This Day in History

March 16, 1827: Freedom’s Journal Established

Time Periods: 1800
Themes: African American, Racism & Racial Identity, Slavery and Resistance
Print
Freedom's Journal, Vol. 1 No. 1, March 16, 1827

Freedom’s Journal, Vol. 1 No. 1, March 16, 1827. Source: Library of Congress

Freedom’s Journal was the first African American owned and operated newspaper in the United States. A weekly four column publication printed every Friday, Freedom’s Journal was founded by free born African Americans John Russwurm and Samuel Cornish on March 16, 1827, in New York City, New York.

The newspaper contained both foreign and domestic news, editorials, biographies, births and deaths in the local African American community, and advertisements. Editorials deriding slavery, racial discrimination, and other injustices against African Americans were aimed at providing a counterweight to many of the white newspapers of the time period which openly supported slavery and racial bias. Read more at Black Past.

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Teaching a People’s History of Abolition and the Civil War

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