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HE close of the war, and an epoch of freedom for the Afro-American, mark an entirely new phase in journalistic pursuit, as in all other interests.

The South, the main place of abode for our people, is vastly in need of a press, not only as a defender of our rights but as a popular educator; for as one of eminence has said of the Afro-American journals—"They would be, for a long time, the popular educator of the masses."

Afro-American papers educate the masses of the Afro-American people. These papers would seem to be not so much a defender as teachers of the masses, leading them to see the course they should pursue as freedmen in educating and elevating themselves as a people.

The keenest and most far-seeing Afro-Americans were the ones, too, whose labors were in demand.

With these facts in view, the Afro-Americans were not long in stretching themselves out, becoming editors and putting their thoughts, well mapped out and carefully arranged, on the printed page, before the public.

The prospectus of the first paper published in the South,