The Defender
How the Legendary Black Newspaper Changed America
About the book
Ethan Michaeli's history of the Chicago Defender follows a newspaper that attacked Jim Crow, helped drive the Great Migration and concentrated the voting power of black America. Robert S. Abbott launched the paper in 1905 and had hundreds of thousands of copies smuggled into the segregated South; he was called a Modern Moses and became one of the first black millionaires. His successor used the paper's influence to help elect mayors and presidents, among them Harry S. Truman and John F. Kennedy, and Langston Hughes, Martin Luther King and Ida B. Wells wrote columns for it. Built on dozens of interviews and extensive archival work, the narrative runs from the era of Teddy Roosevelt to that of Barack Obama.
Jonathan Alter called it a major work of American history, and StoryCorps founder Dave Isay praised Michaeli as an original force in Chicago media.
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This book has 2 recommendations
Dave Isay (Founder/StoryCorps)
Just as the Defender has broken important journalistic ground time and again in its' storied history, author Ethan Michaeli is an original and intrepid force in Chicago media, having devoted his life to elevating and celebrating the silenced voices of Chicago's public housing projects. Michaeli on the Defender is an unbeatable combination.
Jonathan Alter (Author)
This is a major work of American history -- the compelling and richly-researched story of the legendary newspaper and the astonishing collection of history-makers whose lives are forever intertwined.
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