John Brown Russwurm

Monday, January 01, 1827

John Brown Russwurm was born in Jamaica in 1799 and immigrated to the United States in 1812. Russwurm was a journalist, activist, abolitionist, teacher, and scholar becoming one of the first African American to graduate from a U.S. college (1826). The following year, Russwurm co-founded Freedom’s Journal, the first African American–owned and operated national newspaper in the United States.