of those facts which look to the up-building of the race. It is certain that the future negro Press will be more liberally supported, because each succeeding generation will perceive its duty more clearly with respect to its newspapers, and thereby enable them to be improved, year by year.
Opinion of Prof. D. Augustus Straker.
To the question, Do you think the Press in the hands of the negro has been a success? which is a very general inquiry, I answer generally, Yes. Whatever may have been the failures in the management of journalism by the negro, however poor the financial profit has been to one and all engaged in this pursuit, yet the net result shows success, and not failure. To-day we have newspapers published by the negro, which demand and receive the recognition of competent journalists, who once stood as uncompromising critics, and non-believers in the capacity of the negro for intellectual advancement. The Press, in the hands of the negro, has been a success in the work of the education of white Americans respecting the manhood and capacity for advancement of the negro.
The second question is so intimately connected with the former, that the answer to it must be regarded as a continuation of that to the first. The achievements of the Press in the hands of the negro have been numerous. After the schools, the Press has done more for the intellectual advancement of the negro than anything else; and in his moral advancement it has been the efficient handmaid of the church. Before the publication of newspapers by the Afro-American, little or nothing was known of the true status of the negro in America. Prejudice and blind unbelief of others placed him on the lowest round of the ladder. We were unknown in history, in art, in science and in industry. Through the
