(BALTIMORE – March 8, 2023) – Founded on March 16, 1827, as a four-page, four-column standard-sized weekly, Freedom’s Journal was the first black-owned and operated newspaper in the United States, and was established the same year that slavery was abolished in New York State.
The newspaper was founded at 5 Varick Street in Lower Manhattan, New York, by Jamaican-born John Brown Russwurm, Bowdoin College’s first African American graduate and only the third Black person to graduate from an American college.
Cofounder Samuel Eli Cornish, born in Sussex County, Delaware, and a graduate of the Free African School in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, also founded Shiloh Presbyterian Church, the first Black Presbyterian Church in Manhattan, in 1822.
Come out and join Black Press professionals as we commemorate the very beginning of the 196-year legacy.
RSVP to https://blackpressday.eventbrite.com
