The Indianapolis Freeman, first published on July 14, 1888, by Edward Elder Cooper in Indianapolis, Indiana, was the first illustrated black newspaper in the United States. Cooper sold the paper to George L. Knox in 1892. Knox shifted the paper's political allegiance from Democratic to Republican, since he was one of the most influential Black Republicans in Indiana. The paper shifted back toward the Democratic Party again in its final days due to the power of the Ku Klux Klan over the Indiana Republican Party. It was circulated nationally and considered by many the leading black newspaper in America. Hurt by inflation following World War I and competition from the more locally-focused Indianapolis Recorder, the paper ceased publication in 1926.