We Now Belong to Ourselves: J.L. Edmonds, The Black Press, and Black Citizenship in America
Arianne Edmonds
Oxford University Press
At the turn of the twentieth century, the Black press provided a blueprint to help Black Americans transition from slavery and find opportunities to advance and define African American citizenship. Among the vanguard of the Black press was Jefferson Lewis Edmonds, founder and editor of The Liberator newspaper. The Liberator, along with a chorus of other Black newspapers at the turn of the century, educated an entire generation on how to guard their rights and take claim of their new American citizenship.
Written by Jefferson Lewis Edmonds' great-great granddaughter, We Now Belong to Ourselves chronicles how Edmonds and other pioneering Black publishers documented the shifting tides in the advancement of Black liberation. Weaving together poetry, personal narrative, newspaper clips, and documents from the Edmonds family archive, We Now Belong to Ourselves illustrates how Edmonds used his platform to center Black joy, Black triumph, and radical Black acceptance.