Printing the "Richmond Planet"

An original photograph preserved in the Library of Congress shows two African American pressmen printing the Richmond Planet newspaper on a steam-powered rotary press, probably in 1899. The photograph is unusual in its very clear portraits of the two pressmen.

The Richmond Planet was an African-American newspaper in Richmond, Virginia. The paper was founded in 1882 by 13 former Richmond slaves.^[2] It was edited first by Edwin Archer Randolph and then by John Mitchell, Jr. from 1884 until his death in 1929. Mitchell was also president of the National Afro-American Press Association and the founder and president of Mechanics Savings Bank. By 1904 the Planet reached a weekly circulation of 4,200. It continued production until 1938 when it merged with the Richmond African-American newspaper.