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By 1860 the total population of the United States was 31,500,000. Of this number, slightly more than 14 per cent, or about 4,500,000, were Negroes including nearly half-a-million free persons of color. A significant number of the Negroes could read as well as speak intelligently. These were the people for whom the pioneer journalists wrote. Generally, their literature criticized the pro-slavery groups as well as the American Colonization Society and vigorously denounced the proponents of slavery.

Of this group of writers, John B. Russwurm was one of the most prominent. Russwurm was educated in Canada and at Bowdoin College, where, in 1826 he became the United States' first Negro college graduate. In March, 1827, he established this country's first Negro newspaper, "Freedom's Journal", which he renamed "Rights Of All" in March, 1828.

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CREDO OF NEGRO PRESS
We believe that America can best lead the world away from racial and national antagonisms when it awards every man, regardless of race, color, or creed, his human and legal rights.

Hating no man, fearing no man, the Negro Press strives to help every man in the belief that all are hurt as long as anyone is held back [[/box]]

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JOHN B. RUSSWURM
First American Negro Editor
First Negro American College Graduate

SAMUEL CORNISH
On founding "Freedom's Journal", Cornish wrote: "As education is what renders civilized man superior to the savage . . . we deem it expedient to establish a paper and bring into operation all the means with which our benevolent Creator has endowed us, for the moral, religious, civil and literary improvement of our injured race . . . In our discussion of political subjects we shall ever regard the Constitution of the United States as our political star."

FREDERICK DOUGLASS

In 1847, in Rochester, Douglass founded the "North Star". Its slogan was "Right is of no Sex, Truth is of no color - God is the Father of us all, and we all are Brethren."

"It is neither a reflection on the fidelity, nor a disparagement of the ability of our friends and fellow-laborers, to assert what 'common sense' affirms and only folly denies, that the man who has suffered the wrong is the man to demand redress - that the STRUCK is the man to CRY OUT - and that he who has endured the cruel pangs of Slavery is the man to advocate Liberty. It is evident that we must be our own representatives and advocates, not exclusively, but peculiarly - not distinct from, but in connection with our white friends."