There were papers published by the colored people prior to the appearance of the African Methodist Magazine, but these were individual enterprises.  They were, however, indices of the thought of the race, and looking back upon them now, we may regard them as mile-stones set up along the line of march over which the people have come.  New York, city and State, appears to have been the home of these early harbingers, and it was there that the earliest literary centre was established, corresponding to that centre of religious life and thought which had been earlier founded in Philadelphia.  In 1827 the first newspaper published on this continent by colored men issued from its office in New York.  It was called “Freedom’s Journal,” and had for its motto “Righteousness exalteth a nation.”  Its editors and proprietors were Messrs. Cornish & Russwurm.  Its name was subsequently changed to the “Rights of All,” Mr. Cornish probably retiring, and in 1830 it suspended, Mr. Russwurm going to Africa.  Then followed “The Weekly Advocate,” “The American,” “The Colored American,” “The Elevator,” “The National Watchman,” “The Clarion,” “The Ram’s Horn,” “The North Star,” “Frederick Douglass’ Paper,” and finally that crowning literary work of the race, “The Anglo-African.”

“The Anglo-African” appeared in 1859, under the management of the strongest and most brilliant purely literary families the American Negro up to that time had produced.  It was edited and published by Thomas Hamilton, and like all the important literary ventures of the race in those days, had its birth in New York.  It came out in 1859 and continued through the war, and in 1865 went out of existence honorably, having its work well done.  Its first volume, that of 1859, contains the ablest papers ever given to the public by the American Negro; and taken as a whole this volume is the proudest literary monument the race has as yet erected.

Reviewing the progress of the race in the North, we may say, the period of organized benevolence and united religious effort began before the close of the past century, Philadelphia being its place of origin; that the religious movement reached much broader and clearer standing about 1816, and in consequence there sprang up organizations comprehending the people of the whole country; that the religious movement advanced to a more intellectual stage when in 1841 the African Methodist Magazine appeared, since which time the organized religion of the American Negro has never been for any considerable time without its organs of communication.  The journalistic period began in 1827, its centre being New York and the work of the journals almost wholly directed to two ends:  the abolition of slavery, and the enfranchisement and political elevation of the free blacks.  This work had reached its highest form in the Anglo-African, as that epoch of our national history came to its close in the slave-holders’ war.