Colored Radical

The Colored Radical was the first black newspaper in the state of Kansas, published jointly in Lawrence and Leavenworth.^[1] T. W. Henderson and A. T. Williams were its editors, both of them black ministers.^[2] It was first published on August 24, 1876,^[1] in the aftermath of the Emancipation Proclamation and the subsequent flight of black people out of the American South into Kansas.^[3] A subscription to the paper cost $0.50, and it was produced by the same printers as the Kansas Daily Tribune.^[4]

It was a mouthpiece for the Kansas Republican Party in the 1876 United States elections.^[1] Its reporting base was wide geographically; as far south and east as Mississippi provided it with information.^[1] It was staunchly anti-segregation, criticizing the existence of a bipartite educational system, where white and black children would attend separate schools.^[1] It called the lynching in Hamburg, South Carolina—dubbed the Hamburg massacre—one of the "darkest chapters in American society".^[5] Although it was at times critical in tone, it also provided optimistic news for black Kansans, and urged them to become self-reliant through property acquisitions and maintenance.^[1]

The last issue of the paper was published on November 16, 1876, shortly after the elections concluded.^[1] Two years following its closure, W. L. Eagleson established a black newspaper in Fort Scott, then later Topeka, called the Colored Citizen.^[1] Henderson joined Eagleson in editing that paper.^[A][7] Of the fourteen issues of the Colored Radical, only five survive.^[4]