THIS WEEK IN
MARCH 13 — MARCH 19
The first edition of Freedom’s Journal, the first Black-owned and operated US newspaper, is published in NYC. On March 16, 1827—the same year that slavery was finally abolished in New York State—NYC-based editors Samuel E. Cornish and John B. Russwurm published the first edition of Freedom’s Journal, the first Black-owned and operated newspaper in the United States.
“We wish to plead our own cause,” wrote Cornish and Russwurm in an editorial in the first issue.
Too long have others spoken for us. Too long has the public been deceived by misrepresentations, in things which concern us dearly, though in the estimation of some mere trifles; for though there are many in society who exercise towards us benevolent feelings; still (with sorrow we confess it) there are others who make it their business to enlarge upon the least trifle, which tends to the discredit of any person of color; and pronounce anathemas and denounce our whole body for the misconduct of this guilty one....
“The interesting fact that there are five hundred thousand free persons of color, one half of whom might peruse, and the whole be benefitted by the publication of the Journal,” the editorial continues, “that no publication, as yet, has been devoted exclusively to their improvement; and that many selections from approved standard authors, which are within the reach of few, may occasionally be made; and more important still, that this large body of our citizens have no public channel; all serve to prove the real necessity, at present, for the appearance of the Freedom’s Journal.”
The paper contained “domestic and foreign news, literary offerings, and advertisements,” most of these written by Black contributors, alongside reprints from other papers, writes Jacqueline Bacon. In their opening editorial, Cornish and Russwurm promised that the paper would include “whatever concerns us as a people,” and accordingly, they covered “colonization, education, self-improvement, women’s and men’s ideal roles in the home and in society, and slavery,” and frequently presented multiple perspectives on important issues, whether the editors agreed with them or not. “Providing a contrasting view to the sensationalized stories in the white press about crimes allegedly perpetrated by free African Americans,” Bacon writes, “Cornish and Russwurm printed news about crimes against free people of color, such as kidnappings and personal attacks—a phenomenon that white Americans often ignored. Numerous items also offered positive accounts of African Americans and their successes.”
The paper also published literary materials, including poems, essays, sermons, and even fiction—notably “Theresa, a Haytian Tale,” which was published anonymously in four installments during the first months of 1828 and has been identified as the “first work of African American short fiction.”
But the road wasn’t easy. Cornish resigned his duties after only six months, and some readers complained about the editorial standards of the paper under Russwurm, as well as his increasing support for the colonization movement; Russwurm began to resent his “thankless” post, and ultimately decided to emigrate to Liberia. The weekly newspaper closed after only two years, but as Brown points out, it had a “significant impact, both in the antebellum period and beyond, influencing African American journalism, the abolitionist movement, and generations of American reformers.” Indeed, by the beginning of the Civil War, over 40 Black-owned and operated newspapers had sprung up in the United States to carry on the torch.
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Now in paperback, the long-awaited sequel to the Pulitzer Prize-winning The Sympathizer 
The sequel to The Sympathizer, which won the 2016 Pulitzer Prize in Fiction and went on to sell over a million copies worldwide, The Committed tells the story of “the man of two minds” as he comes as a refugee to France and turns his hand to capitalism.
MORE WHERE THAT CAME FROM
OPENING SALVO: “In presenting our first number to our Patrons, we feel all the diffidence of persons entering upon a new and untried line of business. But a moment’s reflection upon the noble objects, which we have in view by the publication of this Journal; the expediency of its appearance at this time, when so many schemes are in action concerning our people & encourage us to come boldly before an enlightened public. For we believe, that a paper devoted to the dissemination of useful knowledge among our brethren, and to their moral and religious improvement, must meet with the cordial approbation of every friend to humanity.” —SAMUEL E. CORNISH and JOHN B. RUSSWURM
Freedom’s Journal, March 16, 1827
In other (old) news this week Romanian historian Nicolae Iorga instigates a boycott of the National Theater Bucharest over its staging of a French-language play (March 13, 1906) • Sei Itō’s 1950 translation of D. H. Lawrence’s Lady Chatterley’s Lover is found on appeal in Japan to be obscene (March 13, 1957) • Honoré de Balzac marries Ewelina Hanska, whom he met after she wrote him an anonymous letter criticizing his work (March 14, 1850) • Nathaniel Hawthorne’s The Scarlet Letter (the basis for WandaVision?) is published (March 16, 1850) • The first National Book Awards is celebrated at the Waldorf-Astoria hotel in New York City (March 15, 1950) • Henry Fielding tries UK Poet Laureate Colley Cibber in the press for the crime of murdering the English language (March 17, 1740) 
“You have to be awfully naive not to understand that a writer is a performer who puts on the act he does best—not least when he dons the mask of the first-person singular. That may be the best mask of all for a second self. Some (many) pretend to be more lovable than they are and some pretend to be less. Beside the point. Literature isn’t a moral beauty contest. Its power arises from the authority and audacity with which the impersonation is pulled off; the belief it inspires is what counts. The question to ask about the writer isn’t ‘Why does he behave so badly?’ but ‘What does he gain by wearing this mask?’” 
–PHILIP ROTH Born this week in 1933 “My first thought about art, as a child, was that the artist brings something into the world that didn’t exist before, and that he does it without destroying something else. A kind of refutation of the conservation of matter. That still seems to me its central magic, its core of joy.” 
–JOHN UPDIKE Born this week in 1932
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