Cornish, Samuel Eli

Impact on the world

An ordained Presbyterian minister who co-founded Freedom's Journal with John Russwurm in 1827 and served as its senior editor for its first six months, Cornish resigned that September over Russwurm's growing support for African colonization, a policy Cornish opposed as a distraction from the fight for Black civil rights within the United States; he briefly revived the paper as The Rights of All in 1829, then went on to found The Colored American in 1837, one of the most influential Black newspapers of the antebellum period, and later co-founded The National Watchman. Beyond journalism, Cornish founded New York's first Black Presbyterian congregation, Shiloh Presbyterian Church, in 1822, and helped establish the American and Foreign Anti-Slavery Society in 1840 as part of a wing of abolitionists who broke with William Lloyd Garrison over strategy and the role of women in the movement.

Life & background

Born around 1795 in Sussex County, Delaware, to free Black parents, Cornish moved to Philadelphia as a young man, where he trained for the ministry at the city's Free African School and was licensed to preach by the Presbyterian Church in 1819, later becoming one of the first ordained African American Presbyterian ministers in the country. He organized New York's first Black Presbyterian church in 1822 before turning to journalism with Russwurm in 1827, and continued both his ministry and his newspaper work — including editorial positions with The Colored American and The National Watchman — through the 1830s and early 1840s, while remaining active in the temperance and anti-colonization movements. He died in Brooklyn, New York, on November 6, 1858.

Sources

1. Encyclopedia.com; Howard University Black Press Archives; Library of Congress