First to Fall - Elijah Lovejoy and the Fight for a Free Press in the Age of Slavery

A vividly told tale of a forgotten American hero—an impassioned newsman who fought for the right to speak out against slavery. 

The history of the fight for free press has never been more vital in our own time, when journalists are targeted as “enemies of the people.” In this brilliant and rigorously researched history, award-winning journalist and author Ken Ellingwood animates the life and times of abolitionist newspaper editor Elijah Lovejoy.

First to Fall illuminates this flawed yet heroic figure who made the ultimate sacrifice while fighting for free press rights in a time when the First Amendment offered little protection for those who dared to critique America’s “peculiar institution.”

Culminating in Lovejoy’s dramatic clashes with the pro-slavery mob in Alton, Illinois—who were destroying printing press after printing press—First to Fall