The Seattle Republican
The Seattle Republican: A Simple History
The Seattle Republican was a weekly newspaper in Seattle from 1894 to 1913. It is considered Seattle’s first successful African American newspaper and the second Black newspaper in the city, after The Seattle Standard.
Horace R. Cayton Sr., the founder, had been enslaved in the South. He moved to Seattle to work in journalism, first at the Seattle Post-Intelligencer, then with The Seattle Standard before it folded in 1893. He started The Seattle Republican in 1894 to reach both Black and white readers.
Susie Revels Cayton, who joined the paper in 1896, became associate editor in 1900, making her Seattle’s first woman newspaper editor. She wrote articles and short stories, often on race and culture, and is remembered for wit and insight.
The newspaper tried to appeal to a broad audience. It reported local politics and crime, carried national news from New York via cable and telegraph, and ran regular columns such as Political Pot Pie, Realm of Religion, Afro American, and Brother in Black. It also covered stories about Seattle’s Black community and other ethnic groups.
Rising racism and violence in the early 1900s affected the paper. Horace Cayton spoke out against lynching and the Ku Klux Klan, which cost him readers and advertisers. He even faced legal trouble, including a 1901 arrest related to reporting. The Caytons also faced segregation and rising costs, and in 1913 they closed The Seattle Republican.
Afterward they started Cayton’s Weekly in 1916 to continue their message, aimed more directly at Black readers. It faced opposition and ended in 1920, with a brief follow-up in 1921. The Seattle Republican’s legacy lives on in the Library of Congress collection.
Honors and remembrances include the Cayton family home in Seattle’s Capitol Hill being named a landmark in 2021, and a 2021 mural project that features The Seattle Republican among the era’s Black newspapers.
This page was last edited on 3 February 2026, at 02:12 (CET).