How Black-Run Newspapers Bolstered the Abolitionist Movement (History Channel)

Nineteenth-century Black newspapers helped broadcast African American diversity and agency, lighting the way towards a post-slavery era.

By Nadra Nittle, February 13, 2025

At a time when anti-literacy laws prevented the vast majority of enslaved people from reading, a group of free Black New Yorkers launched the nation's first Black newspaper on March 16, 1827.

Aptly named Freedom’s Journal, as it started the same year that New York outlawed slavery, the publication helped shift the characterization of Black Americans, whom the mainstream press typically portrayed through a racially biased lens.

“Black people were really the subject of racist attacks in New York's leading newspapers at that time,” says Trevy A. McDonald, associate professor of broadcast and electronic journalism in the School of Journalism and Media at the University of North Carolina.

Freedom’s Journal, which published current events, editorials, classified ads and highlighted issues around the civil rights and liberation of Black Americans, paved the way for other Black newspapers.

Read the full story at the History Channel.