The New York Age was a black newspaper produced from 1887 to 1960, and was one of the most influential black newspapers of its time.

The paper had its origins as the weekly New York Globe (not to be confused with the daily The New York Globe founded in 1904), an African-American newspaper that was published weekly from at least 1880 to November 8, 1884. Co-founded by editor Timothy Thomas Fortune, a former slave, it became The [New York] Freeman from November 22, 1884, to October 8, 1887, published six times weekly. It was co-owned by Jerome B. Peterson, who in 1904 was made the American consul in Puerto Cabello, Venezuela.

The paper then became the weekly New York Age from October 15, 1887, to February 27, 1960. Fred R. Moore bought the paper in 1907. From 1953 to 1957, it was titled the New York Age Defender. Gertrude Bustill Mossell worked at the New York Age as did W. E. B. Du Bois.

‘The Ebon Venus’

By Lewis Howard Latimer

Let others boast of maidens fair,

Of eyes of blue and golden hair;

My heart like a needle ever true

Turns to the maid of ebon hue.

I love her form of matchless grace,

The dark brown beauty of her face,

Her lips that speak of love’s delight,

Her eyes that gleam as stars at night.

O’er marble Venus let them rage

Who set the fashions of the age;

Each to his taste; but as for me,

My Venus shall be ebony.

sources:

Voices Beyond Bondage

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_York_Age