Arkansas State press., 1951-03-23
: WORTH REPEATING ::
124fh Anniversary Of The Negro Press
(From The Oklahoma Black Dispateh)

This week marks the 124th anniversary
of the Negro press and We know of no bet
ter time to discuss justification for existence
than in the week when all of the black press
commentaries that distant day back IN Is
81, when John B. RussWuTm and Samuel
Cornish launched the Negroes frs Journal
istie effort in New York City.
Then, as now, there were the EssJ5rQok
Peglars who questioned the Americanism o.
a Negro journalist and It should be kept
in mind that Russwurm and his associate
launched their journalistic efforts Free
doms Journal in a day when free Negroes
needed defense. black Wemen's virtue was
questioned and when the church joined with
the secular world IN the justification Of
slavery. In Russwurn's day a free Negro
was considered an actual menace 70 the
slave system, and propaganda was eXtant
that freedom bred criminaity among black
men and was wholly undesirable.
Because Of the terrific struggle in
which free Negroes found themselves, Free
doms Journal did not last but a year, de
spite the fact that both of these early day
black publishers were college bred men, and
Cornish a polished platform speaker,
sought TO add strength TO the effort in the
public forum. Freedoms Journal sayagely
attacked slavery, but the publications read
ers were extremely limited among the IL
iterate, pennileSs slaves, and it had TO de-
pend for its existence upon liberal minded
whites who from the first saw the danger
for the new nation nesting in human bond
age.
The next important effort made by Ne
groes in the field Of journalism came in lS-
As when Frederick Douglass, whose imuer-
ishable fame as an abolitonist will never
die launched The North Star" at Roches-
ter, New York Douglass born a slave, es-
capped, as did the father of this writer. by
the Underground Railroad and later davel-
oped into one of the mightiest platform ora
tors of his time. After Lincolns freedom,
Douglass served in many important office,
in the District of Columbia. II was Douglass
who from the platform during the recon
struction period uncompromisingly stressed
the realistic issues Of freedom He pricked the
conscience of the nation and caused the en-
actment of the 18Th, 1ith, and 18th amend
ments to the constitution of the United
States, constitutionalzing the Emancipation
Proclamation and planting the safeguards of
constitutional citizenship around the newly
won freedom Of the slave,
Few Negro children attending school
know much about Frederick Douglass, when
in fact, no day should pass in the class
rooms Of America without some attention
being paid to his ideals and perspective about
life Ir a war-torn world it would be well
for President Truman and other world rulers
to ponder upon a trite expression of This
black sage of the Negro press:
Men have in their own hands the peace
full means by which they may put all Of the
moral political and economic enemies to flight,
II they will but va!liantly. courageousy and
intelligentiy tie them
Douglass was a one man NAACP in the
reconstruction period as he fought for the
things that ought to be, and through all of
that terrible struggle, he felt that human
ity's problems could be resolved through
peaceful means. Every public school library
should possess volumn of the Life and
Times of Frederick Douglass"
Perhaps clear picture of what the Ne
gro press stands for can be secured by eX-
animation Of the mast head of each publica-
ton. Douglass named his publication THE
\ North Star" in fitting recognition of the