African American newspapers

Samuel Cornish and John Brown Russwurm started the first African American periodical, Freedom's Journal, in 1827.

During the antebellum period, other African American newspapers sprang up, such as The North Star, founded in 1847 by Frederick Douglass.

[4] Some notable black newspapers of the 19th century were Freedom's Journal (1827–1829), Philip Alexander Bell's Colored American (1837–1841), the North Star (1847–1860), the National Era, The Aliened American in Cleveland (1853–1855), Frederick Douglass' Paper (1851–1863), the Douglass Monthly (1859–1863), The People's Advocate, founded by John Wesley Cromwell and Travers Benjamin Pinn (1876–1891), and The Christian Recorder (1861–1902).

[5] In the 1860s, the newspapers The Elevator and the Pacific Appeal emerged in California as a result of black participation in the Gold Rush.

[8][9] In 1894, Josephine St. Pierre Ruffin founded The Woman's Era, the first nationally distributed newspaper published by and for African American women in the United States.

It was also one of the first newspapers, along with the National Association Notes, to create journalism career opportunities for Southern black women.

Many freed African Americans had low incomes and could not afford to purchase subscriptions but shared the publications with one another.

[17] The Chicago-based Associated Negro Press (1919–1964) was a subscription news agency "with correspondents and stringers in all major centers of black population".