Data
In 1858, a group of ministers associated with the African Methodist Episcopal (AME) church launched a new journal, The Repository of Religion and Literature and of Science and Art. There were already numerous newspapers and magazines aimed at the growing Black reading public, but these ministers – who, Frances Smith Foster tells us, “were also teachers, community activists, and entrepreneurs” – identified an as-yet-unmet need: “To develop the talents of our young people, and to furnish data for future comparison” (2005, 730).