Richmond Planet (Richmond, Va.)
Historic newspapers carry the language, views and graphic reporting of their time, including racist content. They are shown to teen and adult profiles.
1,523 issues from 1885 to 1930, published in Richmond, Virginia, digitised for Chronicling America.
First published in 1882, and founded by 13 former Richmond slaves, the Planet was initially edited by Edmund Archer Randolph, the first African American graduate of Yale Law School. Two years later, 21-year-old John Mitchell, Jr., succeeded Randolph and continued as editor for the next 45 years, until 1929. Mitchell wasted little time: he replaced much of the press equipment, contributed his own artwork to the paper’s always impressive design, and increased circulation to the point that the Planet eventually turned a modest profit. The Planet by 1904 had reached a weekly circulation of 4,200. The paper also quickly gained a reputation as a staunch defender of the African-American community and a voice against racial injustice—”daring to hurl thunderbolts of truth into the ranks of the wicked. . . . No stronger race man is known among us.”
The Planet covered local, national, and international news, especially focusing on segregation, the depredations of the Ku Klux Klan, voting rights, and the scourge of lynching. Mitchell—”courageous almost to a fault”—never wavered in his loud protests, even in the face of frequent death threats. He once armed himself and personally went to investigate a lynching.
Hoping to influence change from within, Mitchell rose to considerable prominence within banking circles as well as the Republican Party and served on the Richmond city council from 1888 to 1896. But he gradually lost faith in any chance of blacks and whites uniting politically…
- Genres
- News
- Published in
- Richmond, Virginia, United States
- Language
- English
- Collection
- Chronicling America
- Licence or status
- None stated by the archive
- Rights
- The Library of Congress believes that the newspapers in Chronicling America are in the public domain or have no known copyright restrictions. Newspapers published in the United States more than 95 years ago are in the public domain in their entirety.
- Credit
- Chronicling America: Historic American Newspapers, Library of Congress and the National Endowment for the Humanities
- Who can read it
- Teens profiles and older (placed by Invisible Network from what the archive says; archives give no ratings)
- Archive
- Library of Congress