John Russwurm a man ahead of his time. understood how the powerful used media to create and perpetuate destructive stereotypes of the powerless. He wanted to challenge the world by creating a nee brad of media, African American journalism.
Russwurm helped to change the terms on race in America, he not a native of America, but from Jamaica.
As a kid he moved to Maine and attended Bowdoin College. In 1826 Russwurm became only the second African American in the U.S. to earn a college degree. His speech was about the Haitian Revolution.
On March 16, 1827, Samuel Cornish, a friend from New York, and Russwurm published the first issue of Freedom’s Journal. It gave African Americans pride in their communities. It included mini-biographies, poetry, sermons and birth, death and marriage announcements.
Russwurm died in Liberia in 1851. By then nearly 30 African American newspapers existed in the United States, all devoted to ending slavery.
