By David Wilkinson
A few days ago I stood at the grave of Elijah Lovejoy, a journalist, newspaper editor and Presbyterian minister, who was murdered on Nov. 7, 1837, by a mob in Alton, Ill., for his courageous and uncompromising opposition to the American institution of slavery.
A few months earlier I had read (for the first time, I am embarrassed to confess) former U.S. Sen. Paul Simon’s compelling biography, Freedom’s Champion: Elijah Lovejoy. (Before entering politics, Simon was a newspaper publisher and editor in Madison County, where Alton is located.) A friend and colleague, Bill Webb, editor of the Missouri Word & Way, one of ABP’s New Voice Media publishing partners, had painstakingly tracked down a handful of copies and given them to fellow editors and journalists.
Simon’s work, a revised edition of an earlier biography, is an inspiring account of “the first martyr to freedom of the press in the United States.” He traces the sequence of events that led to Lovejoy’s murder, describes some of the subsequent ripples that helped stir a nation to action in opposition to slavery, and concludes with an eloquent reminder of the ongoing relevance of Lovejoy’s legacy.
Born in Albion, Maine, to a Congregationalist minister and his devout wife, Lovejoy was a Princeton Seminary-educated minister. He moved in 1832 to St. Louis in the pro-slavery state of Missouri where he set up a church and became the editor of a weekly religious newspaper, the St. Louis Observer.
As Lovejoy’s editorials took increasingly stronger anti-slavery positions, public opposition mounted. He and his family suffered repeated acts of violence from angry mobs.
In 1836 Lovejoy moved across the Mississippi River to become editor of the Alton Observer in the “free” state of Illinois. It was a fateful move. Three times his printing press was destroyed by pro-slavery mobs.
In the early morning hours of Nov. 7, 1837, Lovejoy and a small band of supporters gathered to guard a fourth press that had been delivered by ship and moved under the cover of darkness into a large stone warehouse owned by Winthrop Gilman, a prominent Alton businessman who had courageously defended Lovejoy’s freedom to publish his views.
An angry mob, stoked by alcohol and the vitriolic venom of some of Lovejoy’s fiercest opponents, descended on the warehouse. In the ensuing conflict, Lovejoy was shot five times, dying on the spot. Later, despite being assured of safe passage, Gilman and the other defenders escaped with their lives under a barrage of gunfire.
Elijah Lovejoy, a minister and newspaper editor in Alton, Ill,, was America’s first martyr for freedom of the press.
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Lovejoy was quickly and quietly buried two days later on his 35th birthday. No one was ever convicted of his murder.
Today, at the marvelous Newseum in Washington, D.C., Elijah Lovejoy is the first name recorded in the Freedom Forum’s Journalists Memorial. The monument includes a chronological listing of journalists around the world who have given their lives while reporting the news. The list, updated annually, numbers more than 2,000.
In America, freedom of the press is one of the rights protected by the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution: “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.”
Tragically, as pointed out by an increasing number of surveys and studies, Americans’ knowledge of, and appreciation for, the First Amendment continues to erode. And some of the responsibility for that sad trend lies at the hands of Christian leaders, including Baptists.
Lovejoy’s grave, marked by a short, black, wrought iron fence, lies a few yards beyond the shadow of the tall monument erected in 1897 as a tribute to his sacrifice. But, as Simon notes in the book’s postscript, “the battles he fought are never completely won. However trite it may sound, eternal vigilance really is the price of liberty.”
Simon adds: “The people who really killed Lovejoy were not those who fired the bullets but rather ‘middle of the road’ straddlers, most of them honorable people in the community,” including ministers whose pulpits remained silent.
As I stood at the foot of Lovejoy’s grave, I noticed a nearby marker to the left, just a few yards away. The family name read “Wilkinson.”
I had to wonder, if I had been a citizen — and especially if I had been a minister — in Alton, Ill., in 1837, would I have stood with Lovejoy and others who spoke out against slavery? Further, even if I had disagreed with all or portions of Lovejoy’s editorial opinions, would I have spoken up in defense of his right to express and publish those views?
In the book’s final pages, Simon places Lovejoy’s legacy in a broader context. He notes that Lovejoy’s battle against the American institution of slavery was ultimately “a struggle for dignity and opportunity for the oppressed.” The book’s final paragraph is a challenge for all of us who, like Elijah Lovejoy, seek to follow Christ:
“There is no scarcity of people who are oppressed. There is only a scarcity of men and women with eyes clear enough to see and hearts big enough to act.”