Robert Abbott and The Chicago Defender
The leading black newspaper of the segregation era started here in Savannah. Well…kinda. Its founder, Robert Abbott, was raised and schooled here.
He was born on November 24, 1870 (five years after slavery ended). Born on St. Simons Island but raised in Savannah. His family started off in Yamacraw then moved to Woodville.
His stepdad, John H.H. Sengstacke, started a newspaper here in Savannah called Woodville Times. Sengstacke was also minister of Pilgrim Congregational Church. Robert helped out with Woodville Times and another local publisher. That’s where he got passionate about making sure black folk got the money and respect they deserved.
Robert went to Beach Institute then moved on to get a printing degree at Hampton in Virginia then a law degree at Kent in Chicago. He tried practicing law in Indiana but failed. Tried Kansas and failed. Black folk couldn’t afford attorneys and white folks didn’t wanna black one.
He moved back to Chicago where a black lawyer there persuaded him to go into publishing instead of law. He started with a white publisher who wasn’t paying much, then he launched his own paper, the Chicago Defender, in 1905.
People laughed because the city already had black newspapers that weren’t doing too well. AND Robert was a Geechee man at the end of the day, so his English was… remixed. He struggled, missed meals, but, in the words of Nipsey Hussle, he “stayed down, stayed committed.”
For the first five years, the paper covered local Chicago news. After that, they shifted to national news, mainly that to pertaining to black folk. It became hella successful. Remember how all black folk had a subscription to Jet Magazine? The Defender was that popular. In the 1920s, more than a quarter million people were subscribed.
According to Smithsonian, “For nearly 115 years, the Chicago Defender has been a vital news source for African Americans in Chicago and beyond. At a time when Black voices were largely excluded from mainstream media platforms, the Defender covered both major events—the 1919 Chicago Race Riot, the murder of Emmett Till, the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr.—and the details of Black community life: births, deaths, weddings, graduations, you name it.”
The Defender also inspired many black southerners to move North during the Great Migration. In addition to posting the racial tragedies in the South, they also posted jobs that were hiring up North and the train schedule from various cities in the South to the North, Midwest, and West.
Racist white southerners might have hated black folk, but they didn’t want them to leave. Who else would work the low-paying jobs? Because the Defender successfully got so many black folk to move North, racist whites made it difficult to get the paper across the Mason-Dixon Line. So it took some masterminding and collaborating.
Lemme emphasize the level of genius it took to get the paper away from the hands of the Klan and into the hands of Southern black folk. Robert Abbott partnered with black employees who worked on trains, mainly porters, to help distribute the paper at train stations. It worked.
Robert Abbott passed February 29, 1940 in Chicago. A legend and self-made millionaire. Like Diddy said best, “Without Abbott, there would be no Essence, no Jet, no Black Enterprise, or no RevoltTV.” The Defender is still kicking today, although it’s now digital. And it all started in Savannah.
Well…kinda.
If you like this post, you’ll love the book. Get yours. If you wanna Cashapp a dolla or two for all the love + time put into the research and writing, I thank you in advance: $TrelaniMichelle