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Street Roots • Feb. 26-March 3, 2016
News
DEFENDER, fro m page 4
voice of conscience in the country today.
small farmers in the South and all over the
United States were paying a dollar a year to
a newspaper in Chicago, were handing it
over to a Pullman porter, that involves a lot
of trust, and Robert Abbott took that
relationship very seriously. The porters
were essential to that whole
relationship and that whole
process of making the
newspaper, as I said, a
national communications
vehicle for African-
Americans.
A.G.: What aspects of The Defender
captivated you so much that you were willing
to spend all these years working on a book
about it?
E.M.: Honestly, for me, I was re-educated
at The Defender. I didn’t know
anything about Black America
or race relations in the United
States, or Chicago for that
matter. And I learned all of that
there. It made me feel
differently about the country
and differently about American
A.G.: And then when it
history and differently about my
was nationally known, The
responsibility to both of those.
Defender not only refrained
When the opportunity came to
the narrative of a lot of things C O U R T E S Y O F JA S O N R EB L A N D O do a book about it, I seized on
going on in the United States
that because this was a way to
but also actually directed
"When the op»
walk a reader through the
readers on what to do, like
entire history of the newspaper.
portnnlty came to
encouraging people to move
It was a way to give them the
do
a
book
about
North.
experience that I had of
it, I seized on that
reunderstanding or getting a
because this was
E.M.: That trust
new understanding of American
relationship that I was
a way to walk a
history and finding out really
talking about with your last reader through the
what was missing.
question was very much a
entire history of the
part of the newspaper’s
A.G Toward the end of the
influence. So when it came, newspaper. If was
book, you say that working at The
a way to give them Defender helped you understand
for example, to the Great
the experience that the truth about race in America.
Migration, The Defender
was reporting accurately on 1 had of rounder-
Could you talk a little bit more
what was happening in
standing or getting about how going through the
Chicago. It was not
process o f w riting this book
sugarcoating things like the a new ‘understand
changed your understanding of
1919 race riots or the the
ing of Am erican
race or inform ed it more?
vicious attitudes of some
out really what was
whites even in Chicago
E.M.: Well, I knew that
there had been a lot of violence
when it came to African-
missing."
and oppression of course from
Americans. The editorial
ETHAN IWiCHAELl
white people against African-
page would then be able to
A U T H O R A N D J O U R N A L IS T
Americans in the South after
argue convincingly that,
the Civil War. I did not know
“Hey, you read the truth on
how overt and popular that violence was.
the news pages, but you
And that oppression, the violence, was a
know it’s still better than life in the South,
so why don’t you join the migration to come
part of a whole pattern, a whole program of
oppression that went along with
here.” It was able to have authority because
suppressing electoral rights, suppressing
it could rely on the news on the front pages.
rights of economic prosperity, of
A.G.: By the time Robert Abbott died, there
educational attainment. All of these things
were closely monitored by Southern white
were a number of black newspapers. Was it
authorities. It really was a totalitarian state
that trust that he established in the beginning
for African-Americans. And that I
that eventually set The Defender apart?
don’t think is well
E.M.: The Defender was not always the
most popular or the most highly circulated
African-American newspaper.
It was superseded for
some time by the
Pittsburgh Courier, which
in the ’30s and ’40s took a
very aggressive line when
it came to getting the best
African-American columnists
around the country and
focusing the newspaper as an
opinion shaper. That was
cutting edge for its day.
Eventually, The Defender
started to do very similar stuff
and over time reclaimed the
mantle of the most widely
circulated African-American
newspaper. So the black press,
there’s some ebbs and flows, but it
remains a powerful institution and a
appreciated by people today, nor is it
appreciated how creatively, thoughtfully
and successfully African-Americans fought
back, not just through The Defender, of
course, but through myriad ways in which
they resisted this kind of oppression and
eventually overturned the regime, if not all
of its institution. So all of that was
definitely surprising and revelatory.
Although, I can’t say that I walked away
from the book with a great sense of
optimism and a belief in progress in this
country, because frankly there hasn’t been.
There definitely hasn’t been enough
progress. Perhaps an argument could be
made that there has been some progress,
but I am deeply disappointed and deeply
dissatisfied that we sometimes seem to
make gains in some areas only to lose more
in others.
In Chicago, of course, we’re dealing with
the police killing of Laquan McDonald and
the revelation of the video of that killing.
And we had so many reactions to it, but my
one thought I had was that one of the great
tragedies is
Laquan McDonald
had been
abandoned by our
city and our
system long
before he ever got
into that
confrontation with
the policemen. In
Page 5
THE NATIONAL
Negro Printer
AND PUBLISHER
J A N U A R Y , 1040
20c. per copy
$2.00 per year
C O U R T E S Y O F T H E C H IC A G O
D EFEN D ER C H A R IT IES
John Sengstacke on the cover of
Negro Printer, January 1940.
As Robert Abbott faded, the
members of the black press
increasingly looked to
Sengstacke for leadership.
a way, th a t m akes
it w orse than th e
m urderof Emmett
Till, because
E m m ett Till at
least had a lot
more
infrastructure
behind him, a lot
more opportunity
ahead of him, than
Laquan
McDonald. So
that’s a real tragedy there, in addition to
the tragedy of his murder. So, not to end
my answer on a sad note, but I can’t say
I’m sanguine about where we are in terms
of progress on race.
C O U R T E S Y O F T H E C H IC A G O D EFEN D ER C H A R IT IE S
John Sengstacke speaks with President John
F. Kennedy in 1962 at the White House.
A.G.: And what lessons do you think the
story of The Defender has for digital media
journalists today?
E.M.: I think that it’s really just a
matter of time and creativity and effort
until someone starts replicating the kind
of success that Robert Abbott had at
The Defender. There is that opportunity
out there to build a mass audience for
media and to have a very strong voice
as a result It’s not going to be the
same way that we did it in the past,
but that’s what The Defender was. It
was something new. Use the
technology the way that you know it
should be used. Others may not
understand it at first and may -
pooh-pooh, may scoff, may even
ridicule you. But if you know that
you’re right, stick to it and it will
succeed.
C O U R T E S Y O F A B B O T T -S E N G S T A C K E F A M IL Y
PAPERS
Former President Harry Truman, Chicago
Mayor Richard Daley and John Sengstacke
ride in the 1956 Bud Billiken Parade.
Truman and Daley owed much to
Sengstacke personally and the African-
American electorate generally.