Name Louis Roudanez | Died 1890 | |
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Louis Charles Roudanez, M.D. (1823-1890) was an American physician and the founder of the first black daily newspaper in the United States.
Biography
Roudanez was born in 1823 in St. James Parish, Louisiana. His parents were a French merchant and Aimée Potens, a free woman of color. Throughout his life, Roudanez considered himself a black man. He went to France for his higher education, receiving a medical degree there. He returned to the U.S. and enrolled in medical school again, either at Dartmouth College or Cornell University. Returning to New Orleans, Roudanez opened a medical practice.
In 1862, Roudanez founded L'Union, a newspaper published in both French and English and primarily serving the free black community of Louisiana. When the paper folded in 1864, he founded a black daily newspaper known as The New Orleans Tribune which was published until 1870.
In 2015, an historic marker was placed on Roudanez's tomb in Saint Louis Cemetery No. 1, Alley 9.