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Full resolution (TIFF) - On this page / på denna sida - IX. Leadership and Concerted Action - 42. The Negro Press - 1. An Organ for the Negro Protest - 2. The Growth of the Negro Press
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912 An American Dilemma
edited to prove the theory that they are similar and that they should be
treated as ordinary Americans.
In a sense, the Negro newspapers have, thus, an opposite purpose from
the ordinary immigrant papers, which take full assimilation of the group
for granted and cater only to temporary language difficulties and to a senti^
mental pride in keeping up a cherished ethnic and cultural distinction. The
foreign-language press is doomed to disappear as the immigrants become
fully assimilated and are not replenished by new immigration. The Negro
press, on the contrary, is bound to become ever stronger as Negroes are
increasingly educated and culturally assimilated but not given entrance to
the white world.
In spite of this basic difference in purpose and “function,” the two types
of press are interesting to compare. In many important technical respects
they show similarities. Both the immigrant papers and the Negro papers
usually have their reading public spread all over the country, and both
tend to become regional or national in circulation. Both ordinarily serve
a reading public below the average in income. Both, therefore, have diffi-
culty in soliciting advertising, which tends to keep them marginal as
economic enterprises. At present, the foreign-language press is often better
protected against competition from the majority press; it can support many
dailies.® With the decrease in the number of persons who read only a
foreign language well, even the foreign-language papers will tend to
become what the Negro papers already are, namely, papers read in addition
to ordinary American newspapers. They will then also tend to be weekly
and to be published in English, until they finally disappear altogether.**
2. The Growth of the Negro Press*®
The development of the Negro press follows closely two interrelated
trends: the rising Negro protest and the increase of Negro literacy. The
Negro press was born in the struggle against slavery as a Negro branch of
the Abolitionist propaganda organs in the North. The first Negro news-
paper, Freedom’s Journal^ was launched in 1827 in New York by John B.
Russwurm and Samuel E. Cornish. Detweiler counts 24 Negro journals
appearing before the Civil War. Some of them were rather short-lived.**
works injustice to the Negro himself and it is high time to discard it.” (John M. Mecklin,
Democracy and Race Friction [1914], p. 46.)
* In Chicago alone there are some 20 to 25 foreign-language daily newspapers (Elizabeth
D. Johns, “The Role of the Negro Newspaper in the Negro Community,” unpublished
manuscript made available through the courtesy of the author [1940], p. 24), while the
Negroes have not succeeded in keeping up dailies. There is at present only one Negro
daily (see footnote a few pages back) . This is in spite of the fact that there are nearly 1
3
million Negroes in the country, as compared to only 1 1 million foreign-born whites and
the latter are split up into many nationalities.
**
This process has proceeded far, for instance, in the Scandinavian language groups.
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