The Indianapolis Freeman was a weekly newspaper first published in 1888 by editor Edward E. Cooper. As the nation’s first illustrated African American newspaper, it was considered by the Indianapolis Journal to be the “best paper published in the interests of colored people.” Under Cooper’s editorship, the paper was a Democratic-leaning, but politically independent national press, sometimes referred to as the “Colored’s Harper’s Weekly.” In 1892, Cooper sold the press to George L. Knox, who transformed it into a pro-Republican paper, which fully supported Booker T. Washington's philosophy of accommodation.