• DR. M A R T IN D E L A N Y Founder of Pittsburgh M y stery in 1842, Co-editor of North Star. Graduate of Harvard M edi cal School, served as director in Union A rm y | M ajo r |, led scienti fic ex ploration u;> Niger R iver in 1859.’ notable orators - as it was, according to Douglass, to distin guish it from the many other papers that had Star in their names. In the pages of the paper. Douglass brought the same fire to the printed page as he did to the spoken word as witness an excerpt from an editorial (March 17, 1848) in which Douglass tern porarily turned his attention from slavery to the War with Mexico. The war ended with the United States in possession of much of that country's territory. Perhaps he saw in that war against a weak neighbor, the same insensitivity which charac terized America's dealings with her people of color. He wrote: “In our judgement, those who have all along been loudly in favor of a vigorous prosecution of the war. and heralding its bloody triumph with apparent rapture, and glorifying the atrocious deeds of barbarous heroism on the part of wicked men engaged in it, have no sincere love of peace, and are not now rejoicing over peace but plunder. They have succeeded in robbing Mexi co of her territory, and are rejoicing over their success un der the hypocritical pretense of a regard for peace...Our soul is sick of such hypocrisy...we ought ra ther blush and hang our heads for shame, and, in the spirit of profound Humility crave pardon for our crimes at the hands of a God whose mercy endureth for ever." There was in 1859 a brief interruption of Douglass' editor ship when he was rumored to have been involved in John Brown's raid on Harper’s Ferry. Threatened with arrest, he fled first to Canada and then to London where he remained until the danger disappeared. Return ing to America he resumed the editorship of the paper until a mounting sea of debts forced him to close it down in 1860. It was about this time that he began the publication of Douglass' Maga zine in which, after the outbreak of the Civil War, he crusaded had agendas that were markedly different from those of their white friends. Given the temper of the times, the Black papers with their insistent calls for emancipation were regarded as militant and even radical. But this is what gave them their reason for being -- their single minded devotion to the end of slavery - a cause that was closer to them and their readers than to anyone else. It could not have been otherwise. P H IL IP A. B E L L General agent of Freedom’s Journal, founder of Colored Americans (New York! in 1837, lublisher of San Francisco E le vator 1865-1888. unceasingly for the use of Black soldiers in the Union Army and the issuance of an Emancipation Proclamation both events later came to pass. In assessing the importance of the Pre-Civil War Black papers, it is important to recognize that they were the only instruments of communication that Blacks controlled. Even the most radi cal of the abolitionist papers - which were controlled by whites - were not prepared to go to the lengths of the Black press in urging full citizenship for Blacks. More importantly, in many in stances Blacks found that they A Decline in Militancy Once the guns of the Civil War fell silent there was a great rush to set up Biack newspapers. During the decade after 1865, publications were established in eight states which previously had none, and in four others that already had papers. By 1890, 575 papers had come into being. Many of these were regular newspapers while others were political organs, church papers or publications designed to serve some specific interest group. A number of reasons have been advanced for the spread of the Black press in the post-Civil W ar era. Among them were, the fact that the Black populance was becoming better educated; freed men were able to earn money with which to buy papers; freed men were anxious to read about themselves and other Blacks, something that was unthinkable under slavery; social service and