Louis Charles Roudanez: America's First Black Daily Newspaper

The Man Who Published America's First Black Daily Newspaper

In 1862, while the Civil War was still raging, a Creole physician in New Orleans named Louis Charles Roudanez did something that had never been done in the American South: he started a Black-owned newspaper. And then he did something even more remarkable — he made it a daily.

Roudanez was born in 1823 in St. James Parish, Louisiana, into the community of free people of color that made New Orleans unlike any other city in the South. He was educated, multilingual, and trained as a physician. He could have lived comfortably in that role. Instead, he decided to use his resources and his intellect to fight for civil rights through the most powerful tool available: the press.

In 1862, working with his brother Jean Baptiste and editor Paul Trevigne, Roudanez cofounded L'Union — one of the first Black newspapers in the American South and the first bilingual French-English newspaper run by African Americans in the country. It operated out of 527 Conti Street in the French Quarter and advocated for Republican Unionism and abolition.

When L'Union ceased publication in 1864, Roudanez didn't stop. He launched La Tribune de la Nouvelle-Orléans, which became the nation's first daily Black newspaper. Also bilingual, La Tribune ran until 1870, covering Reconstruction-era politics and fighting for universal voting rights for Black men, school access, and legal protections.

Think about the courage that required. Publishing a Black-owned newspaper in New Orleans during and after the Civil War, in a city occupied by Union troops but surrounded by a state that had seceded from the Union. Roudanez did it in two languages, daily, for years.

He died in 1890, and for too long his story was largely forgotten. A historical marker was placed at 527 Conti Street in 2018. Descendants have organized commemorations including a documentary and an opera about his life. But the most important legacy is the one he created himself: proof that the fight for civil rights in America was being waged by New Orleanians long before most people realize.