Reconstruction

The Black Republican

New Orleans, La. · April 15, 1865

The first issue ever printed

Volume one, number one — printed in New Orleans six days after Appomattox, for people who had been legally owned the year before. It leads, under BY TELEGRAPH, with the surrender of General Lee. Its editor, the Reverend Stephen Walter Rodgers, had been born enslaved and learned to read when teaching him to do so was a crime. The prospectus on this page promises that “the poor as well as the rich, the freedmen as well as the freemen will be heard.” Inside, a column headed Information Wanted ran notices from people searching for family sold away from them.

Published

New Orleans, La.

Run

1865

This issue

April 15, 1865

Catalog no.

sn83016563

Read it at the Library of Congress

The scan opens at the Library of Congress, where you can zoom into the type and turn to the inside pages. Public domain.