How are we to overcome this tremendous influence? Are we to prevail against our enemies not as other men prevail against theirs? Can we reasonably expect other men to use their lungs to cry out for us when we are wronged and outraged and robbed and murdered? If we do, let us look at the white papers of the South and learn from them the necessary lesson, that the only way we can hope ever to win our fight is to arm ourselves as our opponents do, support those newspapers alone that support us, and support those men alone who support us. In following this rule, white men's newspapers, and white men's schemes of ambition or profit, will, very generally, be weighed in the balance and found wanting.
The colored newspapers of the United States, some one hundred and twenty-five, are the only papers that are making a square, honest fight for the rights of our race. Not one of them receives the support it deserves; and, mainly on that account, not one is doing the work it could and should do. A colored newspaper, with one hundred thousand subscribers, would be a greater power for good than any other agency colored men could create,—than even fifty black members of Congress would be; and until we have newspapers equal in circulation to those controlled by our enemies, the contest for our just rights under the Constitution will remain pitiably unequal. We must realize this fact before we can expect to cope with the enemy.
Opinion of Rev. L. J. Coppin, D. D.
The subject, "Our Work as Journalists," is as important as it is comprehensive. The journalist has the largest audience of all the public speakers. The Pulpit and the Rostrum address themselves to the hundreds who come within hearing distance; but their utterances are taken up by the Press and
