As January is upon us, we are annually reminded of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr, a man who has gone from a symbol and a pillar into the civil rights era, to another "black fact" you hear about during the month of February. Black History Month has boiled down all things spectacular to ordinary during a 28 day period where people spout the same facts about a small sample group. American civilization has put any culture other than white on the back burner so that we can be indoctrinated into their own culture. So, I have decided to start a new web series called Random Black Facts. This will be a series similar to (and don't judge me for the self plug) something I used to do on my Facebook where I would post random black facts. I would post articles randomly about black people and have friends comment on a self-reflection sort of way.

So I will do an expanded version here. I will start off the first fact with a story on "The Freedom's Journal." "Freedom’s Journal" was the first African-American owned and operated newspaper in the United States. It was ran by free black men in New York City and was first published in March 1827 and ran until 1829. The founders of the Journal intended to appeal to the free black people in the North. More importantly, Freedom’s Journal panders to Dubois’s “talented tenth” because it encouraged black men who have the capability to become leaders to implement social change. The Journal gives the black man food for thought when it comes to social issues and proved the relevancy of primary sources.

The Journal includes stories, news reports (foreign and domestic), death counts, property sales, and things that would be seen in a newspaper today. There is also an opinion section. While it is not called that, it can be seen as such. Through an opinion piece called “People of Colour,” the social thought part of the newspaper confronts the mistreatment of African Americans.

The author of this piece wholeheartedly believes that slavery is an abomination. However, the thing that makes it worse for the author is that Great Britain, at that time, is on the verge of freeing all the slaves in their territories. He says, “Measures are begun by which every slave in the British dominions will soon be free. - The Philanthropists who procured the abolition of the slave trade in Great Britain, have formed a ‘Society for the mitigation and gradual abolition of slavery, throughout the British dominions.’” How could a country as great as America, that got its own independence from Britain, let its former “oppressors” make bigger strides to stop oppressing slaves?

This edition of the "Freedom’s Journal" also questions the role of religion in slavery. The Journal makes a controversial statement by saying “The right of personal liberty is not, in all circumstances, an absolute right. If it were so, slavery would never have been recognized in the word of God. Yet it was permitted and regulated in the laws given by God himself.” This calls into question the belief that God dislikes slavery. Many white people believed this very same idea, that because slavery is permitted in the Bible, it is not disfavored in the eyes of the Lord. However, the author states that personal liberty can only be taken away “whenever the public good and the interest of the individual require it.” And by public good, he meant the interests of ALL people. That would be black, white, women, and men. Therefore, slavery goes against personal liberty and the will of God. In a quote used by the Journal, a man addressed as McKnight speaks about the apostle Paul.“The apostle mitigated the evils of slavery; for he showed that both the command and the obedience were limited to the law of Christ,” said McKnight.

I gained an extensive amount of knowledge from a newspaper I had not even heard about before this project. My research on the "Freedom’s Journal" proves that primary sources are still necessary to learn about the thought processes of individuals living at a certain time and era. This Journal is able to convey a sense of what black intellectuals thought about slavery straight from the source.

On the next episode, I will be talking about one of the men behind this newspaper, John Brown Russwurm.