The front page of the June, 1997 edition of the former monthly Acadiana Ebony Journal celebrated Juneteenth.

The holiday would not be officially recognized by Louisiana until this year, a full 25 years after Publisher Elaine P. Campbell published this edition.

Campbell founded The Ebony Journal in 1985, a monthly newspaper reporting about the Black community both in Iberia Parish and around the area. Each issue was sold for $1.

Campbell said all she wanted to do was spread all the positive news that she saw about the African American community, which she did through The Ebony Journal, which was printed in Eunice.

The Journal was the first Black-owned newspaper in Iberia Parish since Reconstruction when African American businessmen and political leaders Samuel Wakefield and Louis Snaer were co-editors and owners of the Iberia Banner.

The Ebony Journal had subscribers all over the U.S. Copies of the Ebony Journal are being archived by the University of Louisiana at Lafayette, and the publications contain local history relevant to the area.

Today, the Iberia African American Historical Society is working with archivists and digitization specialists from the University of Louisiana to preserve the newspaper, which was printed until 2005.

This front page was shared with The Daily Iberian by long-time Daily Iberian subscriber, Benjamin Myers.