The Chicago Defender was founded on 5 May 1905, by Robert Abbott.
The weekly newspaper had an initial print run of 300 copies, but within 5 years it had become one of the most important publications in America, as Abbott focused the paper's attention on the Great Migration, encouraging millions of African Americans to leave the Jim Crow South and pursue better opportunities in the North.
"A leading advocate in the fight against racial, economic, and social discrimination. It championed equal employment and fair housing for African Americans, and boldly reported on lynchings, rapes, and Black disfranchisement," by 1917 the Defender became the first African American paper to reach a circulation of 100,000 copies and to achieve national circulation. By 1920 its circulation reached 230,000 copies per week. In 1956 it became a daily paper, which it remained until 2003.
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For most people, the only obstacle to buying a Rolls Royce is the price. When Robert Abbott wanted to buy a Rolls Royce in 1926, he had no shortage of cash. He faced a different obstacle: the color of his skin. Abbott had become extremely wealthy as the founder of The Defender, the Chicago newspaper which became the voice and protector of black people throughout the United States*. Abbot started the newspaper in 1905 with virtually nothing. Sometimes he had to sell his only overcoat in Chicago winter to fund the next weekās printing. By the 20s, he was one of the wealthiest men in American and wanted to live like it. Hence the Rolls.Ā
But the salesperson at the dealership refused to sell him one. Abbott made further inquiries with the company and still got nowhere. Undeterred, he persuaded a white friend to purchase the vehicle on his behalf. He took a photograph of the car in the driveway of his new mansion and published it for the newspaperās hundreds of thousands of readers.Ā
Abbottās car was a shining ambassadorĀ of the Defenderās general message to black people across the South: that opportunity and safety lay in the North, and that they would be better off leaving the South behind. Many readers heeded this call, leaving sharecropping farms and taking the long train ride to Chicago.Ā
The Defender also took on the responsibility of instructing these new arrivals on the culture of the urban North. The newspaper frequently published articles with titles likeĀ āHow to Act in Public Places,ā which imparted tidbits likeĀ āstop hooping from one end of the street car to another.āĀ
The paperās most insistent and dignified apostle of old-fashioned manners and style was their society columnist Julius Avendorph. Avendorph worked for the president of Pullman, the railroad car company. Avendorphās column hectored readers for their ignorance of his exacting code of conduct and dress. āDiamonds are beautiful to wear and valuable to have,ā wrote Avendorph,Ā ābut they have no place at all when it comes to evening dress, and gold is only to be used when a dinner coat is to be worn.āĀ I have no idea what someone newly arrived from a Mississippi farm, where even owning shoes might have seemed an impossible luxury, would make of an admonition such as this one.Ā
By his death in 1923, Avendorph had become a bit of a fossil. Clothing styles were changing rapidly, and pre-World War I dress was obsolete. Moreover, new migrants from the South were arriving so quickly that they were coming to define the culture of black Chicago rather than submit to it. The Defender would hang on to relevance for many decades more, as a chronicler of the Civil Rights era, an outlet for some of the important black figures of the time such as Marjorie Stewart Joyner, Walter White, and Louis Martin, and as a political force in its own right (Barack Obama sought, but did not obtain, The Defenderās endorsement of his unsuccessful campaign for US Congress in 2000).Ā
Robert Abbottās success is measured in different units than snazzy cars. The Defenderās mission was much broader and grander than monetary profits. But that Rolls Royce also represented much more than an accumulation of business success. It represented the defiant pride at the core of The Defenderās character, a relentless assertion of dignity and justice in the face of overwhelming hatred and oppression. Never has a Rolls been more richly earned.
*For a thorough history of The Defender, see Ethan Michaeliās book The Defender
Black is Beautiful (2018) 5 - Robert Sengstacke Abbott by Robert Liu-Trujillo
Robert Sengstacke Abbott started was a poor kid from the south who became a man of immense wealth. Not just monetarily, but with knowledge and power. Born in 1870 Robert traveled to the world's fair and was inspired by a speaker named Fredrick Douglas. He would later move to Chicago, and on the dining room table of his landlord start one of the biggest Black owned media companies; The Chicago Defender. Robert wanted to be a lawyer and went to school for it, but faced so many obstacles racially, financially, etc that he decided to start the Defender. He researched and worked hard figuring out how to get it printed and how to distribute it. And once he got it started it spread quickly. Realizing there were vast parts of Black life that White newspapers ignored Robert began covering life, death, social events, small businesses, news from a Black view point, and everything in between. He spoke about lynchings when white newspapers acted like they did not exist. The newspaper started to get around, mostly in Chicago and a few spots in the south. He bought a press, hired writers, illustrators, expanded the copies printed, and started to make a living. Then, whites in the South started to ban his newspaper. Not only because it told the truth about lynchings, but because it invited and encouraged Black folks from the south to come north to Chicago. The Defender taught new comers how to get there, who was hiring, how to find a place to live, and even what nightlife there was. Ā When the paper started to get confiscated, he called on a powerful union of men to distribute it; the Brotherhood of the Sleeping Car Porters who rode trains all over the US. Robert was part of a wave of Black presses that told stories about Black life and he started a parade that still happens today called the Bud Bililken Parade & Picnic in Chicago.
You can purchase this original piece $50 (includes shipping) or a print $15 (includes shipping) , email at [email protected]
Sources: The Defender, Wikipedia, The Black Press Documentary, The Sengstacke Eye
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In May 1905 he started publishing the ChicagoĀ Defender.Ā The paper attacked racial injustice, particularly lynching in the south. TheĀ DefenderĀ did not use the words "Negro" or "black" in its pages. Instead, African Americans were referred to as "the Race" and black men and women as "Race men and Race women." Many places in the south effectively banned the paper, especially when, during World War I, Abbott actively tried to convince southern blacks to migrate to the north. Abbott managed to get railroad porters to carry his papers south and he ran articles, editorials, cartoons -even train schedules and job listings to convince theĀ DefenderāsĀ southern readers to come north. The āGreat Northern Migration,ā as it was called in theĀ Defender, resulted in more than one million blacks migrating north, about 100,000 of them coming to Chicago. TheĀ DefenderĀ was passed from person to person, and read aloud in barbershops and churches. It is estimated that at its height each paper sold was read by four to five African Americans, putting its readership at over 500,000 people each week.
In the burgeoning economic times of the 1920s, with hundreds of new products and the growth of advertising, theĀ DefenderĀ became an economic success and Abbott became one of the first African American millionaires.
