The Chicago Defender
ISSN 0745-7014 | | |
Website | chicagodefender |
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The Chicago Defender is a
In 1919–1922,
In 2019, its publisher, Real Times Media Inc., announced that the Defender would cease its print edition but continue as an online publication.[5][6] The editorial board of the Chicago Tribune, observing the impact The Defender has had in its 114 years, praised the continuation of the publication in its new form.[7]
Foundation and social impact, role in the Great Migration
The Chicago Defender's editor and founder Robert Sengstacke Abbott played a major role in influencing the Great Migration of African Americans from the rural South to the urban North by means of strong, moralistic rhetoric in his editorials and political cartoons, the promotion of Chicago as a destination, and the advertisement of successful black individuals as inspiration for blacks in the South.
The rhetoric and art exhibited in the Defender demanded equality of the races and promoted a northern migration. Abbott published articles that were exposés of southern crimes against blacks.
Abbott openly blamed the lynching violence on the white mobs who were typically involved, forcing readers to accept that these crimes were "systematic and unremitting".[9] The newspaper's intense focus on these injustices implicitly laid the groundwork upon which Abbott would build his explicit critiques of society. At the same time, the NAACP was publicizing the toll of lynching at its offices in New York City.
The art in the Defender, particularly its political cartoons by Jay Jackson and others, explicitly addressed race issues and advocated northern migration of blacks.
After the movement of southern blacks northward became a quantifiable phenomenon, the Defender took a particular interest in sensationalizing migratory stories, often on the front page.[9] Abbott positioned his paper as a primary influence of these movements before historians would, for he used the Defender to initiate and advertise a "Great Northern Drive" day, set for May 15, 1917.[9] The movement to northern and midwestern cities, and to the West Coast at the time of World War I, became known as the Great Migration, in which 1.5 million blacks moved out of the rural South in early 20th century years up to 1940, and another 5 million left towns and rural areas from 1940 to 1970.
Abbott used the Defender to promote Chicago as an attractive destination for southern blacks. Abbott presented Chicago as a promised-land with abundant jobs, as he included advertisements "clearly aimed at southerners," that called for massive numbers of workers wanted in factory positions.[9] The Defender was filled with advertisements for desirable commodities, beauty products and technological devices. Abbott's paper was the first black newspaper to incorporate a full entertainment section.[9] Chicago was portrayed as a lively city where blacks commonly went to the theaters, ate out at fancy restaurants, attended sports events, including "cheering for the American Black Giants, black America's favorite baseball team", and could dance all night in the hottest night clubs.[8]
The Defender featured letters and poetry submitted by successful recent migrants; these writings "served as representative anecdotes, supplying readers with prototype examples ... that characterized the migration campaign".[8] To supplement these first-person accounts, Abbott often published small features on successful blacks in Chicago. The African American mentalist Princess Mysteria had from 1920 to her death in 1930 a weekly column on the Defender, called "Advise to the Wise and Otherwise."[10]
In 1923, Abbott and editor Lucius Harper created the Bud Billiken Club for black children through the "Junior Defender" page of the paper. The club encouraged the children's proper development, and reading The Defender. In 1929, the organization began the Bud Billiken Parade and Picnic, which is still held annually in Chicago in early August. In the 1950s, under Sengstacke's direction, the Bud Billiken Parade expanded and emerged as the largest single event in Chicago. Today, it attracts more than one million attendees with more than 25 million television viewers, making it one of the largest parades in the country.[11]
In 1928, for the first time, The Defender refused to endorse a
Sengstacke era
Abbott took a special interest in his nephew, John H. Sengstacke (1912–1997), paying for his education and grooming him to take over the Defender, which he did in 1940 after working with his uncle for several years. He urged integration of the armed forces. In 1948, he was appointed by President Harry S. Truman to the commission to study this proposal and plan the process, which was initiated by the military in 1949.
Sengstacke also brought together for the first time major black newspaper publishers and created the National Negro Publishers Association, later renamed the National Newspaper Publishers Association (NNPA). Two days following the associations first meeting in Chicago, Abbott died. In the early 21st century, the NNPA consists of more than 200 member black newspapers.
One of Sengstacke's most striking accomplishments occurred on February 6, 1956, when the Defender became a
In a 1967 editorial, the Defender decried
Real Times Inc.
Control of the Chicago Defender and her sister publications was transferred to a new ownership group named
In July 2019, the Chicago Defender reported that recent print runs had numbered 16,000 but that its digital edition reached almost half a million unique monthly visitors.[5]
See also
- Chicago Defender Building
- African American Newspapers
- Destination Freedom – a radio anthology supported by the Defender, written by Defender editor Richard Durham
- Longview Race Riot
- Bessye J. Bearden
- Roscoe Simmons
References
- ^ a b Staples, Brent (January 4, 2016). "A 'Most Dangerous' Newspaper ('The Defender,' by Ethan Michaeli)". Sunday Book Review. New York Times. p. 12. Retrieved January 10, 2016.
- ^ a b c "The Chicago Defender". PBS. Archived from the original on July 12, 2000. Retrieved September 9, 2019.
- ISBN 0231122497.
- ^ a b Katz, Brigit (July 9, 2019). "The 'Chicago Defender,' an Iconic Black Newspaper, to Release Its Last Print Issue". Smithsonian Magazine. Archived from the original on July 9, 2019.
- ^ from the original on July 9, 2019.
- ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved July 9, 2019.
- ^ "Editorial: After 114 forceful years, another evolution for the Chicago Defender". Editorial Board. Chicago Tribune. July 9, 2019. Archived from the original on July 9, 2019. Retrieved July 9, 2019.
- ^ .
- ^ JSTOR 40191833.
- ^ "Princess Mysteria Pens Last 'Advice to The Wise'". The Chicago Defender. Chicago. March 22, 1930.
- ^ Best, Wallace. "Bud Billiken Day Parade". Encyclopedia of Chicago. Archived from the original on June 1, 2023. Retrieved June 11, 2007.
- ^ Moser, Whet (June 10, 2021). "How the Party of Lincoln Lost Virtually the Entire Black Vote in 88 Years". Chicago Magazine. Archived from the original on July 30, 2016. Retrieved September 26, 2023.
- ^ "Atlanta Daily World". Atlanta Daily World.
- ^ "The New York Daily Challenge". Manta.
- ^ "Negro Daily Tells Black Power Advocates That Jews 'battle' for Negro Rights". Jewish Telegraphic Agency. November 15, 1967. Archived from the original on March 19, 2022. Retrieved April 11, 2019.
Further reading
- Marshall, Jon; Connor, Matthew (2019). "Divided Loyalties: The Chicago Defender and Harold Washington's Campaign for Mayor of Chicago". American Journalism. 36 (4): 447–472. S2CID 213833724.
- Michaeli, Ethan (2016). The Defender: How the Legendary Black Newspaper Changed America. Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. ISBN 978-0547560694.
- Washburn, Patrick S. (2006). The African American Newspaper: Voice of Freedom. Northwestern University Press.; covers 1827–1900; emphasis on Pittsburgh Courier and the Chicago Defender
External links
- Official website
- "Chicago Defender celebrates 100 years in business" – Karen E. Pride, Chicago Defender, May 5, 2005
- "Chicago Defender photo exhibit looks back to the future" – Coverage of star-studded opening for exhibition of Defender photography
- PBS: Chicago Defender
- The Chicago Defender’s Standing Dealers List (map, 1919)
- Samples of a few of the comic strips created for the Defender Page 1 Page 2