''The Rights of All'' (May 1829 to 1830) was an

African-American African Americans (also referred to as Black Americans and Afro-Americans) are an Race and ethnicity in the United States, ethnic group consisting of Americans with partial or total ancestry from sub-Saharan Africa. The term "African American ...

abolitionist Abolitionism, or the abolitionist movement, is the movement to end slavery. In Western Europe and the Americas, abolitionism was a historic movement that sought to end the Atlantic slave trade and liberate the enslaved people. The British ...

newspaper, founded in

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...

Samuel Cornish Samuel Eli Cornish (1795 – 6 November 1858) was an American Presbyterian minister, abolitionist, publisher, and journalist. He was a leader in New York City's small free black community, where he organized the first congregation of black Pre ...

, a black

Presbyterian Presbyterianism is a part of the Reformed tradition within Protestantism that broke from the Roman Catholic Church in Scotland by John Knox, who was a priest at St. Giles Cathedral (Church of Scotland). Presbyterian churches derive their nam ...

minister and antislavery activist. ''The Rights of All'' replaced ''

Freedom's Journal ''Freedom's Journal'' was the first African-American owned and operated newspaper published in the United States. Founded by Rev. John Wilk and other free Black men in New York City, it was published weekly starting with the 16 March 1827 issue. ...

,'' the nation's first African-American newspaper, which had been founded by Cornish together with

John Russwurm John Brown Russwurm (October 1, 1799 – June 9, 1851) was an abolitionist, newspaper publisher, and colonizer of Liberia, where he moved from the United States. He was born in Jamaica to an English father and enslaved mother. As a child he ...

. Cornish had resigned from ''Freedom's Journal'' after six months, and under Russwurm's sole editorship, it reversed its opposition to the

American Colonization Society The American Colonization Society (ACS), initially the Society for the Colonization of Free People of Color of America until 1837, was an American organization founded in 1816 by Robert Finley to encourage and support the migration of freebor ...

to become a pro-colonizationist organ, running along these lines until Russwurm moved to Liberia in late 1829. In launching ''The Rights of All'', Cornish reemphasized the opposition to the American Colonization Society that had been a signature theme of the early months of ''Freedom's Journal''. Yet there was a great deal of continuity between the two publications, and ''The Rights of All'' deployed the same subscription agents, including radical abolitionist David Walker, who promoted the publication in his ''Appeal to the Coloured Citizens of the World''. Cornish estimated that ''The Rights of All'' had about 800 subscribers, but despite this robust support, the journal survived less than a year.

References

* David E. Swift, ''Black Prophets of Justice: Activist Clergy Before the Civil War'' (1989) * Jacqueline Bacon, ''Freedom's Journal: The First African American Newspaper'' (2007) * Winston James, ''The Struggles of John Russwurm Brown: The Life and Writings of a Pan-Africanist Pioneer, 1799–1851'' (2010) Abolitionist newspapers published in the United States Defunct newspapers published in New York City Newspapers established in 1829 Publications disestablished in 1830 Defunct African-American newspapers African-American newspapers published in New York (state) 1829 establishments in New York (state) 1830 disestablishments in New York (state) {{NewYork-newspaper-stub