In 1828, two New Yorkers — Samuel Cornish and John B. Russworm — got so fed up with the white press’ distorted and false depictions of Black people, that they did what our ancestors have always done to make change: They took action.
“We wish to plead our own cause. Too long have others spoken for us,” the duo wrote on the front page of the first issue of Freedom’s Journal, the first Black newspaper in the United States. At long last, Black stories would be told from Black perspectives.
Nearly two centuries later, the struggle continues. That’s why in 2020, 10 of the nation’s leading Black publishers, with 800+ years of collective experience, responded to the systemic racism in the mainstream press and the murder of George Floyd by banding together to form Word In Black.
Now Word In Black’s publishers — AFRO News, The Atlanta Voice, Dallas Weekly, Houston Defender, Michigan Chronicle, New York Amsterdam News, The Sacramento Observer, The Seattle Medium, The St. Louis American and The Washington Informer — are doubling down on their commitment to the Black community by investing even more in news that tells the truth, serves the community, and bends the arc of the moral universe toward justice.
To that end, on Jan. 1, Word In Black officially incorporated as a public benefit company.
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