The North Star: An Overview

"Right Is of No Sex - Truth Is of No Color - God Is the Father of Us All, and All We Are Brethren."

The North Star was an abolitionist newspaper created by Frederick Douglass and Martin Delany on December 3, 1847. Considered to be the most influential Black abolitionist newspaper published during the Antebellum period, The North Star boasted more than 575 issues of four weekly titles. At the cost of two dollars per year, The North Star had more than 4,000 readers in America, Europe, and the West Indies. This would be the equivalent of around 75 dollars today. The title refers to Polaris, a well known star whose bright light has been followed by navigators and travelers, and is considered to be good luck. Thus, The North Star was meant to be a guide for enslaved people to escape to the North ("Frederick Douglass Newspapers").

    

Something interesting to note about anti slavery papers is that, while the press had the overarching goal of abolition, individual authors also carried personal goals. Some authors stressed the importance of free Black people in the North, while others argued that immediate emancipation was crucial, regardless of whether violence was necessary to achieve it or not.  In his paper, Douglass stressed the importance of not only ending slavery, but also prioritizing the advancement and equality of African Americans. The North Star also included content that urged gender equality and the rights of other oppressed groups of people. The first publication from this paper emphasized these goals: “It has long been our anxious wish to see, in this slave-holding, slave-trading, and negro-hating land, a printing-press and paper, permanently established, under the complete control and direction of the immediate victims of slavery and oppression…that the man who has suffered the wrong is the man to demand redress,—that the man STRUCK is the man to CRY OUT—and that he who has endured the cruel pangs of Slavery is the man to advocate Liberty” ("Frederick Douglass Newspapers").