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55-526: After their move to Little Rock, the Bateses decided to act on a dream of theirs, the ownership of a newspaper. They leased a printing plant that belonged to a church publication, taking over the Twin City Press, and inaugurated their weekly statewide newspaper on May 9, 1941. The State Press was primarily concerned with advocacy journalism and was modeled off other African-American publications of

110-613: A "Sengstacke family-led" deal to facilitate trust beneficiaries and other Sengstacke family shareholders to agree to the sale of the company. Picou recruited Sam Logan, former publisher of the Michigan Chronicle , who then recruited O'Neil Swanson, Bill Pickard, Ron Hall and Gordon Follmer, black businessman from Detroit, Michigan (the "Detroit Group"), as investors in Real Times. Chicago investors included Picou, Bobby Sengstacke, David M. Milliner (who served as publisher of

165-602: A Congregationalist missionary as an adult, a teacher, determined to improve the education of African American children, and a publisher, founding the Woodville Times , based in Woodville, Georgia, a town later annexed by Savannah, Georgia ; he wrote, "There is but one church, and all who are born of God are members of it. God made a church, man made denominations. God gave us a Holy Bible, disputing men made different kinds of disciples.". Industrialization underway in

220-621: A law practice, working for a few years in Gary, Indiana , and Topeka, Kansas . He returned home to Georgia for a period, then went back to Chicago, where he could see changes arriving with thousands of new migrants from the rural South as a part of the Great Migration . After settling in Chicago, in 1905 Abbott founded The Chicago Defender newspaper with an initial investment of 25¢ (equivalent to $ 8 in 2023). He started printing in

275-479: A matter of public concern." Abbott also published a short-lived periodical called Abbott's Monthly , whose contributor included Chester Himes and Richard Wright . The Defender actively promoted the northward migration of Black Southerners, particularly to Chicago; its columns not only reported on, but encouraged the Great Migration. Bud Billiken is a fiction character created by Abbott in 1923. During

330-468: A pastor's sermons were "more offensive than the odor from a cesspool that has been exposed to the sun from the morning of creation down to the present moment" and leading to a $ 1,500 judgement for libel. The paper became a voice for civil rights even before a nationally recognized movement had emerged. It covered local and nationwide civil rights news, such as the Emmett Till lynching, which it ran as

385-521: A quantifiable phenomenon, the Defender took a particular interest in sensationalizing migratory stories, often on the front page. Abbott positioned his paper as a primary influence of these movements before historians would, for he used the Defender to initiate and advertise a "Great Northern Drive" day, set for May 15, 1917. The movement to northern and midwestern cities, and to the West Coast at

440-421: A room at his boarding house; his landlady encouraged him, and he later bought her an 8-room house. He wanted to push for job opportunities and social justice, and was eager to persuade Black people to leave the segregated, Jim Crow South for Chicago. A key part of his distribution network was made up of African-American railroad porters , who were highly respected among Black people, and by 1925 they organized

495-683: A series of articles critical of the party, its failures to advance black civil rights, and what it saw as Republican's embrace or acquiescence in segregationism , party support in a revitalized Ku Klux Klan , and the Republican's Lily White Movement . The paper's final pre-election editorial read in part: “We want justice in America and we mean to get it. If 50 years of support to the Republican Party doesn’t get us justice, then we must of necessity shift our allegiance to new quarters.” For

550-591: A union as the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters . They often sold or distributed the paper on trains. Defender circulation reached 50,000 by 1916; 125,000 by 1918; and more than 200,000 by the early 1920s. Credited with contributing to the Great Migration of rural southern Black people to Chicago, the Defender became the most widely circulated black newspaper in the country. It was known as "America's Black Newspaper." Its success resulted in Abbott becoming one of

605-420: A variety of reasons, in the coming years, black support for the Republican Party fell rapidly. Abbott took a special interest in his nephew, John H. Sengstacke (1912–1997), paying for his education and grooming him to take over the Defender, which he did in 1940 after working with his uncle for several years. He urged integration of the armed forces. In 1948, he was appointed by President Harry S. Truman to

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660-622: A weekly column on the Defender , called "Advice to the Wise and Otherwise." In 1923, Abbott and editor Lucius Harper created the Bud Billiken Club for black children through the "Junior Defender" page of the paper. The club encouraged the children's proper development, and reading The Defender . In 1929, the organization began the Bud Billiken Parade and Picnic , which is still held annually in Chicago in early August. In

715-529: The Michigan Chronicle . In a 1967 editorial, the Defender decried anti-Semitism in the community, reminding readers of the role of Jews in the civil rights movement. "These powerful voices," the Defender wrote, "which have been lifted on behalf of the Negro peoples' cause, should not be forgotten when resolutions are passed by the black power hierarchy. Jews and Negroes have problems in common. They can ill-afford to be at one another's throats." Control of

770-594: The Plessy v. Ferguson (1896) case, in which the US Supreme Court ruled that segregated facilities, such as railroad cars providing "separate but equal" conditions, were constitutional). The northern and midwestern industrial centers, where Black people could vote and send children to school, were recruiting workers based on expansion of manufacturing and infrastructure to supply the US's expanding population as well as

825-610: The American Civil War . The Sea Islands were a place of the Gullah people , an African-descended ethnic group who maintained African-inherited cultural traits more strongly than many African Americans in other areas of the South. His father, Thomas Abbott, died when Robert was a baby, and his widowed mother Flora Abbott ( née Butler) met and married John Sengstacke, a mixed-race man of unusual background who had recently come to

880-590: The Chicago Defender and her sister publications was transferred to a new ownership group named Real Times Inc. in January 2003. Real Times, Inc. was organized and led by Thom Picou , and Robert (Bobby) Sengstacke , John H. Sengstacke's surviving child and father of the beneficiaries of the Sengstacke Trust. In effect, Picou, then chairman and CEO of Real Times, Inc., led what was then labeled

935-470: The Chicago Defender from 2003 to 2004), Kurt Cherry and James Carr. In July 2019, the Chicago Defender reported that recent print runs had numbered 16,000 but that its digital edition reached almost half a million unique monthly visitors. Robert S. Abbott Robert Sengstacke Abbott (December 24, 1870 – February 29, 1940) was an American lawyer, newspaper publisher and editor. Abbott founded The Chicago Defender in 1905, which grew to have

990-784: The Defender to a weekly publication schedule. The Defender was one of only three African American dailies in the United States; the other two are the Atlanta Daily World , the first black newspaper founded as a daily in 1928, and the New York Daily Challenge , founded in 1971. In 1965, Sengstacke created a chain of newspapers, which also included the Pittsburgh Courier , the Memphis Tri-State Defender , and

1045-468: The State Press covered all social news happening within the state. It was a supporter of racial integration in schools and thoroughly publicized its support in its pages. In 1957, Daisy Bates was visited by an unnamed white woman who threatened that unless Bates withdrew her support for integration, "you'll be destroyed — you, your newspaper, your reputation. Everything!". Because of its position during

1100-400: The southern United States . Under his nephew and chosen successor, John H. Sengstacke , the paper dealt with racial segregation in the United States , especially in the U.S. military , during World War II. Copies of the paper were passed along in communities, and it is estimated that at its most successful, each copy was read by four to five people. In 1919–1922, the Defender attracted

1155-488: The 1950s, under Sengstacke's direction, the Bud Billiken Parade expanded and emerged as the largest single event in Chicago. Today, it attracts more than one million attendees with more than 25 million television viewers, making it one of the largest parades in the country. In 1928, for the first time, The Defender refused to endorse a Republican Party presidential candidate. Throughout the election it ran

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1210-539: The African slaves were introduced into the colonial population and continues unabated to this day.... What's more, the opposition to intermarriage has heightened the interest and solidified the feelings of those who resent the injunction of racial distinction in their private and personal affairs." He believed that laws restricting personal choice in a mate violated the constitution and that the "decision of two intelligent people to mutual love and self-sacrifice should not be

1265-566: The Baháʼí Faith in 1934. He had found that its convention to elect its National Spiritual Assembly seemed free of prejudice. In 1919, Illinois Governor Frank Lowden appointed Abbott to the Chicago Commission on Race Relations . The commission conducted studies about the changes resulting from the Great Migration; in one period, 5,000 African Americans were arriving in the city every week. The Commission collected data to assess

1320-535: The Great Depression, Abbott featured Bud Billiken in the youth column of his newspaper, the Chicago Defender, as a symbol of pride, happiness, and hope for black residents. David Kellum, co-founder of the newspaper then went on to celebrate this character by starting the “Bud Billiken Parade” in 1929. This parade is an annual parade held in Chicago, IL. It is the largest African American parade in

1375-518: The Little Rock segregation fight, white advertisers, including Southwestern Bell , Arkansas Louisiana Gas, Arkansas Power and Light (now Entergy ) held another boycott to punish the newspaper for supporting desegregation. This boycott successfully cut off funding, except the money which came directly and through advertisements from the NAACP national office, and through ads from supporters throughout

1430-539: The NNPA consists of more than 200 member black newspapers. One of Sengstacke's most striking accomplishments occurred on February 6, 1956, when the Defender became a daily newspaper and changed its name to the Chicago Daily Defender , the nation's second black daily newspaper. It immediately became the largest black-owned daily in the nation. It published as a daily until 2003, when new owners returned

1485-502: The South for the North. He even set a date of May 15, 1917, for what he called 'The Great Northern Drive' to occur. In his weekly, he showed pictures of Chicago and had numerous classifieds for housing. In addition, Abbott wrote about how awful a place the South was to live in comparison to the idealistic North. Abbott's words described the North as a place of prosperity and justice. This persuasive writing, "thereby made this journal probably

1540-503: The South. From 1890 to 1908 all the southern states had passed constitutions or laws that raised barriers to voter registration and effectively disenfranchised most Black people and many poor whites . They were utterly closed out of the political systems. Schools and other public facilities reserved for Black people were typically underfunded and ill-maintained. Legislatures imposed Jim Crow conditions, producing facilities for Black people that were "separate" but never "equal" (referring to

1595-402: The South. The rhetoric and art exhibited in the Defender demanded equality of the races and promoted a northern migration. Abbott published articles that were exposés of southern crimes against blacks. The Defender consistently published articles describing lynchings in the South , with vivid descriptions of gore and the victims' deaths. Lynchings were at a peak at the turn of the century, in

1650-525: The US from Germany. Sengstacke's parents were Tama, a freed slave, and her husband Herman Sengstacke, a German sea captain who had a regular route from Hamburg to Savannah. Herman had met Tama at the Georgia port city in 1847, where, after becoming distressed at a slave sale, he bought and freed her. They married in Charleston, South Carolina , before returning to Georgia, where their interracial marriage

1705-670: The United States, Abbot studied the printing trade at Hampton Institute (now Hampton University), a historically black college in Virginia, from 1892 to 1896. At Hampton, he sang with the Hampton Choir and Quartet , which toured nationally. He earned a law degree from Kent College of Law , Chicago , in 1898. Abbott became a Prince Hall Freemason at the Oriental Lodge, No. 68, in Chicago . Abbott tried to set up

Arkansas State Press - Misplaced Pages Continue

1760-530: The United States. The parade has since featured celebrities, politicians, businessmen, and many others. It is considered the second largest parade in the United States. In 1912, Abbott met ʻAbdu'l-Bahá , head of the Baháʼí Faith , through covering a talk of his during his stay in Chicago during his journeys in the West . By 1924 Abbott and his wife were listed as attending Baháʼí events in Chicago. After inventing

1815-612: The commission to study this proposal and plan the process, which was initiated by the military in 1949. Sengstacke also brought together for the first time major black newspaper publishers and created the National Negro Publishers Association, later renamed the National Newspaper Publishers Association (NNPA). Two days following the associations first meeting in Chicago, Abbott died. In the early 21st century,

1870-400: The country. Despite this the State Press was unable to maintain itself and the last issue was published on October 29, 1959. Upon her husband's death, Daisy Bates relaunched the State Press in 1984, selling to Janis F. Kearney in 1987, who published it for five more years. Chicago Defender The Chicago Defender is a Chicago -based online African-American newspaper . It

1925-480: The educational events in Little Rock. While Governor Orval Faubus and his supporters were refusing even token desegregation of Central High School , this editorial appeared on the front page: It is the belief of this paper that since the Negro's loyalty to America has forced him to shed blood on foreign battle fields against enemies, to safeguard constitutional rights, he is in no mood to sacrifice these rights for peace and harmony at home. Throughout its existence,

1980-570: The era, such as the Chicago Defender and The Crisis . As C. Calvin Smith noted, "the crusading fervor of State Press editorials was clearly demonstrated" by the second issue. Stories about civil rights often ran on the front page with the rest of the paper mainly filled with other stories that spotlighted achievements of black Arkansans. Pictures were also in abundance throughout the paper. L. C. Bates's editorials were fiery, writing that

2035-551: The fictional character "Bud Billiken" with David Kellum for articles in the Defender , Abbott established the Bud Billiken Club . In 1929 Abbott and Kellum founded the Bud Billiken Parade and Picnic . It became an occasion for African Americans to celebrate their pride and connections. Abbott was seeking an atmosphere free of race prejudice. Even in religious communities, he sometimes found that mixed-race African Americans who were light-skinned sometimes also demonstrated prejudice against those who were darker. Abbott officially joined

2090-494: The first self-made millionaires of African-American descent; his business expanded as African Americans moved to the cities and became an urbanized, northern population. From the early 20th century through 1940, 1.5 million Black people moved to major cities in the Northeast and Mid-West . They were eager to know about conditions, to find housing, and to learn more about their new lives in cities. Most were from rural areas of

2145-528: The greatest stimulus that the migration had." Abbott was a fighter, a defender of rights. He listed nine goals as the Defender 's "Bible": The Chicago Defender not only encouraged people to migrate north for a better life, but to fight for their rights once they got there. The slogan of the paper and the first goal was "American race prejudice must be destroyed." Sengstacke openly discussed African-American history in his articles, including its difficult issues. He wrote, " Miscegenation began as soon as

2200-521: The groundwork upon which Abbott would build his explicit critiques of society. At the same time, the NAACP was publicizing the toll of lynching at its offices in New York City. The art in the Defender , particularly its political cartoons by Jay Jackson and others, explicitly addressed race issues and advocated northern migration of blacks. After the movement of southern blacks northward became

2255-578: The highest circulation of any black-owned newspaper in the country. Abbott founded the Bud Billiken Parade and Picnic in August 1929. The parade, which has developed into a celebration for youth, education and African–American life in Chicago, Illinois, is the second largest parade in the United States. Abbot was born on December 24, 1870, in St. Simons, Georgia (although some sources state Savannah, Georgia ) to freedman parents, who had been enslaved before

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2310-464: The hottest night clubs. The Defender featured letters and poetry submitted by successful recent migrants; these writings "served as representative anecdotes, supplying readers with prototype examples   ... that characterized the migration campaign". To supplement these first-person accounts, Abbott often published small features on successful blacks in Chicago. The African American mentalist Princess Mysteria had from 1920 to her death in 1930

2365-600: The lead story, headlined "NAACP Head Says Lynching of Schoolboy Laid[sic] to White Supremacy Drive in Miss." The fire at the Arkansas Negro Boys' Industrial School yielded an image so painful that L. C. Bates destroyed both the print and negative. Daisy Bates was later recognized as co-publisher of the paper. As the former president of the Arkansas State Conference of the NAACP , Daisy Bates

2420-493: The period when southern state legislatures passed new constitutions and laws to disenfranchise most blacks and exclude them from the political system. Legislatures dominated by conservative white Democrats established racial segregation and Jim Crow . Abbott openly blamed the lynching violence on the white mobs who were typically involved, forcing readers to accept that these crimes were "systematic and unremitting". The newspaper's intense focus on these injustices implicitly laid

2475-544: The population and published the book, The Negro in Chicago . Though some of his stepfather Sengstacke's relatives in Germany became Nazis in the 1930s and later, Abbott continued correspondence and economic aid to those who had accepted him and his father's family. He also assisted descendants of Captain Charles Stevens, the former owner of his enslaved birth father before emancipation. With his wealth, Abbott aided

2530-432: The publication in its new form. The Chicago Defender's editor and founder Robert Sengstacke Abbott played a major role in influencing the Great Migration of African Americans from the rural South to the urban North by means of strong, moralistic rhetoric in his editorials and political cartoons, the promotion of Chicago as a destination, and the advertisement of successful black individuals as inspiration for blacks in

2585-526: The school heads." Concerning the policy of academic desegregation, The State press cultivated a spirit of immediatism within the hearts of African American and white citizens. Opposite to gradual approach, this newspaper mainly wanted immediate reform in Arkansas' educational system. The State Press reported that the NAACP was the lead organizer in these protest events, and the newspaper also tended to enlarge national influence to let more people get involved in

2640-539: The time of World War I, became known as the Great Migration , in which 1.5 million blacks moved out of the rural South in early 20th century years up to 1940, and another 5 million left towns and rural areas from 1940 to 1970. Abbott used the Defender to promote Chicago as an attractive destination for southern blacks. Abbott presented Chicago as a promised-land with abundant jobs, as he included advertisements "clearly aimed at southerners," that called for massive numbers of workers wanted in factory positions. The Defender

2695-519: The war in Europe, which started in 1914. The Pennsylvania Railroad and others were expanding at a rapid rate across the North, needing workers for construction and later to serve the train passengers. The Defender told stories of earlier migrants to the North, giving hope to disenfranchised and oppressed people in the South of other ways to live. Abbott, through his writings in the Chicago Defender , expressed those stories and encouraged people to leave

2750-422: The writing talents of Langston Hughes ; from the 1940s through 1960s, Hughes wrote an opinion column for the paper. Washington, D.C., and international correspondent Ethel Payne , poet Gwendolyn Brooks , author Willard Motley , music critic Dave Peyton , journalists Ida B. Wells , L. Alex Wilson and Louis Lomax wrote for the paper at different times. During the height of the civil rights movement era, it

2805-409: Was prohibited . Their son, John, was born the next year. Tama died soon after their second child, a daughter, was born, and Herman took the children back to Germany to be raised by family. John Sengstacke cared for Robert as if he were his own, and with Flora Abbot had seven additional children. Robert was given the middle name Sengstacke to mark his belonging in the family. John Sengstacke had become

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2860-523: Was filled with advertisements for desirable commodities, beauty products and technological devices. Abbott's paper was the first black newspaper to incorporate a full entertainment section. Chicago was portrayed as a lively city where blacks commonly went to the theaters, ate out at fancy restaurants, attended sports events, including "cheering for the American Black Giants , black America's favorite baseball team", and could dance all night in

2915-591: Was founded in 1905 by Robert S. Abbott and was once considered the "most important" newspaper of its kind. Abbott's newspaper reported and campaigned against Jim Crow -era violence and urged black people in the American South to settle in the north in what became the Great Migration . Abbott worked out an informal distribution system with Pullman porters who surreptitiously (and sometimes against southern state laws and mores) took his paper by rail far beyond Chicago, especially to African American readers in

2970-574: Was involved deeply in desegregated events. Even though in 1954 the United States Supreme Court decision in Brown v. Board of Education made all the segregated schools illegal, the schools in Arkansas refused to enroll African American students. The Bateses editorialized, "We feel that the proper approach would be for the leaders among the Negro race—not clabber mouths, Uncle Toms, or grinning appeasers to get together and counsel with

3025-476: Was published as The Chicago Daily Defender , a daily newspaper, beginning in 1956. It became a weekly paper again in 2008. In 2019, its publisher, Real Times Media Inc., announced that the Defender would cease its print edition but continue as an online publication. The editorial board of the Chicago Tribune , observing the impact The Defender has had in its 114 years, praised the continuation of

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