Freedom's Journal at 200

A Conference at the American Antiquarian Society 185 Salisbury Street Worcester, MA 01609 United States In March 1827, Samuel Cornish and John Russwurm published the first issue of Freedom's Journal, the first Black-owned and -operated newspaper in the United States. Its founders opened with a conviction that has echoed through two centuries of American journalism: that a people must speak for themselves. The American Antiquarian Society holds this founding record of the African American press, and will mark its bicentennial with a three-day conference on the history, present condition, and future of Black journalism in America. Keynoting the conference is Errin Haines, editor-at-large and founding mother of The 19th and president of the National Association of Black Journalists. She is joined by more than two dozen scholars, journalists, editors, publishers, and archivists. The convening speaks directly to the questions that occupy the field today: freedom of the press, public trust in journalism, and the future of the newspaper as an institution. Since its origins, the Black press has been a voice for African American communities and has held a mirror to American institutions and ideals. Freedom's Journal and its successors, from the newspapers of the nineteenth century to the digital era, are among the most consequential records of American democratic life. They belong to the whole nation's history. The bicentennial arrives at a moment of intense public argument over who tells the American story, whose stories are told, and how the institutions of the free press will survive in a period of changing media and political polarization. Banner: Printing Office, T.N.I.I., photograph, Tuskegee Institute, between 1890 and 1915.