JF Ptak Science Books   Quick Post

I found this list (below) of 19th-century African-American newspapers in James T. Haley’s Afro-American Encyclopaedia (Or, the Thoughts, Doings, and Sayings of the Race, Embracing Lectures, Biographical Sketches, Sermons, Poems, Names of Universities, Colleges, Seminaries, Newspapers, Books, and a History of the Denominations, Giving the Numerical Strength of Each. In Fact, it Teaches Every Subject of Interest to the Colored People, as Discussed by More Than One Hundred of Their Wisest and Best Men and Women), which was published in 1895 in Nashville (639pp,by Haley & Florida). The book  was digitized by the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill as part of their digitization project,   Documenting the American South. It is a fantastic thing absolutely filled with information and insight.  

• Full text found here: http://docsouth.unc.edu/church/haley/haley.html

The newspaper section starts with this introduction about the need for newspapers followed by a statement on the involvement, intelligence, and capacity to publish a newspaper:

Shall I Take a Paper?

“AT this season of the year, when publishers are making special offers to the reading public, we are all debating the mental fare with which we shall spread our table in 1895. We ought to have first a good church paper thoroughly representative of our denomination.”

“The Methodist ought to have the South- Western Advocate, published at New Orleans; the African Methodist ought to have the Christian Recorder, published at Philadelphia; the Congregationalist ought to have The Congregationalist, published at Boston, or the The Advance, published at Chicago, and so on for the Baptists, Episcopalians,”

“Evangelists and other denominations among us. Each home ought to have its church paper. Next to that stands some good clean helpful race journal. Get one, in the columns of which the editors are seeking to help the race up, and not working to pull it down. When you subscribe for a race journal get one in which the editors display not pessimistic, but optimistic views of the race.”

“It will be well to remember that it takes brains to edit a newspaper, and men who have not been trained to think are hardly men to be entrusted with the perilous task of giving direction to public opinion. The editorial chair requires more than that culture gotten from the reading of newspapers. The editor who is sending out week by week his paper into the world ought to be able to grapple with the problems of the day and think them through. There is too much guessing on the grave social problems of the day by editors. Riots and mobs are the result of false teaching, both on the part of the hotheaded anarchists and incompetent editors who are not anachists. In selecting your race journal for the next year find one whose editorial columns show moderation, and one which is not always squared off with a chip on its shoulder daring someone to knock it off. The paper which busies itself with fighting its contemporaries cannot be of very much help to you. When you raise the question about taking a race journal remember there are two reasons especially to be remembered why you should. The first is a duty you owe to yourself to keep up with the movements among your own people. Second, you owe it to the race to support laudable enterprises which look to the betterment of the race. Let us remember, too, that the press, the pulpit and the platform have been the great liberators of the nations In this land of ours we need the influence of all of these to plead our cause up and down the length of our land. Put some good race weekly on your list for 1895.”–Cleveland (Ohio) Gazette.

NEWSPAPERS

        The following is a list of newspapers and magazines edited and published by and for Afro-Americans. Alphabetically arranged by States: