OCTOBER 4, 1864:
The New Orleans
Tribune, America’s first African-American
owned daily newspaper, begins bilingual publication (in English and French) in
New Orleans. Its publisher, Dr. Louis Charles
Roudanez (1823-1890), a successful physician, used the newspaper to champion
abolition, universal suffrage, desegregation and black property rights. Dr.
Roudanez was the son of a French merchant and a free black woman. Although he
was identified as “white” on his baptismal certificate, Dr. Roudanez identified
with his mother’s people all his life. Educated in Paris, he lived most of his
life in New Orleans.
On this same day, the National Convention of Colored Freemen,
meeting in Syracuse, New York, adopts “The Bill of Wrongs and Rights.”
