Freeman's Press

Preceding the American Civil War, there were no African American newspapers published in Texas since around 95% of the black population—many of them enslaved—were unable to read or write.{{sfn|Smallwood|1983|p=357}} Black illiteracy was a legally-enforced prohibition by Texas, though following the Civil War, many of these racist regulations were lifted and black literacy rates improved considerably.{{sfn|Smallwood|1983|p=357}} As a result, many freedpeople began to desire a journalistic press that represented their own communities; the Freeman's Press was the first of these, and it was financially supported by white carpetbagger journalist James Pearson Newcomb{{sfn|Smallwood|1983|pp=357–358}} and the Union League.{{sfn|Dickerson|1998|p=57}}

Newcomb, alongside many others (including some African American journalists), established the underlying corporation in Austin, Texas, in July 1868.{{sfn|Smallwood|1983|p=357}} Melvin C. Keith, a black journalist,{{efn-ua|One scholar says Keith was white,{{sfn|Dickerson|1998|p=57}} and one gives his first name as Melving.{{sfn|Smallwood|1983|p=357}}}} was designated as the editor of the paper.{{sfn|Smallwood|1983|p=358}}

The Freeman's Press debuted on July 18, 1868, a short period before that year's elections.{{sfn|Smallwood|1983|p=358}} In its inaugural issue, the paper established itself as a political paper that supported the Radical Republican cause.{{sfn|Smallwood|1983|p=358}} Several of its writers were African Americans, but Newcomb exerted significant control over the paper and its political orientation.{{sfn|Smallwood|1983|p=358}} Among the topics addressed by the paper was the contemporary civil rights movement, the forty acres and a mule proposal, the uplifting of black civic and spiritual life (as opposed to Native Americans, which the paper wrote were "savages" as opposed to "civilized Christian men"{{sfn|Gourgey|2001|pp=110–111}}), and the 1868 Republican National Convention.{{sfnm|1a1=Dickerson|1y=1998|1p=57|2a1=Smallwood|2y=1983|2p=358}} It argued against the creation of secret organizations to combat white supremacy and the Ku Klux Klan, and it denounced the racist idea that black people were staging a "Negro insurrection".{{sfn|Kinshasa|2006|p=152}} George Ruby, a black politician and journalist, wrote in the paper,{{sfn|Dickerson|1998|p=57}} and it serialized a series of lectures by politician Clinton B. Fisk entitled "Plain Counsels for Freedmen: In Sixteen Brief Lectures".{{sfn|Litwack|1979|p=644}} At some point, it was renamed the Free Man's Press.{{sfn|Dickerson|1998|p=57}}

Production costs were high for the paper, many of its journalists were not adequately paid,{{sfn|Smallwood|1983|p=358}} and Keith asked subscribers to pay him directly—not the paper—due to fear of confiscation by postal workers.{{sfn|Dickerson|1998|p=57}} On September 19, the paper moved from Austin to Galveston.{{sfn|Dickerson|1998|p=58}} On October 24, 1868, after Keith stated he was leaving the paper, its last issue was published and the paper dissolved.{{sfn|Smallwood|1983|p=358}} The Freeman's Press was succeeded by the Galveston Spectator in 1873, the first Texan paper owned and published by African Americans.{{sfn|Smallwood|1983|p=358}}

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• {{cite journal |last=Dickerson |first=Donna L. |title=George T. Ruby: Reconstruction politician/journalist |journal=American Journalism |volume=15 |issue=1 |date=1998 |pages=51–68 |doi=10.1080/08821127.1998.10731959}}
• {{cite book |last=Gourgey |first=Hannah |title=The black press: New literary and historical essays |publisher=Rutgers University Press |date=2001 |editor-last=Vogel |editor-first=Todd |chapter=Poetics of memory and marginality: Images of the Native American in African-American newspapers, 1870–1900 and 1970–1990 |isbn=0813530040}}
• {{cite book |last=Kinshasa |first=Kwando Mbiassi |title=Black resistance to the Ku Klux Klan in the wake of the Civil War |publisher=McFarland & Company |year=2006 |isbn=9780786424672}}
• {{cite book |last=Litwack |first=Leon F. |author-link=Leon Litwack |title=Been in the storm so long: The aftermath of slavery |publisher=Alfred A. Knopf |year=1979}}
• {{cite book |last=Smallwood |first=James |title=The black press in the South, 1865–1979 |publisher=Greenwood Press |date=1983 |editor-last=Suggs |editor-first=Henry Lewis |series=Contributions in Afro-American and African studies |chapter=Texas |isbn=9780313222443}}

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Category:1868 disestablishments in Texas

Category:1868 establishments in Texas

Category:Defunct African-American newspapers

Category:Newspapers published in Austin, Texas

Category:Defunct newspapers published in Texas