The Chicago Defender, “The World’s Greatest Weekly”

On a recent weekday morning, the selection of top stories on the Chicago Defender website homepage was not so different from that of other news providers: the death of “Ghostbusters” writer and actor Harold Ramis; the arrest of Mexican drug kingpin “El Chapo;” and the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision not to hear an appeal from the National Rifle Association.

A closer perusal of the site, however, reveals clues that the Defender focuses on issues and events affecting the African-American community around Chicagoland and beyond.

You’ll find a heavy dose of wire stories from the Associated Press and a number of items from the Huffington Post. There is also “From News One,” section, a roundup of headlines from the company that provides, the “latest news from a Black perspective with stories and opinions you won’t read anywhere else.”

This aggregation of content from outside sources points to an issue facing many media outlets today: How to feed the beast and provide the amount of news and views today’s news consumer expects?

The actual newspaper, a weekly, provides much more local flavor. How many other publications would feature a lead story headlined, “Why Gary Matters?” The article (in the Feb. 19-25 issue) focuses on the beleaguered city’s mayor, Karen Freeman-Wilson and her plans. The cover image of the tabloid format paper is a full-color photograph of Freeman-Wilson. There’s a feature on how to handle black hair during the winter and a profile of Olympian Shani Jones.

The Defender has a regular feature called “Our Missing,” to remind readers there are people whose loved ones are still looking for them. There is a community calendar, a classifieds section, and commentary. Business and consumer news, the arts, faith, cooking round out the mix.

Chicago residents look forward to a new edition of the paper each Wednesday. Those who prefer to consume their news online can peruse the actual paper in digital form.

Built to last? A Timeline

As a child growing up in Chicago, journalist Curtis Lawrence remembers the reading material in his family home.

“My parents kept the Defender in the house along with Ebony and the mainstream newspapers,” Lawrence said. “I also dreamed of working at the Defender like journalist Vernon Jarrett, but unfortunately that never happened.”

Instead, Lawrence forged a career at the Chicago Reporter, the Milwaukee Journal and the Chicago Sun-Times. Now an assistant professor of journalism a Chicago’s Columbia College, he says the Defender has seen better days.

“The economic epidemic that took down many major newspapers has been especially hard on the black press,” Lawrence said.

A Legacy in Print

Robert Sengstacke Abbott may not have envisioned the 21^st Century, but it’s likely he believed the Defender would stand the test of time.

1905: Abbott publishes the first issue of he Chicago Defender, with an initial investment of 25 cents and a press run of 300 copies.

1910: Abbott hires his first full-time paid employee, J. Hockley Smiley. Together, they cover race issues and other news of the day in the sensational, “yellow journalism” style that was popular at the time.

1940: John H. Sengstacke, Abbott’s nephew and heir, assumed editorial control of the Defender. He served as publisher until his death in 1997.

1956: The paper becomes the Chicago Daily Defender, the largest black-owned newspaper in the world.

2003: Ownership of the Defender transfers to Real Times Media and moves from daily to weekly publication.

From 1915-25 the Defender played a key role in “The Great Migration” of African-Americans from the South. The paper touted Chicago as a better alternative to the segregation and racial and economic disparities of the South.

The paper published train schedules and job listings, as well as editorials and cartoons about South’s hazards and lack of opportunity.

Chicago’s black population tripled between 1916-18.

“Unfortunately, the Chicago Defender is but a shell of what it was in the 20th Century, when Pullman Porters carried news from up north to relatives who did not make the Great Migration,” Lawrence said.

In addition to championing the Great Migration, the Defender campaigned for anti-lynching legislation and integrated sports. Its attracted big name contributors like Walter White and Langston Hughes and published poetry by Gwendolyn Brooks.

The same year that John Abbott assumed control of the Chicago Defender, he moved to cement its influence on the black press as whole, founding The National Negro Publishers Association. The organization lives today, as the National Newspaper Publishers Association (NNPA). Also known as the Black Press of America the body counts more than 200 newspapers among its membership.

The Bud Billiken Tradition
Billiken was a fictional character created in 1923 by Robert S. Abbott, who wanted to add a youth section to the Chicago Defender. Six years later came the first Bud Billiken parade, touted as a celebration of Chicago’s children. The parade continues today, held on the second Saturday in August. It is now the second-largest parade in the United States.

“The World’s Greatest Weekly” Today

Verified Audit Circulation reports that the Defender’s weekly circulation for the last quarter of 2013 was about 5,700 out of a press run of 16,000 copies. Even accounting for the sharing of copies among readers, the figure represents a small fraction of the Chicago area’s black population, which stands at around 1.7 million.

Ironically, the 2010 U.S. Census showed a reversal of the migration trend championed by the Chicago Defender a century ago: The black population is moving out — heading for the relative boom towns of Houston, Dallas, Atlanta and even cities in the Deep South. The city lost 17 percent of its African-American population between the 2000 and 2010 census counts.

Did the Chicago Defender’s founder ever imagine his newspaper would have such a long life? Perhaps: After all, he touted it as “The World’s Greatest Weekly.”

Lawrence holds out hope for the Defender’s future, as well as that of the black press overall.

“I am not without hope, however, that there is a young John H. Sengstacke or John H. Johnson plotting a digital revival for the black press.”

Sources consulted for this article include: “The Black Press: Soldiers Without Swords” (PBS.org); African-American History II (University of Notre Dame); The Encyclopedia of Chicago

More about The Chicago Defender:

Interim Publisher & Executive Editor: Ronald E. Childs

Address: 4445 South Martin Luther King Drive, Chicago, IL 60653

Contacts: (312) 225-2400, letters@chicagodefender.com & editorial@chicagodefender.com