In
1821 Benjamin Lundy, began publishing
the anti-slavery newspaper,
Genius of Universal Emancipation.
Over
the next thirty years there were over twenty radical newspapers that
tended to concentrate on the issue of slavery and civil rights. This
included The
Liberator
(William Lloyd Garrison and Maria
Weston Chapman), The
Free Enquirer
(Fanny
Wright and Robert Dale Owen), The
Philanthropist
(James
Birney), North
Star
(Frederick Douglass), Freedom's
Journal
(Samuel E. Cornish), The
Mystery
(Martin Robinson Delany), Emancipator
and Public Morals
and
Mirror
of Liberty
(David
Ruggles), Commonwealth
(Julia Ward Howe and Samuel
Gridley Howe), Colored
American
(James W. Pennington), St.
Louis Observer
(Elijah P. Lovejoy), National
Anti-Slavery Standard
(Lydia Maria Child), Palladium
of Liberty
(Charles Langston),
National Watchman
(Henry Highland Garnet), Pittsburgh
Saturday Visiter
and St.
Cloud Visiter
(Jane Grey Swisshelm), Cleveland
True Democrat and the Aliened
American (William Howard Day)
and Pennsylvania
Freeman
(John Greenleaf Whittier).
These newspapers were published locally but received support from
the national Anti-Slavery Society.
They included speeches from Radical Republicans
in Congress, passages from sermons, excerpts from slave narratives,
reports on anti-slavery meetings and details of future events. Editors
of these newspapers were often attacked and on 7th November, 1837,
Elijah P. Lovejoy was killed
while attempting to protect his printing press from a pro-slavery
mob.
The Philanthropist (21st November, 1837)
Available from Amazon Books
(order below)
