Chicago Defender

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Journalism History 40:1 (Spring 2014)40

here is arguably a mythological narrative surrounding theChicago Defender , one of the largest and most influential African American1 newspapers in the United States. Te

poet Langston Hughes described the newspaper as “the journalisticvoice of a largely voiceless people.”2 In the 1920s the Defenderhad a paid circulation of 250,000 and was a must-read for many African Americans, especially in the Deep South.3 In that part ofthe country the paper was often banned from newsstands because of what historian Teodore Kornweibel called its “dangerous” demandsfor racial equality. 4 Historian James Grossman says the Defender would print incendiary editorials with a message such as, “Whenthe white fiends come to the door to kill you, shoot them down. When the white mob comes, take at least one with you.” Tose

were things, Grossman said, that an African American Southernnewspaper couldn’t write because the newspaper would get torchedor the editors would be run out of town. “But the Chicago Defender could say it and did,” Grossman wrote. “And so black Southernerscame to see the paper and its editor, Robert Abbott, as a man theycould trust.”5

Documentary filmmaker Stanley Nelson said any Southernreaders brave enough to be seen publicly reading the Defender inthe 1920s were often harassed by segregationists because of thepaper’s militant calls for civil rights. o get around this, copies ofthe Defender were carefully smuggled like contraband into placessuch as Birmingham, Alabama, carried by Pullman railroad portersand traveling musicians and distributed surreptitiously. Te paper

was then carefully parceled out and read in African Americanbarbershops, social clubs, and churches, and passed along from onereader to another.6

Despite these difficulties, it has been estimated that morethan two-thirds of the Defender’ s readers in the 1920s were in theDeep South. Te Defender played a major role in influencing theGreat Migration of African Americans from the rural South to theurban North from roughly 1915 to 1925.7 Tat’s partly because theDefender’ s founder and first editor, Robert S. Abbott, wrote manyeditorials urging African American Southerners to flee the South

Te Chicago Defender is one of the largest and most influential African American newspapers in the U.S. Some calledit radical and dangerous. Tat’s because as early as 1920 it demanded racial equality, particularly in the South, in jobs,housing and transportation and preached black empowerment and black self-reliance. Te paper published incendiaryeditorials with messages such as, “When the white fiends come to the door to kill you, shoot them down. When the whitemob comes, take at least one with you.” But did the Defender maintain this aggressive stance some forty years later, in1968, for instance, at a time when the civil rights movement was spreading across the country? o gain a true sense ofhistory one must study the lion in winter as well as in spring. Tus this research examines what editorial positions theDefender took in 1968 and how readers responded through letters to the editor.

BRIAN HORNON

Te “Dangerous” Chicago Defender A Study of the Newspaper’s Editorials and Letters to the Editor in 1968

BRIAN THORNTON is a professor in thedepartment of communication at the Uni-versity of North Florida.


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41 Journalism History 40:1 (Spring 2014)

“Within twenty years

Te Defender had a huge

circulation, one of the largest

for an African American

paper anywhere in the

country, caused in part by itseditorial mission, as espoused

by Abbott, to destroy

American race prejudice.”

and head North, “where there is more humanity, some justiceand fairness.”8 He also posted jobs available in Chicago, described working conditions there as being better than in the South, andeven arranged for cheap one-way train fares for those wishing toleave the South.9

In addition, the paper promoted the Great Migration throughletters to the editor—printing letters from people longing to leavethe South and those who successfully moved to big Northern cities

where they improved their lives.10 For example, a series of lettersin 1917 from readers in Louisiana, exas, ennessee, and Alabama,described how easy it was to get cheap transportation to the Northand how job opportunities there were somuch better. One letter warned, though,how “we have to whisper this aroundamong ourselves because the white folks areangry now because the Negroes are goingnorth.”11 In another letter in 1917, a readersaid she was a “girl of 17, in the 8 th gradeat Knox Elementary,” in Selma, Alabama, who was determined to get a job up North,because she couldn’t find work in herhometown and “on account of not havingmoney enough I had to stop school.” 12

here have already been a numberof excellent studies of the Defender in its early days,13 but this article

examines the editorial pages of the paper inits later years—the year 1968, to be exact. Tis date is an importanttime of transition for the country, the civil rights movement, andthe newspaper. o gain a true sense of history one must study thelion in winter as well as in its youthful spring. Tus this researchexamines what positions the paper took on its editorial pages in

1968 to put together a more complete history of the Defender . Abbott started the Defender in 1905. He began it as a four-page weekly produced with borrowed money and borrowed printingequipment set up in his landlady’s dining room. Initially the paper hadonly three hundred readers.14 But nonetheless Abbott immediatelyand modestly dubbed his paper “Te World’s Greatest Weekly.”15 Within twenty years Te Defender had a huge circulation, one ofthe largest for an African American paper anywhere in the country,caused in part by its editorial mission, as espoused by Abbott, todestroy American race prejudice.16 Te paper became a daily in 1956,at which point it described itself even more modestly in a bold, front-page banner headline as “Te World’s Greatest Daily.” Te Defender was one of the first African American newspapers to use sensational,

blood-red headlines in the style of yellow journalists such as WilliamRandolph Hearst. Te paper also used graphic and lurid images toexpose crimes against African Americans, especially in the South,and to denounce racism, lynchings and social inequalities.17

Te Defender ’s influence and importance was not limited to the1920s, however: In 1944 the Defender’s incessant needling forcedPresident Franklin Roosevelt to admit the first Negro reporter toa presidential news conference. Ten in 1948 the paper publishedmany editorials demanding the immediate integration of thearmed forces.18 President Harry ruman integrated the military

just a few months later.19 ruman then appointed Defender editor/publisher John Sengstacke (Abbott’s nephew and successor) to akey leadership role on a blue ribbon committee to assure that themilitary implemented a workable integration plan.20 In addition, inthe 1940s, Sengstacke created the National Newspaper Publishers Association, an organization formed to help unify owners of African American newspapers.21 Sengstacke served as association presidentseven times.22

Te Defender waged a decades-long editorial war throughthe 1940s, ’50s, and ’60s, to force big-city police departments insuch places as Washington D. C., Chicago, and New York to hire

more African Americans, especially African American women.23 Te Defender wageda similar decades-long editorial campaignon behalf of postal workers, starting in the1920s and continuing until the 1960s.24

In 1951 Sengstacke bought the ri-State Defender in Memphis. In the 1960she became even more influential when hebought Te Pittsburgh Courier . Tis addeddepth and breadth to his “Sengstackenewspaper chain,” which by then was madeup of four newspapers.25 Sengstacke usedall four papers throughout the early 1960sto editorialize that major league baseballneeded to hire more African Americans toachieve more than token integration.26

But what kind of editorial stance didthe Defender take in 1968, at the height of the Black Power/BlackPanther social phenomenon? Tis was an intense and particularlyimportant time of transitions. And for the paper the transitions were particularly difficult––with declining readership, shrinking adrevenues, staff turnovers and management problems.27 In the early

part of the decade Chicago’s black population was mostly confinedto the south side. Tose who track the history of the Defender say thisinformal segregation gave the paper a secure niche in the marketplaceand easy access to readers who lived in nearly all-African Americanenclaves, such as Bronzeville.28 But by 1968 some African Americans were leaving Chicago’s south side. At the same time young, white,upwardly mobile baby boomers were moving into all-African American areas––and ignoring the legendary African AmericanChicago Defender , which was geared to a different audience.

o make matters worse for the black press, the city’s two major white daily newspapers, the Chicago ribune and Sun-imes , weretrying to woo African American readers. o that end they, like other white papers, were hiring African American reporters and editors

away from the Defender . Violent civil unrest across the country in1968 had unexpected benefits for African American journalists. White newspapers and television producers wanted to learn what was causing riots in the African American communities, so manyhired African American reporters in large numbers for the first time.Phyllis Garland, a journalism professor at Columbia Universityin New York, said she knew many African American friends whomoved into mainstream journalism jobs in 1968. Tey could cite theparticular riot that led to their being hired. Riots led indirectly to ablack brain drain that was devastating, Garland says.29 And because


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“Te accumulation of

cataclysmic events in 1968

was so intense, that the term

‘’68ism’ was coined

to describe it.”

Echoes and parallels are not difficult to find between 1968and the present day. Ten, as now, journalists and newspapers ingeneral were accused of being biased and injecting their ideologyinto supposedly objective news stories. Ten, as now, there was agrowing gap between rich and poor. In addition, there was a culturaldivide between “law and order” pro-war, conservative Republicansand “peace-nik, flower power,” liberal Democrats.

Other similarities: on the surface it appeared in 1968 that

African Americans had made a great deal of progress toward equalrights. An African American was serving on the Supreme Court. African Americans were also being elected to Congress, and electedmayors of major cities. And an African American actor, Bill Cosby, was co-starringin one of the most highly rated adventureV shows, I Spy . Millions of whites and African Americans watched Cosby each week and saw a proud, African Americanman who was intelligent, highly educated, witty and urbane—just the opposite of thestereotypical African American roles oftenshown on V.

Yet despite signs of increasing racial advancement for African Americans, major problems remained. Poverty and unemploymentamong African Americans seemed almost insurmountable. In 1968,for example, 34 percent of African Americans lived below the povertylevel.49 Tere were additional racial problems with many schools anduniversities across the country. Many remained largely segregated. And many jobs suffered from an informal form of occupationalsegregation, as well: African American people were just not expectedto enter certain fields such as advanced medicine, law, and universityteaching.

Several researchers, including David Paul Nord50 and Karin Wahl-Jorgensen,51 have urged historians to capture the published

editorials and letters to the editor printed in newspapers over a longperiod of time, such as an entire year, especially during importanttransitional periods of history. Tis research builds on Nord’sand Wahl-Jorgensen’s theoretical and conceptual framework byexamining the Defender in the context of 1968.

Further, 1968 was a presidential election year and thus alogical choice for comments that reveal thoughts of the bodypolitic. It was also filled with seminal events, both dramatic

and traumatic. Te accumulation of cataclysmic events in 1968 was so intense, that the term “’68ism” was coined to describe it.52 Tere were great shifts in politics, and religion, for instance. (Time magazine just two years earlier had a cover story asking “Is God

Dead?”). Tere was also tumult in the arts, culture, politics, andeveryday life—and most relevant for the Defender, great shifts inracial attitudes.

It was the year men first circled the moon. Meanwhile thesitting U.S. president refused to run for re-election because theVietnam War was going so badly. Tousands of U.S. troops werebeing killed and injured in the war each week. In other overseasproblems, North Koreans captured an American war ship off Korean waters. Tey took eighty-three American crewman hostage for mostof the year and accused them of spying. At home, antiwar protests

shook the country. Students seized university buildings in protest atcolleges from coast to coast. Ten beloved baby doctor BenjaminSpock was accused of treason and conspiracy for urging violation ofdraft laws.53

Unrest seemed contagious. In Paris, France, five thousandstudents took to the streets early in the year and engaged inpitched battles with police who lobbed tear gas grenades, and thenadministered baton beatings. A few months later approximately

nine million French workers went on strike in support of the studentmovement. Poland had similar riots. And in Czechoslovakia there were even more disturbances as Czechs demanded freedom from

the Soviet Union––and the Soviet Unionresponded with 200,000 Warsaw pacttroops, determined to quash the so called“Prague Spring” movement.54

In addition, 1968 was the yearMartin Luther King Jr. was assassinated,as well as presidential candidate Robert F.Kennedy.55 King’s April 4 murder sparkedmore than one hundred race riots in bigcities across the country from Watts to New

York. Tirty-nine people were killed in the first forty-eight hours,thirty-five of them black.56 Riots broke out in Baltimore, Boston, Washington, D.C., Detroit, Chicago, and Los Angeles. In Chicagoalone, one thousand people were injured in the first day of rioting,twelve people were killed and one thousand were arrested. Morethan eight hundred fires were deliberately started.57 Rioting causedan estimated $50 million in damages nation-wide.58 o quell theinsurrection in Washington, D.C., 13,600 National Guard troopspatrolled the streets. But thousands of other National Guard troopsrolled into other cities in tanks and trucks across the entire countryas well, armed and ordered to shoot if necessary to stop rampantlooting, vandalism and arson.

Still more violence and rioting gained national attention againin 1968 when 10,000 protestors clashed with an estimated 12,000police and 7,000 National Guardsmen in Chicago at the DemocraticNational Convention at the end of August––and “a police riot”broke out. In that melee dozens of police viciously attacked antiwarprotestors with batons and tear gas. Police beat demonstrators andbystanders alike and sprayed them with tear gas and Mace. ear gasbillowed down the streets and wafted into the convention hall–– while V cameras recorded the chaos and protestors chanted, “the whole world is watching.”59 Te police violence reportedly shockedlarge portions of white, middle-class America. Tey watched on theirV screens as police attacked the citizenry, largely for exercising theirfirst amendment rights and speaking out against the war. Hillary

Clinton, for instance, who was to go on to become first lady andlater, secretary of state, and her childhood friend, Betsey Ebeling,recalled how “We saw kids our age getting their heads beaten in,” atthe ’68 convention. Te most searing lesson was the realization that“our government would do this to our own people,” Ebeling said. 60

Tis was also the year that the newly formed NationalOrganization for Women (NOW), targeted the sexism of a Miss America beauty contest in Atlantic City, New Jersey. Some womenthrew their bras into so called “freedom ash cans” as a symbol oftheir desire to throw off paternal restraint. And even though no bras


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were actually burned, the phrase “bra-burning” feminists was usedin a New York Times story that day and quickly became an anti-feminist catch-phrase.

Many prominent scholars assert that 1968 was the heydayof the counterculture.61 It was a time when the radicalleft was in full blossom,62 along with long hair, love

beads, and platform shoes.63 Te Summer of Love happened in

1967. Tat was when the media focused on an estimated 100,000hippies tuning in, turning on, and dropping out in such places asSan Francisco. Historian Bruce Schulman said this boisterous 1967minority began to blossom each year after that into a “garden ofmillions of flower people in the U.S.”64 Scholars Robert Harimanand John Lucaites wrote that in 1968 a growing number of U.S.citizens were recognizing that “their government was waging war without purpose, without legitimacy and without end.”65

Feminist author Ruth Rosen described 1968 as “arguably thestart of the most intellectually vital and exciting era for American women,” producing an amazing array of “changes in social, politicaland public thought and policy.”66 She wrote that women experiencedliberating changes, freeing themselves from their kitchens. HistorianBruce Schulman wrote that in 1968 clothing was outrageous, sexualbehavior was less restrained, and personal liberation trumped civility,decency, and restraint. He argues the changes were not simplycosmetic; they fundamentally “made over” the United States.67

Historian Dominic Sandbrook writes:

When conservatives rail against the legacy of the1960s, complaining about the collapse of discipline andthe family, the rise of crime, and the spread of pornography,they are often talking about things that actually peakedvery late in the 1960s.”68

Sociologist odd Gitlin describes the late 1960s as “a cyclonein a wind tunnel,” when a whirling dervish of revolution swept thecountry.69

Te year 1968 was the heyday of “Black Power,” a phrasecoined the year before by Black Panther leader Stokely Carmichael. Carmichael urged African American people to get guns and prepareto die fighting police in the streets.70 Black Power was a rallyingcry, synonymous with militancy, self-reliance, independence andnationalism.

Other changes were underway for African Americans in 1968.In Cleveland, Carl Stokes began serving as one of the first African American mayors of a major U.S. city. In another milestone, theSupreme Court had its first African American member, Turgood

Marshall, serving on the court. Meanwhile in April, PresidentLyndon Johnson signed the Civil Rights Act of 1968, prohibitingracial discrimination in housing. In addition, on November 5, 1968,Shirley Chisholm became the first African American woman to holda seat in the U. S. House of Representatives.

By 1968 John H. Sengstacke, Abbott’s nephew, was in chargeof the Defender ’s editorials pages. He was only twenty-eight when he became editor and publisher after Abbott died in

1940 of Bright’s disease, a kidney affliction. Sengstacke’s editorials

in 1968 often opposed any radical or counterculture advocates and

vehemently and consistently blasted the militant Black Panther party.Tus many people in 1968 would characterize his editorials overallthat year as conservative. Tose editorials often said the status quofor African Americans was good and improving steadily and wouldget better if African Americans would strive to improve themselves,get a better education, work harder, learn more discipline andself-control and heartily support their churches, families and localbusinesses.

An example of Sengstacke’s conservative editorials in theDefender occurred when the paper endorsed Richard Nixon forpresident a month before the 1968 election. Admittedly the paper’seditorial on October 15 concluded that Nixon “was the better oftwo evils”—the worse evil being George Wallace.71 Te editorialargued that concerned African American citizens should vote andspeak out against Wallace and do everything to keep him from beingelected, even if that meant voting for Nixon.

Te Defender also took a conservative stance against African Americans forming their own nation within the U.S.—a proposalendorsed at a National Conference on Black Power attended byseveral thousand people in Philadelphia. Te conference was held to“decide if our society can be saved by reform, revolt or revolution,”the editorial explained. But “the American establishment can betransformed without revolution,” the Defender editorial asserted. And one official recommendation of the conference, calling for“the creation of a new nation, free, separate and independent for

black people,” is not necessary, not feasible and “an impracticalhypothesis.” Instead the “black community can generate self-help,” within the “enclaves to which the black masses are already confined.”Te editorial said:

Negroes already have a stake in the land whichtheir forefathers tilled and in whose defense countlessgenerations of black men have shed their blood. Tose who believe American society is not beyond redemptionshould not be denied the right to dream of a better world.

CHICAGO DEFENDER Jan. 1, 1968, to Dec. 31, 1968

Major themes Letters EditorialsCrackdown on crime 20 28

Jobs/economy 13 30Voting rights 8 17

Black power/Black Panthers 4 18 African history/discovering roots 4 12Need for education 12 23Racial stereotypes 15 18Police misconduct 25 41Law and order 5 20MLK Jr. murder 2 8Other 175 180

*Many editorials were written about a single topic––for eample, the open-

ing of a new black hospital––and never touched again on that topic. As

there was no repeating pattern, such editorials were labeled “other.”

*


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But why were there only

two letters published in

the Defender about King’s

death? It remains a mystery.”

King Jr. In direct opposition was the black power movement, with“a completely different thesis, in which separation of the races isadvocated as a means of acquiring freedom and power throughisolation,” the editorial said.

But, the editorial warned, a black state within a state “isimpracticable and unworkable.” Instead there should be anevolution that combines “economic self-sufficiency,” “in the contextof integration.” Te editorial concluded, “the black man cannot have

both integration and segregation at the same time. One negates theother.” Black people needed to “acquire a decisive voice in politicalmatters”82 while “pursuing integration and equality, ” the editorialstated.

o balance the paper’s views, were thereany editorials in the Defender in 1968 thatcould be labeled as liberal? A handful, butnot many. For example, on October 11 aneditorial challenged the status quo whenit wrote that “Negro history should be arequired subject of study in high school,”and schools across the country should change their curriculumimmediately to accomplish this. “Not only should Negroes knowtheir own history,” the editorial continued, “but white people needto know something about the black man’s past.”83

Another liberal editorial was published November 26 when theDefender wrote that the government could take the wind out of the sailsof black militants, many of whom seemed to be fomenting “a bloodyblack revolution of the worst kind,” by simply taking steps to make sure“the Negro attains his full citizenship.” Te incoming Nixonadministration could influence “how militant or how subdued theblack power movement is in the days ahead,” in the type of socialprograms for racial justice it propose, the editorial warned.84 Tisis liberal in the sense that it indicates that government can solve aproblem and not be the source of a problem as was believed by some

conservatives at the time.

How did readers respond to the Defender’ s editorials in 1968?Especially reacting to the paper’s more conservative views,calling for the death penalty for teen killers, for instance,

or endorsing Nixon? Readers didn’t respond much that year tospecific editorials written by the Defender , at least not in publishedletters to the editor––in a whole year only thirty-five letters, out of atotal of 281, directly addressed editorials in the Defender , or a littlefewer than three letters per month. Most letters were unrelated toDefender editorials. Te majority of the letters, 175, or roughly 62percent, consisted of readers mentioning an upcoming event they wanted to publicize, such as a bake sale, or thanking someone for a

service or job, or voicing random complaints about problems with alocal business or service.85

An example of this “trouble letter” was a missive from Mrs.Marilyn C. Cartiero of Chicago, who wrote May 9 to say she hadgood service recently while having surgery at Provident Hospitalon Chicago’s South side. But the hospital equipment was old andoutdated, she said. “Can black power come together and save thishospital?” she asked. “Can’t we support what is ours?”86

A few letters spoke directly about racial issues raised on theDefender ’s editorial pages. But most letters did not refer to specific

editorials. Instead they often mentioned recent news stories. Forexample, A.L. Foster, a former leader of the Chicago Urban Leagueand head of the Cosmopolitan Chamber of Commerce, wrote aletter March 28 attacking community activist Jesse Jackson. Jackson was quoted in theDefender saying that, “a new order is going to reignin the African American community and white principals and whitecontractors must go.” Foster wrote that “after fighting vigorously forcomplete integration for years, I am unwilling to accept Jackson’s

theory of complete separation of the races.” Instead, Foster wrote,the future is better served by “cooperative efforts [among all races],rather than pitting black against white.”87

April was a surprising month forletters to the editor in the Defender ––since one might expect an outpouringof letters in response to Martin LutherKing Jr.’s murder, especially since manyother African American newspapersprinted scores of letters of letters reactingto the assassination.88 But no letters were

published on the subject in the Defender that month. Tat maymean no letters about King’s murder were sent to the paper, whichseems unlikely. Or perhaps editor Sengstacke wanted to give spaceon the editorial page on this subject to his presumably well-reasonededitorials, rather than emotional outpourings from amateur writers.Or maybe he received angry letters he feared might incite still moreviolence, following days of non-stop rioting. When dealing withhistorical artifacts there are always some unanswerable questions.

In total, for the whole year, only two letters commented onKing’s slaying, one in May, and another in June. Tat first letter, May4, was from “A West Side resident,” who wrote that for a short whilethe nation was shocked by King’s death. But then race relations wentback to being bad once again. “If white people don’t start treating black Americans like human beings [every day], there will never be any peace

for black or white in this country,”89

the West Side resident concluded. Another letter, published June 15, discussed how big cities exploded with violence after King’s murder––and police responded with evenmore violence, making matters worse. “When police hit people, asthey often do, they create a climate of disrespect for the law,”90 wroteRoy J. Brown in June.

But why were there only two letters published in the Defender about King’s death? It remains a mystery. Te author attempted tocontact any retired editorial writers from the Defender from 1968to ask about why so few letters were published about King’s death.But Sengstacke died in 1997 at the age of ninety-four and no othereditorial writers from that period could be found.

It is equally hard to explain why some months the Defender

had a very high number of published letters and some just a few.But in December, for example, fifty-two letters were published,most expressing complaints about a local service or expressingthanks. Tere was one notable exception: Pancho Hall wrote a letterDecember 19, responding, he said, to a news story about differencesbetween skin tones. Hall wrote that some people considered darkerskin better. But he said “the color of a person’s skin has nothing to do with anything. I believe that as long as a person acts like a brother,he should be treated equal to everyone else.” Hall said black-skinnedand light-skinned African Americans need to stop “splitting our own


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race in two,” with one group thinking it was better.”91

A few letters to the editor mirrored some conservative viewsexpressed on the Defender’ s editorial pages, but again, most letters were not in response to any specific Defender editorials—andgenerally did not mention the editorials. For example, C.C. Mosely wrote in July, just a few weeks after King and Robert Kennedy wereboth killed by gunmen, that “more gun control laws are just stupid.Criminals can always buy or steal guns.” Mosely wrote that the courts

must severely punish criminals who commit crimes with guns––andthe Supreme Court should stop interfering in death penalty casesbecause killers must be killed. Mosely did not refer specifically tothe Defender’ s editorial support of the death penalty back in April.Instead he ended his letter by warning that gun ownership should beeasier for the average person because “with all the riots and troublebrewing in this country, the people may need firearms very badly inthe near future to protect their families and homes.”92

A reader who identified himself as a lawyer, Minor K. Wilson, wrote a conservative letter in September, in which he said the mediaportrayed Chicago in a false light during the Democratic Conventionin Chicago. “Despite all the negative publicity,” three facts emerge“to which all Chicago citizens can point with pride,” Wilson wrote. One, he said, was that only one person was seriously hurt, apatrolman hit in the face with a brick. (And he was recovering withthe help of plastic surgery.) wo, all those arrested were immediatelybrought before a judge and given a hearing. And they “were out onbond within a matter of hours.” And finally, “preparations are beingmade to furnish free legal counsel to every indigent person arrested”in connection with the Democratic convention. Wilson concludedthat “Chicago citizens can truthfully say we not only have law andorder in Chicago, but law and order with justice.”93

On December 26 one letter specifically cited a Defender editorial published in October––and made a point of taking a strongstand against it. Gloria A. Lewis of Chicago argued that the two

militant athletes who gave the black power salute at the Olympicgames in Mexico City were brave and heroic. And she asserted theDefender should not criticize them. “Since when are commercialevents such as the Olympics more sacrosanct than the strugglefor human dignity?”Lewis asked. “In my opinion, any occasion,sacrosanct or not, is the proper place to demonstrate our convictionsand our desire for something beyond that which the United States sogrudgingly permits us. Te only fault with what happened in MexicoCity is that the rest of the black athletes did not do the same.” TeDefender asked in its October 21 editorial what the black powersalute meant at the Olympics. And Lewis replied in her Decemberletter: “It means keep your puny little bribes. We [black people] areafter a grander prize”94than Olympic medals,” she wrote.

he findings presented here demonstrate that rather thanprinting only “dangerous” editorials that urged African American revolution and/or separatism, the Defender ’s

editorial page in 1968 sang a generally nuanced song, more often inthe key of conservativism. It could modulate in many different keys,however, sometimes soothing, other times harsh, and still othertimes neutral. In most instances when Defender editorials tilted tothe right, as when the paper supported the death penalty, especiallyurging the state to kill convicted teen murderers, even though many

of those killers were African American. And that rightward tilt wasevidenced again by urging African Americans to vote for Nixon.

Another example of the Defender ’s right-wing tilt, for instance,occurred when the paper’s editorials repeatedly attacked African American militants such as Eldridge Cleaver and H. Rap Brownfor urging violence and separatism. And then the Defender furtherattacked four Olympic athletes offering black power salutes in medalceremonies. And rather than blame poverty and discrimination and

a lack of jobs for teen violence, the paper blamed African Americanfamilies for not taking enough responsibility. Te Defender urgedchurches and fraternities and social clubs to all help raise the nextgeneration. Te Defender ’s editorials from 1968 often soundedsimilar to the current message espoused by comedian Bill Cosby:that African American self-empowerment can only come fromeducation, discipline, and better parenting.95

It is not difficult to imagine most of the editorials published inthe Defender that year as being easily accepted and published on thepages of the conservative Wall Street Journal . Te overall editorialmessage to readers of the Defender in 1968 was that they shouldbuckle down, get the best education possible, and then work hardand they would succeed, despite racial prejudice.

It is important when seeking reasons for the Defender ’sconservative editorials in 1968 to remember that Sengstacke wasa businessman, first and foremost. He was trained by Abbott, alsoa consummate businessman. And Abbott’s push for the GreatMigration was inspired in part by a desire for more readers and moresubscribers. According to the work of historian Earnest L. Perry Jr.,both Abbott and Sengstacke presented sensational crime news in theDefender mainly because such yellow journalism sold more papersand hooked readers. Perry has shown that the Defender ’s foundingeditors did not particularly care that their yellow journalismcoverage of crime created an unfortunate profile of the African American community.96 History also shows yellow journalism was

a moneymaker: Abbott became the first African American man tobecome a millionaire as a publisher of a newspaper. Both Abbottand his nephew became famous for enjoying the trappings of wealth—for example, a gold-headed cane, grand tours of Europe,and a Dusenberg convertible and Rolls-Royce limousine.97 MaybeSengstacke’s comfortable position of power, fame and wealth playeda role in keeping him from supporting the Black Panthers and otherblack radicals. Tere may also be something to the theory that manyso-called radical publications start out wild and wooly in their earlydays and then grow mellow as they get older and more established.Tis is a theory worth testing in future research.

In stark contrast, it is much harder to get one overarchingsingle message from examining published letters to the editor in the

Defender in 1968. As mentioned previously, most letters were generalcomplaints about poor services or were messages about upcomingevents or thanks for various community services. It is worth notingthat timeliness did not seem to be an issue in the letters since oftena letter would refer to something that happened several monthsearlier. But it is not clear, however, if the letters arrived at the paperlong after an event, or if the paper simply took its time in publishingthem.

o its credit, however, the Defender in 1968 accepted andpublished at least a few letters that strongly disagreed with its


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editorials. And these letters took the Defender’s editors and reportersto task for mistakes and faults in logic. So the paper was open toreader criticism and published that criticism.

his research offers primary source material from the Defender that indicates the country’s leading African Americannewspaper took a wide variety of editorial stances in 1968,

many of them conservative, but many also contradictory. So, too,

did its readers, sometimes urging the abolition of gun control laws,for instance, then saying rioting cops at the Democratic Convention were not too bad, while at the same time demanding justice, freedomfrom police repression, support for blackpower saluters and equal rights for all. Teeditorial page of the Defender in 1968, withits varying points of view in its editorialsand letters, can confound those who wantto neatly label it simply as a dangerouspublication.

Why are these findings important?First off, this research offers primarysource material directly from the pages ofthe Defender in 1968. And this is no smallaccomplishment. Because, like it or not, itis difficult to find, read and study completepress runs of many African Americannewspapers for any given year. Some blackcommunity leaders and historians areslowly trying to change this by recoveringold copies of newspapers wherever they can find them. But it is avery slow process.

Whether by intent, racial bias, or simple neglect, somehistorically important African American newspapers, such asthe Defender , have not been generally maintained and carefully

catalogued in historical collections around the country that arereadily available for public loan and careful study. Some librarieshave bits and pieces of a collection of parts of particular African American newspapers, but are missing months at a time. Otherpartial collections of a particular newspaper are hoarded awayunder lock and key in special collection sections of libraries and notavailable for copying and in-depth analysis. Still other newspaper“morgues,” or collections of back issues, have been lost over time when new owners of African American newspapers have gotten intosquabbles with previous owners and suddenly all the back issueshave disappeared. As a result, many African American newspapers,including the Defender, were not and still are not readily availablefor thorough study for a year’s uninterrupted press run at a time.

o get a complete year’s worth of the Defender for this research,for example, required ordering the paper from three differentlibrary collections and comparing them. Where one library mightbe missing the March 1 edition, the other would have it. It wasdefinitely a cobbling together process. By reading, analyzing andsummarizing a year’s worth of the Chicago Defender ’s editorial pagesthis research provides new knowledge––readers can find out whatSengstacke actually published that year and not rely on memoriesand second-hand recollections. One can see here the actions (andpublished words) of the lion (the Chicago Defender ) in winter, not

just in its youthful days. Another significance of this research is that it is a longitudinal

study, which is research over a given period of time, similar to onedone by the New York Times in 2001 called “How Race Is Lived in America.”98 Te fifteen-part series in the Times was the work of adozen reporters who conducted interviews across the country overthe span of a year. Te project won a Pulitzer Prize. Supporters saidthe paper’s coverage of day-to-day exchanges between races was long

overdue and invaluable.99 At the start of the series the Times ’ editors wrote that “race

relations are defined today less by political action than by dailylife, in schools, in sports arenas, in popculture and at worship, and especially in the workplace.” Tat is why the editor’s notesaid the paper decided to spend so muchtime and effort examining race relations asseen in people’s daily existence at work andat play over an entire year.100

Te series needs to be seen in alarger historical context: Tere is anotherlargely untapped historical record thattells people’s personal stories about racein their own words and in their dailyexistence over the course of a year, andlonger—published letters to the editor in African American newspapers across thecountry, as well as editorials printed dailyor weekly. Individuals concerned with how

some newspaper readers have expressed their views about race in America and the role journalism has played in telling their story canstudy the historical record of editorial pages from earlier times. Insuch published letters and editorials a researcher can find a treasuretrove of editors’ and readers’ remarks about their daily experiences

involving race.Te research in this article examined the largely unexploredrecord of race relations at a critical time in the nation’shistory—1968—by studying editorials and letters to the editor thatappeared in the Chicago Defender that year.

Nearly any period in history can potentially yield interestingdiscussions by revealing published editorials and letters. But ashistorian Lloyd Chiasson writes, the press plays a particularlyimportant role in times of crisis. “In times of normalcy the pressseems most adept at accomplishing its tasks of informing, educatingand persuading,” Chiasson wrote. But the press’s role becomes evenmore important and critical when the environment in which thepress functions becomes volatile, he said.101 Te year studied here,

1968, was a critical time of transition. In keeping with Chiasson’sobservations, this research explored race relations when the nation’ssocial, spiritual, and cultural fabric seemed to be unraveling.

Langston Hughes wrote that the Defender inspired him whenhe was a child: “Its flaming headlines and indignant editorials did agreat deal to make me the race man that I later became.” He added,“Tousands and thousands of other young Negroes were, I amsure, also affected the same way by this militant and strongly editedChicago paper.”102 But the reality is that the Defender was not frozenin time with only one message, like a butterfly trapped in amber.

“It is important when

seeking reasons for the

Defender’s conservative

editorials in 1968 to

remember that Sengstacke

was a businessman, first and foremost. He was trained by

Abbott, also a consummate

businessman.”


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Instead it was a living, breathing, evolving organism. It was complexand complicated and changeable, especially in changing times.

A Chicago Defender that called for the death penalty for young African American hoodlums in 1968 and derided the Black Panthersand black power salutes at the Olympics may conflict with somepeople’s memories of what the paper stood for. Tis apparent conflictcan be explained by examining Owens’ 2007 assertion that humanunderstanding is a fusion of many narratives blended to create a

mythic structure. (She examined the mythic paradigm in connection with Martin Luther King Jr. as an example of myth making in amodern setting.) Tere may be a similar blurring of myth and realityin the perceived image of the Chicago Defender in 1968.

NOTES

1 Te term African American is used in most cases throughout this paper, except

when dealing with quotes, although that terminology was not in general use in 1968.

Instead “Black,” and “Afro-American” and even “Negro,” were more commonly usedthen.

2 Christopher C. De Santis, Langston Hughes and the Chicago Defender,(Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1995), 13.

3 Dirk Johnson, “Te Chicago Defender,” New York imes, May 27, 2009.4 Teodore Kornweibel Jr., “Te Most Dangerous of All Negro Journals: Federal

Efforts to Suppress the Chicago Defender During World War I,” American Journalism 11:2 (Spring 1994), 257-69.

5 Quoted by Stanley Nelson, producer/director, in Te Black Press: Soldierswithout Swords (San Francisco: California Newsreel, 1998), videocassette. Also see

James R. Grossman, Land of Hope: Chicago, Black Southerners, and the Great Migration (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1989), 172; and A Chance to Make Good: African-Americans, 1900-1929 (New York: Oxford University Press, 1997), 150.

6 Nelson, Te Black Press .7 Alan D. DeSantis, “Selling the American Dream Myth to Black Southerners,

Te Chicago Defender and the Great Migration of 1915-1919,” Western Journal ofCommunication, 62, (4) (Fall 1988), 474-511.

8 Roi Ottley, Te Lonely Warrior: Te Life and imes of Robert S. Abbott (Chicago:Henry Regnery Co., 1955), 160.

9 Ibid., 15.10 See Davarian Baldwin, Chicago’s New Negroes: Modernity, the Great Migration,

& Black Urban Life (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina, 2007), 38-9; andCarole Marks, Farewell, We’re Good and Gone: Te Great Black Migration (Chicago:University of Chicago Press, 1989), 35-44.

11 Signed “A Reader,” from Lutcher, Louisiana, Journal of Negro History , vol.IV, 1919, 20.

12 Ibid.13 See, for example, the previously mentioned work of Alan D. DeSantis,

Kornweibel, Ottley, and Nelson.14 Brent Staples, “Citizen Sengstacke,” New York imes Magazine , Jan. 4, 1998.15 Grossman, Land of Hope , 172.16 Felicia G. Jones Ross and Joseph P. McKerns, “Depression in ‘Te Promised

Land’: Te Chicago Defender Discourages Migration, 1929-1940,” American Journalism 21, no. 1 (Winter 2004): 55-73.

17 Karen E. Pride, “Chicago Defender Celebrates 100 Years in Business,” ChicagoDefender , May 5, 2005.

18

Earnest L. Perry Jr., “A Common Purpose: Te Negro Newspaper Publishers Association’s Fight for Equality During World War II,” American Journalism 19, no.2 (Spring 2002): 31-43.

19 “President ruman Wipes Out Segregation in Armed Forces,” ChicagoDefender , July 26, 1948; Harry S. ruman, “Executive Order 9980,” July 26, 1948,University of California, American Presidency Project , http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/

ws/print.php?pid=78208, accessed Feb. 7, 2014.20 Alan D. DeSantis, “A Forgotten Leader: Robert S. Abbott and the Chicago

Defender from 1910-1920,” Journalism History 23, no. 1 (Spring 1997): 64.21 Earnest L. Perry Jr. , Voice of Consciousness: Te Negro Newspaper Publishers

Association During World War II , (PhD diss., University of Missouri-Columbia,1998), 1-22.

22 DeSantis, “Selling the American Dream,” 475.23 Megan M. Everett, “Extra! Extra! racing the Chicago Defender ’s Campaign

for African American Policewomen in the Early 20th Century,” Explorations: AnUndergraduate Research Journal , (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2009), 26.

24 A.L. Glenn Sr., History of the National Alliance of Postal Employees, 1913-1955 (Cleveland: Cadillac Press Co., 1957), 25.

25 Jasmin K. Williams, “Te Mouthpiece of 14 Million People, Dubbed the

Black Hearst,” New York Amsterdam News , April 18, 2013.26 John N. Ingham, and Lynne B. Feldman, African-American Business Leaders ,

(Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 1994), 18.27 Lolly Bowean, “Chicago Defender Goes Back to Bronzeville,” Chicago

Defender , May 27, 2009.28 Ibid.29 Quoted by Nelson in Te Black Press .30 Adam Green, Selling the Race: Culture, Community, and Black Chicago

(Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2007), 201.31 Te words liberal and conservative have different meanings in different

times, and exact definitions are hard to come by. But in 1968 if a person supportedpresidential candidates Eugene McCarthy or Robert Kennedy, for instance, both

progressive Democrats, then one would probably be labeled a liberal. Conversely,

those who supported Richard Nixon and wanted to maintain the status quo and

spoke passionately about the need for law and order would be labeled conservative.32 Brian Tornton and Bill Cassidy, “Black Newspapers in 1968 Offer Panthers

Little Support,” Newspaper Research Journal , 29, no. 1 (Winter 2008): 303-20.33 “Negro Republicans,” Chicago Defender , July 9, 1968.34 Charles A. Simmons, Te African-American Press: A History of News Coverage

During National Crisis with Special Reference to Four Black Newspapers, 1827-1965(Jefferson, N.C.: McFarland & Co. 1998), 165.

35 Ibid.36 Nelson, Te Black Press .37 Including the previously mentioned Ottley, Lonely Warrior ; and Myiti

Sengstacke Rice, Te Chicago Defender (Mount Pleasant, S.C.: Arcadia Publishing,2012). Also see Kornweibel, “Te Most Dangerous,” 168; Ella . Strother, “Te Black

Image in the Chicago Defender , 1905-1975,” Journalism History 4, no. 4 (Fall 1977-78): 137-41, 156; Mary E. Stovall, “Te Chicago Defender in the Progressive Era,”Illinois Historical Journal 83 (Fall, 1990): 162; and Charlesetta Maria Ellis, “RobertS. Abbott’s Response to Education for African Americans via the Chicago Defender ,1909-1940,” (PhD diss., Loyola University of Chicago, 1994).

38 Renee Romano and Raiford Lee, eds., Te Civil Rights Movement in American Memory (Athens: University of Georgia Press, 2006).

39

Kristen Hoerl, “Mississippi’s Social ransformation in Public Memories of therial Against Byron de la Beckwith for the Murder of Medgar Evers,” Western Journalof Communication 72, no. 1 (January-March 2008): 62-82.

40 Brian Tornton, “Pleading Teir Own Cause: Letters to the Editor and

Editorials in 10 African-American Newspapers in 1929-1930,” Journalism History 32, no. 3 (Fall 2006): 168-79.

41 W. Joseph Campbell, Te Year Tat Defined American Journalism: 1897 andthe Clash of Paradigms (New York: Routledge, 2006), xix.

42 David G. McCullough, 1776 (New York: Simon and Schuster, 2005).43 William A. Klingaman, 1929: Te Year of the Great Crash (New York: Harper

& Row, 1989).44 Louis P. Masur, 1831, Year of the Eclipse (New York: Hill and Wang, 2001).45 Kenneth M. Stampp, America in 1857: A Nation on the Brink (New York:

Oxford University Press, 1990).46 om Lutz, American Nervousness, 1903: An Anecdotal History (Ithaca, N.Y.:

Cornell University Press, 1990).47 Margaret Olwen Macmillan, Paris 1919: Six Months Tat Changed the World (New York: Random House, 2002).

48 Campbell, 1897 , xix.49 Lawrence D. Bobo, “Are Black Americans Screwed?” Te Root , March 5,

2013, 23.50 David Paul Nord, “Reading the Newspaper: Strategies and Politics of Reader

Response: Chicago, 1912-1917,” Journal of Communication 45 no. 3 (Summer1995): 66–93.

51 Karin Wahl-Jorgensen, Journalists and the Public: Newsroom Culture, Letters tothe Editor and Democracy (Cresskill, N.J.: Hampton Press, 2007), 4, 5.

52 Philip Jenkins, Decade of Nightmares: Te End of the Sixties and the Making of


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Eighties America (Oxford, U.K.: Oxford University Press, 2006), 3. Te term “68ism”

is used extensively in a recent best-selling novel by Kurt Andersen, rue Believers (New York: Random House, 2012).

53 Tomas Maier, Dr. Spock: An American Life (New York: Harcourt Brace,

1998)..98.54 ieren Williams, Te Prague Spring and Its Aftermath: Czechoslovak Politics,

1968–1970 (Cambridge, U.K.: Cambridge University Press, 1997), 67.55 See Mark Kurlansky, 1968: Te Year Tat Rocked the World (New York:

Ballantine Books, 2006), 112.56 Clay Risen, A Nation on Fire: America in the Wake of the King Assassination

(Hoboken, N.J.: John Wiley & Sons), 12.57 Denise Kersten Wills, “People Were Out of Control: Remembering the 1968

Riots,” Washingtonian, April 1, 2008, B1.58 Jonathan Bean, “Burn, Baby, Burn: Small Business in the Urban Riots of the

1960s,” Te Independent Review 5, no. 2 (Fall 2000): 165–87.59

odd Gitlin, Te Whole World Is Watching: Mass Media in the Making and

Unmaking of the New Left (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1980).60 Carl Bernstein, A Woman in Charge: Te Life of Hillary Rodham Clinton (New

York: Vintage Books, 2008), 63-70; and Gail Sheehy, Hillary’s Choice , New York:Random House, 1999), 54.

61 See Mark Ray Schmidt, ed., Te 1970s (San Diego: Green Haven Press,

2000), 241.62 Peter N. Carroll, It Seemed like Nothing Happened: America in the 1970s (New

Brunswick: Rutgers University Press, 1982), x.63 Bruce J. Schulman, Te Seventies: Te Great Shift in American Culture, Society

and Politics (New York: Te Free Press, 2001), 16.64 Ibid., 14.65 Robert Hariman and John Lucaites, “Public Identity and Collective Memory

in U.S. Iconic Photography: Te Image of Accidental Napalm,” Critical Studies in

Mass Communication 20, no. 1 (March 2003): 35–66.66 Edward D. Berkowitz, Something Happened: A Political and Cultural Overview

of the Seventies (New York: Columbia University Press, 2006), 5, 6.67 Schulman, Te Seventies, xvi.68 Dominick Sandbrook, Mad as Hell: Te Crisis of the 1970s and the Rise of the

Populist Right (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2011), xi.69 odd Gitlin, Te Sixties: Years of Hope, Days of Rage (New York; London:

Bantam, 1993), 242.70 Joshua Bloom and Waldo E. Martin Jr., Black against Empire: Te History and

Politics of the Black Panther Party (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2013),

118. Also see “Carmichael Urges Arms for Negroes,” Jackson Daily News , April 5,

1968.71 “Black Clergy’s Advice,” Chicago Defender , Oct. 15, 1968.72 “Black Nation for Blacks,” Chicago Defender , Sept. 5, 1968.73 “Olympic Black Power,” Chicago Defender , Oct. 21, 1968.74 “End Juvenile Crime,” Chicago Defender , April 30, 1968.

75 Te official title of the Commission was the National Advisory Committee on

Civil Disorders. See Tomas J. Hrach, “An Incitement to Riot,” Journalism History ,37, no. 3 (Fall 2011): 164.

76 “Riot Panel ells the ruth,” Chicago Defender , March 5, 1968.77 “Te Kerner Panel,” Chicago Defender , March 11, 1968.78 “Tey Bury Him oday,” Chicago Defender , April 9, 1968.79 “A Man of Peace,” Chicago Defender ,” April 10, 1968.80 “Free at Last,” Chicago Defender , April 11, 1968.81 “Te Revolting Students,” Chicago Defender , May 6, 1968.82 “What Do We Want,” Chicago Defender , Nov. 25, 1968.83 “eaching Black History,” Chicago Defender , Oct. 11, 1968.84 “Black Power Advocates,” Chicago Defender , Nov.26, 1968.85 For purposes of this research these letters were labeled “other,” since they did

not fit into one single or repeating category.86 “Help Provident: Black Power Job,” Chicago Defender , May 9, 1968.87 “Separatism Foe,” Chicago Defender , March 28, 1968.88 See the New York Amsterdam News , April 1968, with dozens of letters about

King printed along with the Los Angeles Sentinel .89 “ime for Sorrow,” Chicago Defender , May 4, 1968.90 “Law and Order,” Chicago Defender , June 15 1968.91 “Light Negroes Want Equality,” Chicago Defender , Dec. 19, 1968.92 “Gun Law Foe,” Chicago Defender , July 16, 1968.93 “Point of Pride,” Chicago Defender , Sept. 23, 1968.94 “Black Power at Olympics,” Chicago Defender , Dec. 26, 1968.95 Mary Mitchell, “Cosby Gave It to Us Straight,” Chicago Sun-imes , June 3,

2004.96Earnest L. Perry Jr., “‘o Plead Our Cause’ and Make a Profit: Te Competitive

Environment of the African American Press,” paper presented at the annual meetingof the Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication, Chicago,

Aug. 9, 2012.97 Former Defender reporter Vernon Jarrett was quoted as saying Abbott and

his nephew loved many trapping of wealth, especially their fancy cars, even though Abbott never drove and Sengstacke rarely did. See Nelson, Te Black Press .

98 “How Race Is Lived in America,” New York imes , June 4-7, July 3-23, and

July 19, 2000. Eventually the series was reprinted as a book, How Race Is Lived in America: Pulling ogether, Pulling Apart (New York: Henry Holt and Co., imes

Books), 2001.99 David L. Johnson, book review, Curled Up with a Good Book , http://www.

curledup.com/howrace.htm, accessed Feb. 7, 2014.100 Editor’s Note, “How Race Is Lived in America,” New York imes , June 4,

2001.101 Lloyd Chiasson Jr., Te Press in imes of Crisis (Westport, Conn.: Praeger,

1995), iii.102 Christopher C. De Santis, Langston Hughes and the Chicago Defender, 14.


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C o p y r i g h t o f J o u r n a l i s m H i s t o r y i s t h e p r o p e r t y o f E . W . S c r i p p s S c h o o l o f J o u r n a l i s m a n d i t s

c o n t e n t m a y n o t b e c o p i e d o r e m a i l e d t o m u l t i p l e s i t e s o r p o s t e d t o a l i s t s e r v w i t h o u t t h e

c o p y r i g h t h o l d e r ' s e x p r e s s w r i t t e n p e r m i s s i o n . H o w e v e r , u s e r s m a y p r i n t , d o w n l o a d , o r e m a i l

a r t i c l e s f o r i n d i v i d u a l u s e .

Documents

Chicago Defender