The Hawaiian Press and the Black Press
On this Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. Day, which
happens to coincide with the 'overthrow' anniversary, I learned about a piece of
history that blacks in America shared with Hawaiians in the 19th century: the
publication of their own newspapers. The publication of the first
African-American newspaper was in 1827 with
Freedom's
Journal, and Hawaiian language newspapers
started in 1834 with Ka Lama
Hawaii and
Ke Kumu
Hawaii. Check out the website for this PBS
program, The Black
Press, and the UH collection of scanned Hawaiian Language
Newspapers and the Hoʻolaupaʻi
Hawaiian Nūpepa Collection
at Ulukau: The Hawaiian Electronic Library. Fascinating how the use of
the press has played a role historically in forming the identity of peoples and
recording their perspective for us to know today.
Posted: Mon - January 15, 2007 at 10:57 PM