The Chicago Defender

The Chicago Defender, one of the nation's most influential African American institutions, was voted "Best Black Newspaper of the Year" (NNPA, 2009).

On May 5, 1905, Robert Sengstacke Abbott founded The Chicago Defender in a small kitchen in his landlord’s apartment, with an initial investment of 25 cents and a press run of 300 copies. The Chicago Defender’s first issues were in the form of four-page, six-column handbills, filled with local news items gathered by Abbott and news clippings from other newspapers. Five years later, The Chicago Defender began to attract a national audience.

By the start of World War I, The Chicago Defender was the nation’s most influential Black weekly newspaper, with more than two thirds of its readership located outside of Chicago. During World War I, the paper utilized its influence to wage a successful campaign in support of “The Great Migration.” It published powerful editorials, articles and cartoons lauding the benefits of life in the north, posted job listings and train schedules to facilitate relocation, and declared on May 15, 1917 as the date of the “Great Northern Drive.” The Chicago Defender’s support of The Great Migration spurred Southern readers to move to the north in record numbers. Between 1916 and 1918, at least 110,000 people migrated to Chicago, nearly tripling the city’s Black population.

Following the war, the Defender chronicled controversial events such as the "Red Summer" Riots of 1919, a series of violent race clashes in cities across the country. The Chicago Defender campaigned for anti-lynching legislation and for integration in professional sports. In 1923, the Defender introduced the Bud Billiken Page, the first newspaper section dedicated to youth. The Chicago Defender, along with Chicago Defender Charities, is the producer and organizer of the world famous Bud Billiken Day Parade and Picnic, America's second largest overall, and largest African American parade. The parade originated in 1929 as a vehicle to showcase the pageantry and spirit of the city's young people.

Columnists at the Defender have included the late Ida B. Wells, Walter White, Langston Hughes, W.E.B. DuBois, James Baldwin, Carl Rowan, Vernon Jarrett, Lu Palmer and numerous other luminary Black writers. The paper also published the early works of Pulitzer Prize-winning poet Gwendolyn Brooks. Heralding itself as the “The World’s Greatest Weekly,” the Defender spoke out against segregation of the armed forces in the early 1940s, and actively challenged segregation in the south during the civil rights era. The paper was ritually smuggled to the southern states aboard passenger trains by the legendary Black pullman porters, and it was often a crime punishable by death for blacks in that region to be found reading it.

In 1940, John H. H. Sengstacke, Abbott’s nephew and heir, assumed editorial control and continued to champion for equality. In 1956, The Chicago Defender began publishing on a daily basis. In 1965, Sengstacke purchased The New Pittsburgh Courier, including it as part of his “Sengstacke Newspaper" chain. Later came aquisitions The Michigan Chronicle and Michigan FrontPage in Detroit, the Tri-State Defender in Memphis and most recently The Atlanta Daily World. Sengstacke served as publisher of the Defender until his death in May of 1997. One of only three black daily newspapers in history, the Defender reverted back to weekly publication in 2003.



The Chicago Defender’s offices:

• Landlady’s Kitchen Table (1905-1920)

• 3435 South Indiana Ave. (1920-1960)

• 2400 South Michigan Ave. (1960-2006)

• 200 South Michigan Ave. (2006-2009)

• 4445 S. Martin Luther King, Jr. Dr. (2009-present)


About the Chicago Defender’s fifth and final home:

• Location: 4445 S. Martin Luther King, Jr. Dr.

• Owned and managed by: Eastlake Management

• Was once Metropolitan Funeral Home, sister company to the Metropolitan Assurance Company, located at 4455 S. Martin Luther King, Jr. Dr.

• Located four blocks from Defender founder Robert S. Abbott’s Mansion (a national historic landmark) located at 4742 S. Martin Luther King, Jr. Dr.