Today’s Black journalist profile is about a man who had no problem speaking truth to power. Allow me to introduce Robert S. Abbott, the founder and publisher of The Chicago Defender newspaper. More than a successful publisher, Robert S. Abbott was a singular force who helped thousands of Black people move from the American south to cities in the north as part of the Great Migration. With The Chicago Defender, Abbott amassed his own personal fortune, but he also changed the fortunes of many more.
Abbott’s Early Years
Robert Sengstake Abbott was born in 1870 in St. Simmons, Georgia. The child of formerly enslaved parents, he went to school with the intention of becoming a lawyer. And while he successfully completed a law degree at Kent Law School, he was not able to find a job in his chosen profession. In fact, one advisor told him he was too dark to be successful as a lawyer.
Luckily, Abbott had had the good fortune of being in the audience at the World’s Columbian Exposition in 1893 held in Chicago, where he heard Mr. Frederick Douglass give a fiery speech imploring America to live up to its promises of freedom for all. Hearing Douglass and knowing how he had “used his words” to stir up change in society, Abbott decided he too would use the press to make his mark. And that’s exactly what he did.
Robert Abbott Launches The Chicago Defender
Abbott launched The Chicago Defender in 1905 from the kitchen of the rooming house where he was staying. He wrote all the articles himself and sold copies of his paper door to door. By 1910 Abbott was able to hire his first employee, J. Hockley Smiley and the paper continued to grow in popularity as The Defender covered the racial injustices taking place not only in Chicago, but all over the United States. And Abbott was known for not just reporting the news, but also for sharing his own radical thoughts about Black people standing up for themselves in the face of racial violence and oppression. He would write opinion pieces telling folks that if the Klan came to their door, they should go down fighting and take at least one Klansman with them! Soon enough, The Chicago Defender was the most read Black newspaper in Chicago.
The Riches are in the South
Historians say that Abbott’s financial success – he was one of the first Black millionaires – came as the result of his decision to sell The Chicago Defender in the South where the majority of Black Americans still lived at the turn of the century. Folks were hungry for the information and attitude The Defender was printing and gobbled it up whenever they could get their hands on it. Because of Abbott’s decision to sell his paper in the southern states, The Chicago Defender was the first Black newspaper to boast of a 100,000 circulation. That number doubled to 200,000 by the mid-1920s.
Abbott’s Influence on The Great Migration
Initially in his editorials, Abbott encouraged Black southerners to stay in the South and fight for their rights. But when World War I broke out and there was a surplus of factory jobs in the northern cities, he changed his tune. Abbott started writing editorials encouraging Blacks to come North for a better life. He was one of the first, in fact, to use the term “The Great Migration.”
The Chicago Defender essentially became a guide book for Black people to move north. Abbott printed train schedules, apartment and job listings and even etiquette manuals to help people adjust to city life in places like Chicago and Detroit.
Not surprisingly, white landowners hated The Chicago Defender as it put “bold ideas” into the minds of their Black workers. Once Black people started leaving in droves to head up North, lawmakers tried to ban The Chicago Defender from being sold in certain cities and states. But that didn’t stop Abbott. He got the famed Pullman Porters to smuggle the Defender into southern cities on the trains where they worked. He was clearly a brilliant business man as well.
Robert Abbott Was A Multicultural Man
In a lot of ways Abbott was a pioneer in his crusade for racial justice. He used his newspaper to comment on the hypocrisy of America’s white leadership and he uplifted the genius of Black people. Many famous writers had their work published in The Defender under Abbott’s leadership, including Ida B. Wells, Langston Hughes, Gwendolyn Brooks and Walter White.
Unfortunately Abbott died at the age of 69 due to illness, but he never stopped crusading for justice and racial equality. Something interesting about Abbott’s background that must have influenced his thinking about racial equality is his unusual – for the time – upbringing. Abbott’s father died when he was a baby. His mother remarried a Mixed-Race – Black and German – man by the name of John Sengstacke. Sengstacke had been born in the United States but was raised in Germany. When he met and married Abbott’s mother, Abbott was given his stepfather’s last name as a middle name to cement their relationship. Ironically, John Stengstacke also founded his own newspaper!
Fun fact, rather late in his life, Abbott became a member of the Baha’i’ Faith, because of the burgeoning religion’s commitment to racial unity and equality.
The End of an Era
The Chicago Defender printed its last issue in July 2019.
For more information about The Chicago Defender and its impact on America, check out the book, The Defender: How the Legendary Black Newspaper Changed America.
