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Journalism
A profession that has desegregated only in the past sixty years and that still struggles with diversity. The 1940s through 1960s marked the heyday of separate black publications, and as positions opened for African Americans on larger, white-owned newspapers, magazines, and television stations, black publications lost staff. Unable to compete when better equipped mainstream ventures began covering the black community in greater detail, black publications faltered. Despite the fact that white-owned ventures have stated a commitment to hiring minorities, few blacks hold positions in which they have control over editorial content in the mainstream media, and they represent a fraction of today's mainstream journalists.
The Antebellum Period
African American newspapers and magazines were formed in response to the white press, which ranged from entirely indifferent to highly racist. The first black newspaper, Freedom's Journal, began in New York City in 1827 and responded to the proslavery views of the New York Enquirer. The Freedom's Journal offered an opportunity for a group of black intellectuals to debate a course of action for ending slavery. The first issue declared, “We wish to plead our own cause…. Too long have others spoken for us.”
Other black newspapers of the time included the Colored American, which began as the Weekly Advocate in New York in 1835 and lasted until 1842, and the Alienated American, which began publication in Cleveland, Ohio, in 1852. Martin Delany, a physician and an abolitionist, published The Pittsburgh Mystery beginning in 1843, and Pacific Appeal served the black community of San Francisco, California, from 1862 to 1880. The first antebellum black publication in the South was the Daily Creole, which began publication in New Orleans in 1856 but folded just before the Civil War because of pressure from whites against its publishers.
The most influential newspaper of the antebellum period was The North Star, edited by black abolitionist Frederick Douglass. The paper began in Rochester, New York, in 1847. Douglass wrote that the purpose of the paper was “to attack slavery in all its forms and aspects; advocate Universal Emancipation.” Like most black papers of its time, the main goal of The North Star was abolition.
The various newspapers that managed to survive generally did so on donations from private individuals. For example, James Forten, a black merchant, funded The Liberator, an abolitionist paper edited by William Lloyd Garrison.
Postwar Period
After the Civil War, the number of black newspapers in the nation increased dramatically, especially in the South. The New Orleans Tribune, which began publication in 1864 shortly before the war ended, replaced the Daily Creole, and black communities all over the South established their own newspapers. By 1890, there were 575 black-owned newspapers and magazines in the United States.
During the Reconstruction era, blacks had greater freedom of movement and a rising literacy rate, but the papers still largely targeted an educated elite within the African American community. In the late 1870s and 1880s, many African American papers protested against the end of Reconstruction and against lynching and segregation.
African American publications continued to be strapped for cash. The Baltimore Afro-American, which started in 1892 and became the anchor of a highly respected national chain, relied on the backing of the Baptist church. Many newspapers found themselves under editorial constraints because of their funders. For example, black educator Booker T. Washington, who was known for promoting an accomodationist stance toward Jim Crow, contributed to black newspapers but was said to stifle debate. The editor of New York Age, Thomas Fortune, found himself compromising his activist stance so as not to lose funding from Booker T. Washington. Fortune is considered to be the dean of black journalism, and some scholars credit him with writing all of Washington's books.
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