Chicago Defender

African American newspaper created in 1905 by Robert S. Abbott that became the first black newspaper with a circulation that exceeded 100,000 readers. Abbott created the newspaper after being told he was “too dark” to practice law in Chicago.

Robert Abbott received training in the printing trade from Hampton Institute in Virginia. With an initial investment of only twenty-five cents, he established the Chicago Defender in 1905. Four years later, he hired J. Hockley Smiley as the paper's first full-time employee.

Early on, Abbott realized that the Defender would not be an ordinary newspaper but an extraordinary one with a mission. Unlike previous African American newspapers, the Defender set out to appeal to the masses instead of the white elite and black middle class. To accomplish this mission, Abbott employed a journalism technique called “yellow press,” a technique perfected by William Randolph Hearst, the white proprietor of the San Francisco Examiner. Yellow journalism used sensational headlines, graphic images, and red ink to increase newspaper sales.

The Chicago Defender chose to write for and about the oppressed masses that struggled for political and economic power. The readership surpassed its rivals because the paper circulated not only within Chicago but outside the city as well. The articles in the Defender appealed to southern blacks, offering them the “promised land,” which meant jobs and an escape from poverty.

Abbott's contribution to the Great Migration of blacks from the South was similar to that of journalist Ida B. Wells, who with a stroke of the pen beckoned African Americans to leave the South for better opportunities in the North. Racial violence against African Americans was prevalent in the South between 1889 and 1918, and Abbott would feature pictures of homes and schools in Chicago next to photos that reflected southern violence against blacks.

The Chicago Defender was more than just a newspaper; it was also a weapon for justice. This became clear when black Pullman porters on the railroads began to smuggle the newspaper across the Mason-Dixon line into the South. Campaigns against lynching [Page 177]and anti-lynching legislation became the hallmark of the Defender. During the so-called Red Summer Riots of 1919, Abbott maintained coverage of these racial massacres and protested the inability of government to protect black citizens.

Throughout its existence, the Chicago Defender attracted such writers as Langston Hughes, Mary McLeod Bethune, and Walter White to contribute columns to the paper. Even after Abbott's death in 1940, the Chicago Defender continued to advocate for justice. However, after rising to 160,000 by 1945, circulation declined in the following years, to about 20,000 in 1980.

In 1939, Abbott had appointed his nephew, John Sengstacke, to the position of publisher. Sengstacke died on May 28, 1997, and in 2003, the family-owned Sengstacke Enterprises, Inc,. sold the newspaper to Real Times Inc., a company headed by Sengstacke's nephew, Thomas Picou.