Mirror of the Times

The Mirror of the Times was founded by Jonas H. Townsend, James E Brown, SrShadow and Light, pg 48 and Mifflin Wistar Gibbs in the latter half of the 1850s, with the first edition documented by other local papers as being published on September 12, 1856. Some sources say 1855, historian J. William Snorgrass gives the date as October 31, 1856,{{sfn|Snorgrass|1981|pp=306, 317}} and the United States Library of Congress lists the founding as 1857. Townsend and Gibbs founded the paper after the 1855 inaugural meeting of the California State Convention of Colored Citizens, which agreed that African Americans in California should have their own their own newspaper.{{sfn|Snorgrass|1981|p=306}} The paper's motto was "Truth Crushed To The Earth Will Rise Again",{{sfn|Snorgrass|1981|p=307}} and it was financially supported by the California State Convention of Colored Citizens.{{sfn|Bell|1967|p=157}}

The paper was written for both black and white audiences, and it reported news in both the essay and editorial styles.{{sfn|Snorgrass|1981|pp=306–307}} It advocated against California's Testimony and Witness Laws in 1856 – a set of racially discriminatory laws aimed at black people (Black Codes), which prohibited them from being witnesses or giving testimony in court cases involving white people.{{sfn|Snorgrass|1981|p=307}} Their advocacy failed in 1857, and they responded that one "cannot expect a class of intelligent people [...] to tamely sit down and quietly submit to a law that denies them any protection and [...] give[s] license and security to thieves and robbers to plunder us".{{sfn|Fisher|1969|p=318}} By then, the black community of California became disorganized and civically disengaged; the paper attempted to provoke the community to participate more, saying "we have settled down into a state of indifference and lethargy".{{sfn|Snorgrass|1981|p=307}} They recognized that in the 1857 California gubernatorial election, Democratic nominee John B. Weller had won and was hostile to civil rights.{{sfn|Fisher|1969|p=318}} A journalist for the paper advocated for more education for black youth, and was discouraged by segregated schools that did not educate black children while being financially supported by black taxpayers.{{sfn|Hutton|1993|p=147}} In addition to news, it also reviewed music performances.{{sfn|Wheeler|1993|p=142}}

The paper circulated throughout the western United States.{{sfn|Katz|1971|p=136}}

Gibbs moved to British Columbia in 1858, and Townsend moved to New York around the same time.{{sfn|Snorgrass|1981|p=307}} Gibbs became the first black judge in the United States, and Townsend became a secretary in the French diplomatic mission in Haiti.{{sfn|Wheeler|1993|pp=123, 277}} The paper likely dissolved that year.{{sfn|Snorgrass|1981|p=307}} According to historians James A. Fisher and Philip M. Montesano, it was the first African American newspaper in the state,{{sfnm|1a1=Fisher|1y=1969|1p=317|2a1=Montesano|2y=1973|2p=147}} and Snorgrass writes that it was the first in the entirety of the West Coast.{{sfn|Snorgrass|1981|p=306}} By 1973, only two issues – August 1857 and December 1857 – had been located.{{sfn|Montesano|1973|p=152}} It was succeeded by the Pacific Appeal, another African American newspaper in San Francisco.{{sfn|Hutton|1993|p=161}}

• African Americans in California
• List of African-American newspapers in California

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• {{cite journal |last=Bell |first=Howard H. |author-link=Howard H. Bell |title=Negroes in California, 1849–1859 |journal=Phylon |date=1967 |volume=28 |issue=2 |pages=151–160 |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/273555}}
• {{cite journal |last=Fisher |first=James A. |title=The struggle for negro testimony in California, 1851–1863 |journal=Southern California Quarterly |date=December 1969 |volume=51 |issue=4 |pages=313–324 |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/41170257}}
• {{cite book |last=Hutton |first=Frankie |title=The early black press in America, 1827 to 1860 |publisher=Greenwood Press |date=1993 |series=Contributions in Afro-American and African Studies |isbn=9780313286964}}
• {{cite book |last=Katz |first=William Loren |author-link=William Loren Katz |title=The black West |publisher=Doubleday |date=1971 |edition=first}}
• {{cite journal |last=Montesano |first=Philip M. |title=San Francisco black churches in the early 1860s: Political pressure group |journal=California Historical Quarterly |date=1973 |volume=52 |issue=2 |pages=145–152 |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/25157430}}
• {{cite journal |last=Snorgrass |first=J. William |title=The black press in the San Francisco Bay Area, 1856–1990 |journal=California History |date=1981 |volume=60 |issue=4 |pages=306–317 |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/25158067}}
• {{cite book |last=Wheeler |first=B. Gordon |title=Black California: The history of African-Americans in the Golden State |publisher=Hippocrene Books |date=1993 |isbn=9780781800747}}

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{{African American press|state=collapsed}}

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Category:1856 establishments in California

Category:1858 disestablishments in California

Category:Defunct African-American newspapers

Category:Newspapers published in San Francisco

Category:Publications disestablished in 1858