Newspaper Savannah Weekly Echo (Savannah, Ga.) 1879-1884

About Savannah Weekly Echo (Savannah, Ga.) 1879-1884
The Savannah Weekly Echo, published from 1879 to 1884, was a Black-owned Georgia newspaper that revolted against the Republican Party after the end of Reconstruction. Its editors were T. Harden for much of its run, with Edwin Belcher stepping in for a time in 1882. They believed that Black southerners had to declare political independence from a Republican Party that had turned its back on them. “Without the united support of the Negro American in the coming campaign,” Harden argued in a January 20, 1884 editorial, “the Republican party will go to the dogs.” He called for Black voters to withhold their votes until the party delivered them some gains. The Echo was part of an effort in Georgia to build a political movement for Black Georgians outside of the Republican Party
Outside of its political editorials, the Echo’s four pages were filled with local, national, and international news; as the masthead claimed, “the news of the week boiled down for hasty readers.” There were also lighter items, such as columns on humor and sports. The Weekly Echo, from its office on Jefferson Street in Savannah, also supported Black businesses both in its columns and through advertising. Additionally, the paper reported on the racial violence targeted at Black Georgians. One letter they printed on August 26, 1883 from an unidentified subscriber decried two killings in Rome and Sparta. They concluded: “Why, within the past twelve months, nearly two-hundred colored people have been innocently killed in this State. Surely it must be stopped, and with a vengeance.” Such reporting drew the ire of white Georgians, as can be seen from a line in the Echo editorial page from that same issue in 1883: “It is with pleasure that we inform certain kuklux [sic] bosses … that their threatening letters were consigned to the Echo waste basket.” Within a few years of that editorial, the paper was out of circulation.
Note: A portion of the issues digitized for this newspaper were microfilmed as part of the Miscellaneous Negro newspapers microfilm collection, a 12 reel collection containing issues of African American newspapers published in the U.S. throughout the 19th and 20th centuries. Creation of the microfilm project was sponsored by the Committee on Negro Studies of the American Council of Learned Societies in 1947. For more information on the microfilm collection, see: Negro Newspapers on Microfilm, a Selected List (Library of Congress), published in 1953. While this collection contains selections from more than 150 U.S. newspapers titles, for further coverage, view a complete list of all digitized African American titles available in the Chronicling America collection.
Provided By: Digital Library of Georgia, a project of GALILEO located at the University of Georgia LibrariesAbout this Newspaper
Title
- Savannah Weekly Echo (Savannah, Ga.) 1879-1884
Dates of Publication
- 1879-1884
Created / Published
- Savannah, Ga. : Harden Bros. & Griffin
Headings
- - African American newspapers--Georgia
- - African Americans--Georgia--Newspapers
- - Savannah (Ga.)--Newspapers
- - African American newspapers
- - African Americans
- - Georgia
- - Georgia--Savannah
- - United States--Georgia--Chatham--Savannah
Genre
- Newspapers
Notes
- - Weekly
- - Began in 1879; ceased in 1884.
- - Issues for called also whole no. <210-220>
- - Microfilmed by the Library of Congress for the Committee on Negro Studies of the American Council of Learned Societies.
- - Archived issues are available in digital format from the Library of Congress Chronicling America online collection.
- - Description based on: Vol. 4, no. 40 (Aug. 26, 1883).
Medium
- volumes
Call Number/Physical Location
- Newspaper
Library of Congress Control Number
- sn83016195
OCLC Number
- 9618146
ISSN Number
- 2833-6801
LCCN Permalink
Additional Metadata Formats
Availability
- View All Front Pages
- Check the “Libraries that Have It” tab for additional newspaper issues, or, if present, select the LCCN Permalink for more LC holdings