Q & A with Jacqueline Bacon on Freedom’s Journal: The First African American Newspaper

Q: When, how, where, and why was Freedom’s Journal founded?

A: In 1827, at a gathering of African-American leaders in New York, the idea for Freedom’s Journal was created, and two men were chosen as its editors: Samuel E. Cornish, a Presbyterian pastor; and John B. Russwurm, born in Jamaica to a black woman and a white plantation owner, who was the third black college graduate in the United States. (After six months, Cornish resigned and Russwurm became the newspaper’s sole editor.) Although some historians have argued that the impetus for the newspaper was the white oppression of the 1820s, particularly vile attacks on African Americans in white newspapers, it is reductive and inaccurate to cast Freedom’s Journal as simply a response to white society. The newspaper was a self-directed effort of African Americans themselves and grew out of the organizational structures already in place in free black communities—churches, mutual aid and literary societies—and the awareness in the late 1820s among African Americans of the crucial power of writing as a tool of freedom. 

Q: Who financed the paper and who promoted it?

A: Both African Americans and whites provided financial support, and the paper had black and white subscribers and readers. Freedom’s Journal was promoted in various cities by agents, including many prominent figures, such as Bostonian David Walker, author of the 1829 Appeal to the Coloured Citizens of the World (a forceful, uncompromising condemnation of slavery and colonization) and John Remond, a successful hairdresser and community leader in Salem, Massachusetts, whose children, Charles Lenox Remond and Sarah Parker Remond, became lecturers with the American Anti-Slavery Society. 

Q: Who were the readers of Freedom’s Journal?

A: The newspaper’s readers included African Americans throughout the north and south, including slaves as well as white reformers such as Gerrit Smith and, likely, William Lloyd Garrison. Those who could not read often had Freedom’s Journal read to them. It is estimated that the number of subscribers was at least 800, which would make its circulation close to that of other weekly papers of the time. However, because copies were often shared at this time, the audience was greater than this figure indicates.

Q: What subjects were covered in Freedom’s Journal, and what types of material appeared in its columns.

A: Cornish and Russwurm described the newspaper's content broadly: In short, whatever concerns us as a people, will ever find a ready admission into the Freedom's Journal. True to their word, they published articles about a variety of issues of concern to African Americans such as colonization, slavery, education, self-improvement, women's and men's ideal roles in the home and in society, law, religion, and history. The paper contained domestci and foreign news, frequently reprinted from other newspapers; correspondence and essays by both well-known leaders such as Philadelphian Richard Allen, on of the founders of the African Methodist Episcopal Church, and unknown and even annamed African Americans who contributed letters and essays; transcriptions of speeches given on various occasions; literary and historical excerpts from published works; editorials and essays offering diverse opinions on differenct topics; poems and short stories; announcements; and advertisements.