During the three decades prior to the Civil War, a number of Afro-Americans published newspapers, all of which devoted their primary attention to the abolitionist movement. They were published by free Afro-Americans living in the North and were read as much by white supporters of the movement as by Blacks.

Some 30 newspapers are known to have been published for at least a short time during the antebellum period. John B. Russwurm and Samuel Cornish are credited with beginning the first Afro-American newspaper, Freedom's Journal, which lasted for three years (1827 - 30) in the state of New York. Perhaps the best-known paper during the antebellum period was Frederick Douglass' North Star.

Having escaped from slavery in Maryland , Douglass became known as the editor of the New York Star and as a leading spokesman against human bondage. Virtually all Afro-American newspapers that began before 1860 lasted only a few years, primarily because of financial difficulties, and in that respect they set a pattern that characterized their successors until as late as the beginning of World War I (1914).