CHAPTER II.
THE WEEKLY ADVOCATE.
AFRO-AMERICANS North began now to feel the need of an exponent of sentiment and thought. The road had been opened, if any one by dint of sacrifice and strength of effort would lay all on the altar in the publication of another journal.
Phillip A. Bell, the Nestor of Afro-American journalism, came forward and put upon the uncertain wings of journalistic time a paper, which battled with unrelenting vigor for the right.
In January, 1837, appeared the first issue of the second journal edited by Afro-Americans under the name of The Weekly Advocate, the editor being Rev. Samuel E. Cornish, and the proprietor Mr. Phillip A. Bell. It was published by Mr. Robert Sears, of Toronto, Canada, a warm friend to the race. "After two months it was thought best," so informs Mr. Sears, to change the name of this paper to the Colored American; therefore March 4, 1837, it appeared under the last mentioned name.
The means to aid in its publication were largely contri-
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