The Colored American (Augusta, Georgia)

Last updated
The Colored American
The Colored American 1865-12-30.jpg
Front page of the December 30, 1865 edition of The Colored American from Augusta, Georgia
TypeWeekly newspaper
Owner(s) John T. Shuften
PublisherJohn T. Shapiro
FoundedOctober 1865 (1865-10)
Ceased publicationFebruary 1866 (1866-02)
Headquarters Augusta, Georgia
City Augusta, Georgia
CountryUnited States of America
OCLC number 8780206

The Colored American published in Augusta, Georgia, from October 1865 to February 1866. It was the first African American newspaper in the South. [1] [2] The paper was founded by John T. Shuften, who was forced to sell the paper within six months due to a lack of financial support. [3] The paper was published by John T. Shapiro. [4] The Colored American covered political, religious, and general news. [5] Shuften published the newspaper with assistance from James D. Lynch. The paper was purchased in January 1866 by the Georgia Equal Rights Association, and the name was changed to the Loyal Georgian , published by John Emory Bryant. [6]

Related Research Articles

<i>The Liberator</i> (newspaper) American abolitionist newspaper (1831–1865)

The Liberator (1831–1865) was a weekly abolitionist newspaper, printed and published in Boston by William Lloyd Garrison and, through 1839, by Isaac Knapp. Religious rather than political, it appealed to the moral conscience of its readers, urging them to demand immediate freeing of the slaves ("immediatism"). It also promoted women's rights, an issue that split the American abolitionist movement. Despite its modest circulation of 3,000, it had prominent and influential readers, including all the abolitionist leaders, among them Frederick Douglass, Beriah Green, Arthur and Lewis Tappan, and Alfred Niger. It frequently printed or reprinted letters, reports, sermons, and news stories relating to American slavery, becoming a sort of community bulletin board for the new abolitionist movement that Garrison helped foster.

<i>The Telegraph</i> (Macon, Georgia) Newspaper in Macon, Georgia, United States

The Telegraph, frequently called The Macon Telegraph, is the primary print news organ in Middle Georgia. It is the third-largest newspaper in the State of Georgia. Founded in 1826, The Telegraph has undergone several name changes, mergers, and publishers. As of June 2006, the paper is owned by The McClatchy Company, a publicly traded American publishing company.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">James D. Lynch</span> American politician

James D. Lynch was a missionary, public official, and state legislator in the United States. He was the first African-American Secretary of State of Mississippi, and a minister.

The civil rights movement (1865–1896) aimed to eliminate racial discrimination against African Americans, improve their educational and employment opportunities, and establish their electoral power, just after the abolition of slavery in the United States. The period from 1865 to 1895 saw a tremendous change in the fortunes of the black community following the elimination of slavery in the South.

On July 18, 1946, Maceo Snipes, a United States Army WWII veteran, was fatally shot in the back just hours after casting his vote in the Georgia Democratic primary. Snipes was the only African American to vote in a Democratic primary in Taylor County, Georgia. During this time, the white supremacist terrorist group KKK was in its prime. KKK members were responsible for multiple lynchings of black people who decided to vote following Snipes' murder. For example, two black couples were lynched five days later. Prior to the election, the KKK had made threats to lynch any black person who dared cast a vote. Snipes and his mother were both sharecroppers on Homer Chapman's land in Butler, Georgia. The day after Snipes cast his vote, four white men pulled up to the land Chapman rented to Snipes' family. All four were suspected KKK members: two were later identified as Edward Williamson and Lynwood Harvey, both WWII veterans.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Colored Conventions Movement</span> Series of conference events in the U.S.

The Colored Conventions Movement, or Black Conventions Movement, was a series of national, regional, and state conventions held irregularly during the decades preceding and following the American Civil War. The delegates who attended these conventions consisted of both free and formerly enslaved African Americans including religious leaders, businessmen, politicians, writers, publishers, editors, and abolitionists. The conventions provided "an organizational structure through which black men could maintain a distinct black leadership and pursue black abolitionist goals." Colored Conventions occurred in thirty-one states across the US and in Ontario, Canada. The movement involved more than five thousand delegates and tens of thousands of attendees.

The Savannah Tribune is a weekly African-American newspaper published in Savannah, Georgia.

The following is a timeline of the history of the city of Augusta, Georgia, USA.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Emanuel K. Love</span>

Emanuel K. Love was a minister and leader in the Baptist church from Savannah, Georgia. He was pastor of one of the largest churches in the country and was a prominent activist for black civil rights and anti-lynching laws. He played an important role in establishing separate black Baptist national organizations and advocating for black leadership of Baptist institutions, especially schools.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">William J. White (journalist)</span> American journalist (1831–1913)

William Jefferson White was an American civil rights leader, minister, educator, and journalist. He was the founder of Harmony Baptist Church in Augusta, Georgia in 1869 as well as other churches. He also was a co-founder of the Augusta Institute in 1867, which would become Morehouse College. He also helped found Atlanta University and was a trustee of both schools. He was a founder in 1880 and the managing editor of the Georgia Baptist, a leading African American newspaper for many years. He was an outspoken civil rights leader.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Silas X. Floyd</span>

Silas Xavier Floyd was an African-American educator, preacher, and journalist. Active in Augusta, Georgia, he was a writer and editor at the Augusta Sentinel and later wrote for the Augusta Chronicle. In 1892 he co-founded the Negro Press Association of Georgia. He was pastor at Augusta's Tabernacle Baptist Church and was a prominent agent of the International Sunday School Convention. He was also a public school principal and an officer of the National Association of Teachers in Colored Schools.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Helen Appo Cook</span> Community activist

Helen Appo Cook was a wealthy, prominent African-American community activist in Washington, D.C., and a leader in the women's club movement. Cook was a founder and president of the Colored Women's League, which consolidated with another organization in 1896 to become the National Association of Colored Women (NACW), an organization still active in the 21st century. Cook supported voting rights and was a member of the Niagara Movement, which opposed racial segregation and African American disenfranchisement. In 1898, Cook publicly rebuked Susan B. Anthony, president of the National Woman's Suffrage Association, and requested she support universal suffrage following Anthony's speech at a U.S. Congress House Committee on Judiciary hearing.

The Georgia State Freedmen's Convention meetings, where both whites and blacks would come together to solve local problems and discuss politics, took place in 1866. The Freedmen's Convention took place in Augusta, Georgia. This was after the Civil War, emancipation, and just one year after the assassination of President Abraham Lincoln. President Lincoln is mentioned many times in these meetings as being a savior of the African American people in the United States. Early prominent leaders of this organization include Captain John Emory Bryant, who was named the first president, Captain C. H. Prince and Thomas P. Beard.

Simeon W. Beard was a minister, teacher, and politician who worked in Charleston, South Carolina and then in Augusta, Georgia. He served in the Union Army. He was a delegate to Georgia's constitutional convention in 1867 and 1868. African American legislators were expelled from office in Georgia.

<i>The True Southerner</i> African-American newspaper

The True Southerner was a weekly newspaper published during the Reconstruction era after the American Civil War in Hampton, Virginia and then Norfolk, Virginia. It advocated for the rights of African Americans and was the first African-American newspaper published in Virginia. Founded in 1865, the paper was moved to Norfolk early the next year, where Joseph T. Wilson served as its editor. The paper's offices and press were destroyed by a white mob in early 1866, and it ceased publication shortly thereafter.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">The Colored Citizen</span> List of African-American newspapers

Colored Citizen and The Colored Citizen were newspapers published for African Americans in the United States. Newspapers using the title were published in many cities including in 1867 in Vicksburg, Mississippi during the Reconstruction era, the state's first newspaper for African Americans. Many of the papers seem to have existed only briefly.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">John T. Shuften</span> American journalist (1840–?)

John Thomas Shuften (1840–?) commonly known as J. T. Shuften, was an American newspaper editor, journalist, and lawyer. He founded the Colored American newspaper in Macon, Georgia, active from 1865 to 1866. Shuften was an African American who wrote an exposé about the Reconstruction era in the American South, and what he termed as "the great betrayal of the Republican party". He practiced law in Orlando, Florida.

<i>Athens Republique</i> African American newspaper from Athens, Georgia, USA

The Athens Republique was an African American newspaper in Athens, Georgia, US, that was published from 1919 to 1927. The paper's editor, Lt. Julian Lucasse Brown, was a World War I veteran who founded the paper upon his return from serving in France. The paper reported on racial progress and setbacks, and denounced lynchings and the rise of the Ku Klux Klan. The newspaper's motto was, "Devoted to the Religious, the Educational and the Industrial Development of the Colored Race" and it was closely associated with the Jeruel Baptist Association. After the demise of The Athens Republique, there was no African American newspaper in Athens until the founding of the Athens Voice in 1975.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Foster Blodgett</span> American politician

Foster Blodgett Jr. (1827–1877) was an American politician elected mayor of Augusta, Georgia, from 1859 to 1860, and returned to the mayoralty via military appointment between 1867 and 1868. Blodgett was elected to the United States Senate by the Georgia General Assembly in 1871, but not seated.

References

  1. Simmons, Charles A. (18 May 2018). The African American Press: A History of News Coverage During National Crises, with Special Reference to Four Black Newspapers, 1827-1965. McFarland. ISBN   978-1-4766-3494-4 . Retrieved 29 July 2021.
  2. Negro Yearbook. Department of Records and Research, Tuskegee Institute. 1925. p. 465. Retrieved 29 July 2021.
  3. Clark, James C. (24 February 1990). "JOHN SHUFTEN BLAZED A PAIR OF TRAILS". OrlandoSentinel.com. Retrieved 29 July 2021. Shuften was born in 1840 in Augusta, Ga. At the end of the Civil War, he started a newspaper, The Colored American, the first black-owned newspaper in Georgia. With the help of a Baltimore church, he was able to buy type to print his newspaper. It was underfinanced, though, and within six months Shuften was forced to sell.
  4. Danky, James Philip; Hady, Maureen E. (1998). African-American newspapers and periodicals : a national bibliography. Cambridge, Mass. : Harvard University Press. p. 161. ISBN   978-0-674-00788-8 . Retrieved 29 July 2021.
  5. Gibson, John William (1903). The Colored American from Slavery to Honorable Citizenship. J.L. Nichols & Company. p. 454. Retrieved 29 July 2021.
  6. "The Daily loyal Georgian. (Augusta, Ga.) 1867-186?". Georgia Historic Newspapers. Digital Library of Georgia. Archived from the original on 30 July 2021. Retrieved 30 July 2021. The Loyal Georgian's origins stem from Augusta's first Black-Republican newspaper, the Colored American. John T. Shuften founded the Colored American in October of 1865 with the assistance of African Methodist Episcopal Church missionary James D. Lynch. Shuften was the editorial voice of the weekly newspaper advocated for the rights recently-freed African Americans. In January 1866, the newly formed Georgia Equal Rights Association purchased the publication to serve as its new organ. The organization changed the title to the Loyal Georgian and John Emory Bryant, a former Freedmen's Bureau agent, became editor of the newspaper.