Freedom's Journal
Volume 1, no.3, 23 March 1827
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| Type | Weekly newspaper |
|---|---|
| Format | Tabloid |
| Owner(s) |
John Russwurm Samuel Cornish |
| Publisher | Cornish & Russwurm |
| Editor |
John B. Russwurm Samuel Cornish |
| Founded | 16 March 1827 |
| Language | English |
| Ceased publication | 28 March 1829 |
| Headquarters | New York City |
| OCLC number | 1570144 |
Freedom's Journal was the first African-American owned and operated newspaper published in the United States. Founded by Rev. Peter Williams, Jr. and other free black men in New York City, it was published weekly starting with the 16 March 1827 issue. Freedom's Journal was superseded in 1829 by The Rights of All, published between 1829 and 1830 by Samuel Cornish, the former senior editor of the Journal.
The newspaper was founded by Peter Williams, Jr. and other leading free blacks in New York City. The founders intended to appeal to the 300,000 free blacks in the North of the United States, most freed after the American Revolutionary War by state abolition laws.Manumissions in the South after the war increased the proportion of free blacks from less than 1% to nearly 10% of the black population in the Upper South. In New York State, a gradual emancipation law was passed in 1799, granting freedom to children born to slaves. Its "gradual" provisions meant that the last slaves were not freed until 1827, the year the paper was founded.
By this time, the United States and Great Britain had banned the African slave trade in 1808. But, slavery was expanding rapidly in the Deep South with the development of new cotton plantations there; a massive forced migration had been under way as a result of the domestic slave trade, as slaves were sold and taken overland or by sea from the Upper South to the new territories.
The newspaper founders selected Samuel Cornish and John B. Russwurm as senior and junior editors, respectively. Both men were community activists: Cornish was the first to establish an African-American Presbyterian church and Russwurm was a member of the Haytian Emigration Society. This group recruited and organized free blacks to emigrate to Haiti after its slaves achieved independence in 1804. It was the second republic in the Western Hemisphere and the first free republic governed by blacks.
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