Page:The Afro-American Press.djvu/110

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THE AFRO-AMERICAN PRESS.

The Colored American will be issued in the latter part of October next. It will be of medium size, good type, and in all respects a good journal, and a very live one.

Terms $4.00 per annum, in advance.

Send in donations or subscriptions to Rev. James Lynch, 34 Edward Street, Baltimore, Md., or to J. T. Shuften, Augusta, Ga.

Before proceding to comment respecting the work of The Colored American, it may be interesting to know the cause of the establishment of The American by the two gentlemen who signed the Prospectus:

In May, 1865, when the United States Commissioner was sent South to the freedmen, Mr. Shuften, then a very young man, was chosen to deliver the address of welcome. He did so and acquitted himself nicely. He was followed by Rev. Dr. Lynch of Baltimore, one of the leading lights of the Afro-American race.

Mr. Shuften saw the necessity of newspapers as the herald and sentiment of the Afro-American, in connection with the work of elevating his people. Being a young man of no great influence,—certainly not enough to give that prestige to a publication necessary to draw about it a support, he succeeded in securing the aid of Dr. Lynch. In September, 1865, he purchased type from a Mr. Singer and issued the above Prospectus for a publication in October. The first week of that month marked the issue of The American, the first Afro-American newspaper published in the South, after the war. It was received with great favor, by both white and black citizens; and heartily endorsed by the people of Augusta for its good and timely counsels, under the new order of things.

It had no politics to advocate at that time; for its advent was before the enfranchisement of the Afro-American, or the ratification of the Fifteenth Amendment. It therefore had nothing to promote but the intellectual and moral advance-