On 16 March 1827 a group of free Black New Yorkers published the first issue of Freedom’s Journal, the first newspaper owned and operated by African Americans in the United States. Its founding purpose — to let Black Americans speak for themselves in a press that ignored or caricatured them — defined the Black press for the next century and a half. Abolitionist weeklies, church organs, and Reconstruction-era dailies argued for freedom, suffrage, and equal citizenship, and after 1877 editors such as John Mitchell Jr., W. Calvin Chase, and T. Thomas Fortune documented lynching and disfranchisement that the white press excused or ignored.
In the twentieth century the great national weeklies — the Chicago Defender, the Pittsburgh Courier, the Afro-American, and the Amsterdam News — reached readers far beyond their home cities. The Defender helped set the Great Migration in motion; the Courier’s Double V campaign of 1942 joined the fight against fascism abroad to the fight against racism at home; and the magazines of the NAACP, the National Urban League, and the Harlem Renaissance gave Black writers a national stage. During the civil rights movement, papers such as the Arkansas State Press fought for school desegregation at the cost of their own survival, and Jet published the photographs of Emmett Till that brought the brutality of Jim Crow before a national audience.
The directory below lists 27 of the most historically significant Black newspapers and magazines, in order of founding. Where a free digitized archive or an official site exists, it is linked. Many other titles survive only on microfilm or in subscription databases; the Library of Congress guide to African American newspapers, listed under Sources, maps holdings and digital access state by state. For the story of the first generation of the Black press, see Freedom’s Journal to the North Star: The Black Press as Civil Rights Infrastructure.
The Directory
Freedom’s Journal
Founded by Samuel E. Cornish and John B. Russwurm
The first newspaper owned and operated by African Americans in the United States, launched on 16 March 1827 to counter racist attacks in the white press and to plead the cause of the free Black community. It circulated in eleven states, the District of Columbia, Haiti, Europe, and Canada, and counted David Walker among its subscription agents. It closed in March 1829 after Russwurm embraced African colonization, which most of its readers opposed.
The Colored American
Founded by Samuel E. Cornish, Phillip A. Bell, and Charles Bennett Ray
Launched in January 1837 as the Weekly Advocate and renamed two months later, the four-to-six-page weekly circulated among free Black communities of the Northeast. It campaigned for the moral, social, and political elevation of free Black people and the peaceful emancipation of the enslaved; its later editors included Charles Bennett Ray and James McCune Smith.
Howard University Black Press Archives (as the Weekly Advocate)
The North Star
Founded by Frederick Douglass, with Martin R. Delany as co-editor
Frederick Douglass launched the weekly on 3 December 1847, funded in part by his speaking tour of Britain and Ireland, with Martin R. Delany as co-editor. Its motto, “Right is of no Sex — Truth is of no Color,” announced an abolitionism joined to women’s rights. In 1851 it merged with the Liberty Party Paper to become Frederick Douglass’ Paper.
The Christian Recorder
Founded by African Methodist Episcopal Church (first editor, M. M. Clark)
The official organ of the AME Church, first issued under this title on 1 July 1852 as the successor to the Christian Herald (1848). It describes itself as the oldest existing periodical published by African Americans whose existence dates before the Civil War.
New Orleans Tribune
Founded by Dr. Louis Charles Roudanez
Founded on 21 July 1864 by Roudanez, a free man of color, the bilingual English and French Tribune became a daily on 4 October 1864 and is generally recognized as the first Black daily newspaper in the United States. More radical than its predecessor L’Union, it served as an organizing tool for Black suffrage and civil rights in Reconstruction Louisiana; it survived into 1870.
California Eagle
Founded by John James Neimore (as The Owl)
Founded in 1879 to help Black settlers establish themselves in the West, the paper was taken over in 1912 by Charlotta A. Bass, who renamed it and published it until 1951. Under Bass it fought housing covenants, police brutality, discriminatory hiring, the Ku Klux Klan, and D. W. Griffith’s The Birth of a Nation; in 1952 she became the first African American woman to run for national office, as the Progressive Party’s vice-presidential candidate.
The Washington Bee
Founded by W. Calvin Chase (editor from the paper’s first year)
First published on 3 June 1882, the Bee was edited from late 1882 until his death in 1921 by the lawyer and journalist William Calvin Chase. For four decades it covered the political and social life of Black Washington and attacked segregation and discrimination.
Cleveland Gazette
Founded by A partnership of four men, including managing editor Harry C. Smith
Founded on 25 August 1883, the Gazette came under the sole control of Harry C. Smith within three years and was nicknamed “The Old Reliable” for never missing a Saturday issue in 58 years. Smith used it against segregated schools, minstrel shows, and the last of Ohio’s Black Laws.
Richmond Planet
Founded by A group of Black Richmonders; John Mitchell Jr. editor from December 1884
Under John Mitchell Jr., “the Fighting Editor,” who took charge at age twenty-one, the Planet became a leading voice of the antilynching movement and helped organize the Richmond streetcar boycott of 1904. It merged with the Baltimore Afro-American in 1938.
The Philadelphia Tribune
Founded by Christopher J. Perry
Christopher J. Perry published the first issue in November 1884, and the Tribune has served Black Philadelphia ever since. It is widely described as the oldest continuously published African American newspaper in the United States.
The New York Age
Founded by T. Thomas Fortune (published by Fortune & Peterson)
The New York Freeman was renamed the Age in 1887, and under T. Thomas Fortune, its editor for more than twenty years, it became the nation’s most influential Black newspaper, protesting lynching, mob violence, and disfranchisement. Fortune also co-founded the Afro-American League in 1890. The title continued after 1953 as the New York Age Defender.
The Afro-American
Founded by John Henry Murphy Sr.
Founded on 13 August 1892 by John H. Murphy Sr., born enslaved and a Civil War veteran, who merged his church paper with two others. Under his son Carl Murphy, editor-publisher for 45 years, the Afro became a national chain with regional editions from Washington to Newark and one of the four largest Black papers of the World War II era.
The Guardian
Founded by William Monroe Trotter and George W. Forbes
First published on 9 November 1901 and edited by William Monroe Trotter until his death in 1934, the Saturday weekly championed militant civil rights advocacy in stark contrast to the accommodationism of Booker T. Washington. Aimed at Black Boston, it eventually drew readers across the country, and it endorsed candidates of either party solely on their civil rights records.
The Chicago Defender
Founded by Robert S. Abbott
Launched by Robert S. Abbott on 5 May 1905 with a 25-cent investment and a press run of 300 copies, the Defender became the most influential Black newspaper of the early twentieth century. Its reports contrasting Northern opportunity with Southern repression helped drive the Great Migration, and its writers included Langston Hughes and Gwendolyn Brooks. It became a daily in 1956 and ended its print edition in 2019 to publish online.
The Pittsburgh Courier
Founded by Edwin Harleston; Robert L. Vann editor-publisher from 1910
Under Robert L. Vann the Courier grew into the most widely circulated Black newspaper in the country, with a national circulation approaching 200,000. In February 1942, prompted by a reader’s letter, it launched the Double V campaign for victory over fascism abroad and racism at home. Its successor, the New Pittsburgh Courier, began in 1966.
New York Amsterdam News
Founded by James H. Anderson
James H. Anderson produced the first issue on 4 December 1909 with ten dollars and a dressmaker’s table; the paper soon moved to Harlem and became its principal voice. Contributors included W. E. B. Du Bois, and in 1958 it began publishing a column by Malcolm X.
The Crisis
Founded by W. E. B. Du Bois for the NAACP
W. E. B. Du Bois founded the NAACP’s magazine in November 1910 and edited it until 1934, making it arguably the most widely read and influential periodical on race in American history; its circulation peaked at about 100,000. It published early work by Langston Hughes and many other writers of the Harlem Renaissance.
Norfolk Journal and Guide
Founded by P. B. Young Sr. (purchased and renamed the Lodge Journal and Guide)
P. B. Young Sr. bought a four-page fraternal weekly with 500 readers in 1910 and built it into the best-selling Black newspaper in the South, with a circulation above 80,000 by the mid-1940s. Known for sober, carefully edited reporting, it covered the Scottsboro trials in depth and pressed for fair employment in the defense industries; it continues as the New Journal and Guide.
The Messenger
Founded by A. Philip Randolph and Chandler Owen
A. Philip Randolph and Chandler Owen founded the magazine in 1917, billing it as a journal of “scientific radicalism” published by Black writers. A voice of Black socialism and trade unionism, it led the “Garvey Must Go” campaign against Marcus Garvey in 1922.
Negro World
Founded by Marcus Garvey and the Universal Negro Improvement Association
Marcus Garvey launched the UNIA’s weekly on 17 August 1918. With sections in Spanish and French, it circulated across the United States, the Caribbean, Central America, Europe, and Africa, reaching a peak circulation above 200,000, and T. Thomas Fortune edited it from 1923 until his death in 1928.
Opportunity: A Journal of Negro Life
Founded by Charles S. Johnson for the National Urban League
The National Urban League’s monthly, edited by the sociologist Charles S. Johnson, became a principal showcase of the Harlem Renaissance. Its literary contests of 1925 recognized Zora Neale Hurston, Langston Hughes, and Countee Cullen.
Atlanta Daily World
Founded by William Alexander Scott II
Founded as the weekly Atlanta World in August 1928 on Auburn Avenue, the paper became a daily in March 1932, one of the first Black-owned dailies in the country, and anchored a syndicate of some fifty papers. Under C. A. Scott it took a moderate Republican line, opposing Georgia’s white primary while discouraging the sit-ins of the 1960s.
Michigan Chronicle
Founded by John H. Sengstacke; Louis E. Martin founding editor
Founded by the Chicago Defender’s John H. Sengstacke, the Chronicle issued its first number on 14 April 1936 and, under editor Louis E. Martin, grew from about 900 paid subscribers to 15,000 by 1940. It became the leading voice of Black Detroit through the Great Migration, the wartime industrial boom, and the civil rights era.
Arkansas State Press
Founded by L. C. Bates and Daisy Bates
The largest statewide Black newspaper in Arkansas and the only one to demand immediate school desegregation after Brown v. Board of Education. It championed the nine students at Little Rock Central High School in 1957, and an advertiser boycott forced its closing on 29 October 1959. Daisy Bates revived the paper in 1984.
Ebony
Founded by John H. Johnson (Johnson Publishing Company)
First published in November 1945 and modeled on Life, Ebony was the first Black-oriented magazine in the United States to reach a national circulation. Johnson founded it to project, in his words, all dimensions of Black life in a world saturated with stereotypes, and its photographers documented the civil rights movement for a generation of readers.
Jet
Founded by John H. Johnson (Johnson Publishing Company)
Johnson’s pocket-size weekly news magazine made its lasting mark in 1955, when, at the request of Mamie Till Bradley, it published photographs of the mutilated body of her fourteen-year-old son Emmett Till, murdered in Mississippi. Jet ended its print edition in 2014 and continues online.
Muhammad Speaks
Founded by Malcolm X, for the Nation of Islam
Malcolm X established the Nation of Islam’s newspaper in 1960, printing early issues in his basement and requiring members to sell it on the street. By the end of the decade its national circulation had reached about 600,000, the largest of any Black-owned newspaper; it was renamed Bilalian News in 1975.
Sources
- Library of Congress, “African American Newspapers,” research guide (holdings and digital access by state). Link
- Library of Congress catalog records (Chronicling America directory) for Freedom’s Journal (sn83030455), The Colored American (sn83030314), The North Star (sn84026365), New Orleans Tribune (sn83016710), California Eagle (sn82016196), The Bee and Washington Bee (sn84025890, sn84025891), Cleveland Gazette (sn83035386), Richmond Planet (sn84025841), Philadelphia Tribune (sn83045144), New York Age (sn83030005), The Guardian (sn83045863), Michigan Chronicle (sn83045324), and Arkansas State Press (sn84025840). Link
- Stanley Nelson, dir., The Black Press: Soldiers Without Swords, companion website, PBS (newspaper and biography profiles). Link
- Encyclopaedia Britannica, “Freedom’s Journal,” “Chicago Defender,” “Opportunity,” and “Ebony.” Link
- Howard University, Moorland-Spingarn Research Center, Black Press Archives (digital collections). Link
- Buffalo State University Archives, “Newspapers: The Colored American (NYC), 1837–1841.” Link
- The Christian Recorder, “A Brief History of The Christian Recorder.” Link
- 64 Parishes (Louisiana Endowment for the Humanities), “Louis Charles Roudanez.” Link
- Encyclopedia of Cleveland History, Case Western Reserve University, “Cleveland Gazette.” Link
- Encyclopedia Virginia, “John Mitchell Jr. (1863–1929).” Link
- Digital Commonwealth, Boston Public Library, “The Guardian” collection description. Link
- Patrick S. Washburn, “The Pittsburgh Courier’s Double V Campaign in 1942” (paper presented to the Association for Education in Journalism, 1981), ERIC ED205956. Link
- NAACP, “History of The Crisis.” Link
- Modernist Journals Project, “The Crisis, 1910–1922.” Link
- National Museum of African American History and Culture, “Opportunity Journal of Negro Life” (object record, June 1930 issue) and “75 Years of Ebony Magazine.” Link
- New Georgia Encyclopedia, “Atlanta Daily World.” Link
- Historic Detroit, “Michigan Chronicle Building.” Link
- CALS Encyclopedia of Arkansas, “Arkansas State Press.” Link
- Karen Grigsby Bates, “After Six Decades As A Staple, ‘Jet’ Magazine Ends Print Run,” NPR, 7 May 2014. Link
- The Malcolm X Project at Columbia University, “The National Spokesman, 1960–1962.” Link
- Encyclopaedia Britannica, “Muhammad Speaks” (from the article on Malcolm X). Link
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