Russwurm, John Brown (1799-1851), was an early spokesman against slavery and an important figure in a Black American “back-to-Africa” movement. Russwurm expressed his antislavery views chiefly through Freedom’s Journal, a newspaper he and Samuel Cornish started in New York City in 1827. The newspaper was the first in the United States to be owned and operated by Black people.
Russwurm was born in Jamaica on Oct. 1, 1799. He grew up in Maine and graduated from Bowdoin College. Russwurm soon came to believe that Black people could never gain full citizenship in the United States. In 1829, he moved to Liberia, in Africa. Liberia had been founded in 1822 as a place where free Black people from the United States could settle. Russwurm served as governor of a colony at Cape Palmas, Liberia. He died there on June 9, 1851.
