The Defender
How the Legendary Black Newspaper Changed America
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- $13.99
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- $13.99
Publisher Description
This “extraordinary history” of the influential black newspaper is “deeply researched, elegantly written [and] a towering achievement” (Brent Staples, New York Times Book Review).
In 1905, Robert S. Abbott started printing The Chicago Defender, a newspaper dedicated to condemning Jim Crow and encouraging African Americans living in the South to join the Great Migration. Smuggling hundreds of thousands of copies into the most isolated communities in the segregated South, Abbott gave voice to the voiceless, galvanized the electoral power of black America, and became one of the first black millionaires in the process.
His successor wielded the newspaper’s clout to elect mayors and presidents, including Harry S. Truman and John F. Kennedy, who would have lost in 1960 if not for The Defender’s support. Drawing on dozens of interviews and extensive archival research, Ethan Michaeli constructs a revelatory narrative of journalism and race in America, bringing to life the reporters who braved lynch mobs and policemen’s clubs to do their jobs, from the age of Teddy Roosevelt to the age of Barack Obama.
“[This] epic, meticulously detailed account not only reminds its readers that newspapers matter, but so do black lives, past and present.” —USA Today
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Michaeli, a former copy editor and investigative reporter for the Defender, delivers an encyclopedic narrative of African-American history via the publishing legacy of one of the country's largest and most influential African-American owned newspapers. Georgia native Robert Abbott, who founded the paper in 1905, had decamped to Chicago for law school but failed to find work as an attorney because of his darker skin and Southern accent. In less than two decades, Abbott secured new printing presses and offices, offering a generation of African-Americans their first jobs in journalism. At the outset, the paper relied heavily on Pullman porters for various duties, and women played a critical role in the ranks of reporters and editors. The paper was a Chicago political force, a persistent critic of lynching, and an early chronicler of the first Great Migration, during WWI. Abbott became the "Moses of Black America," urging blacks to flee Southern oppression. The complexity of the Defender's place in the political ecosystem comes alive as Michaeli documents events such as Martin Luther King Jr.'s 1960s activism in Chicago and Barack Obama's political rise. Though the closing chapters are uneven, Michaeli has produced an accessible and valuable history. B&w photos.
