Freedom's Journal: The First African-American Newspaper (review)

2007 ◽  
Vol 27 (4) ◽  
pp. 737-740
Author(s):  
Holly M. Kent
Keyword(s):  
African American ◽  
Freedom's Journal

scholarly journals Freedom’s Journal

2020 ◽  
pp. 1-21
Author(s):  
Emma Stave
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
New York ◽  
African American ◽  
African Americans ◽  
The United States ◽  
Final Part ◽  
Free Blacks ◽  
Freedom's Journal ◽  
Journalistic Field

This article examines the first newspaper operated, published, and distributed by free blacks in the United States during the first half of the nineteenth century, Freedom’s Journal.  Despite being active for merely two years, the New York-based periodical managed to unite African Americans across different states by becoming their mouthpiece. The first part of the article examines well-established historical facts including information about the editors, the readership, and the methods of distribution. The second part examines changes brought to the journalistic field by African Americans, while part three analyzes excerpts from a debate between proponents of the colonization movement, and their African American opponents. The final part discusses why the periodical ceased publishing, the importance of the method of distribution, and how the paper may have impacted subsequent black rights movements. Finally, an assessment is given as to how periodicals like Freedom’s Journal may influence the present and the future.

The Black Press

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kim Gallon
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
African American ◽  
African Americans ◽  
Social Space ◽  
Black People ◽  
The United States ◽  
Black Press ◽  
Cultural Tradition ◽  
History Of ◽  
Freedom's Journal

The term “Black Press” is an umbrella term that includes a diverse set of publications that include a small number of religious and mostly secular magazines and newspapers published by Black people in the United States from 1827 to the present. While religious newspapers are an integral part of the Black Press cultural tradition, of particular interest is how papers outside of formal Black religious dominations and institutions negotiated their self-defined racial uplift mission with their desire to attract readers to purchase and read newspapers. This focus does not deny the tremendous significance of Black religious print culture and the role it played in conveying African American cultural expression. Nineteenth-century religious papers like the Christian Recorder (1852–) were instrumental to the publication of early Black literature. Focusing on a small number of religious publications, then, provides a window into how they worked in conjunction with secular newspapers to define Black life in the United States. A newspaper is defined as “Black” if the publisher and principal editor or editors characterized themselves as such. Immigrant and foreign-language Black newspapers published in the United States were closer to the immigrant press. The history of the Black Press in the United States is simultaneously rooted in uplift and protest against racial injustice. Two Black abolitionists—Presbyterian minister Samuel E. Cornish and John B. Russwurm, one of the nation’s first African American college graduates—created the first Black newspaper, Freedom’s Journal, in 1827 to promote self-help and respond to anti-Black attacks in white papers. The first issue of Freedom’s Journal famously related the sentiments of its founders: “We wish to plead our own cause. Too long have others spoken for us. Too long has the public been deceived by misrepresentations in things which concern us dearly.” Indeed, Cornish and Russwurm’s statements define close to 200 years of Black journalism that created the necessary political and social space for African Americans to recover their humanity. Despite the significant role the Black Press has and continues to play, to some degree, the cultural history of the Black Press is underexamined relative to the emphasis that historians place on the race advocacy and protest mission of African American newspapers. Close examination reveals that the Black Press’s power lay not only in its capacity to assert the rights and humanity of Black people through agitation but also in the ways it reinforced and amplified the unique and lively culture of African Americans. To this end, the Black Press created a countercultural public of Black peoples’ image and identity that was equally instrumental in refuting the discrimination they faced in American society.

The Hearing Aid Effect in African American and Caucasian Males as Perceived by Female Judges of the Same Race

1999 ◽  
Vol 30 (2) ◽  
pp. 165-172 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mary Davis ◽  
Rhonda Jackson ◽  
Tina Smith ◽  
William Cooper
Keyword(s):  
African American ◽  
Hearing Aids ◽  
Undergraduate Education ◽  
Hearing Aid ◽  
Semantic Differential ◽  
Semantic Differential Scale ◽  
Education Majors ◽  
Female Undergraduate ◽  
Lay Persons ◽  
Males And Females

Prior studies have proven the existence of the "hearing aid effect" when photographs of Caucasian males and females wearing a body aid, a post-auricular aid (behind-the-ear), or no hearing aid were judged by lay persons and professionals. This study was performed to determine if African American and Caucasian males, judged by female members of their own race, were likely to be judged in a similar manner on the basis of appearance, personality, assertiveness, and achievement. Sixty female undergraduate education majors (30 African American; 30 Caucasian) used a semantic differential scale to rate slides of preteen African American and Caucasian males, with and without hearing aids. The results of this study showed that female African American and Caucasian judges rated males of their respective races differently. The hearing aid effect was predominant among the Caucasian judges across the dimensions of appearance, personality, assertiveness, and achievement. In contrast, the African American judges only exhibited a hearing aid effect on the appearance dimension.

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