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Journalist gives audience scoop on black media

Ethan Michaeli, pictured here, is the author of “The Defender.” (Photo courtesy of Kevin Nance/Chicago Tribune)

David Rudderham
Connector Editor

What would be the solution if it was your job to distribute a newspaper that defends black rights and culture at a time where the south was still under segregation laws? The answer: use the mail system.

That is what happened to “The Chicago Defender,” a newspaper founded by Robert Abbott in 1905 with the intent of giving a voice to African Americans. They put their newspapers in a brown paper bag and mailed it to subscribers who paid for it. The white south, as much as they hated the paper, did not want to disrupt the order of the U.S. mail delivery system.

Ethan Michaeli, a be-speckled journalist who wrote “The Defender,” a book about the famed Chicago newspaper, has been touring college campuses to talk about what happened at that historical newspaper all those years ago. Michaeli visited our campus just last week.

He began his speech at the 1893 World’s fair, a historical event for science, the future of America and for African-Americans. The infamous Fredrick Douglass attended the affair.

“Frederick Douglass was 75 years old at the time or the World’s Fair,” says Michaeli. According to the author Douglass used the event to find “an entire generation of activists preparing for the civil rights struggle.” The founder of “The Chicago Defender” was at the World’s Fair and a member of that generation.

Over the years the southern states fought hard to politically dismantle rights for blacks in America, most notably in the Jim Crow laws.

“The white rulers did not like this situation and incrementally reduced their rights,” says Michaeli.

However, activists, both black and white, organized and fought back over the years.

“The African American population had doubled. Activists in Chicago had created, not the strongest African American political unit, but the strongest political unit period,” says Michaeli.

Counties in the south fought back against newspapers like “The Chicago Defender” that greatly benefitted and in many ways helped cultivate this activism and they banned them from towns, prohibited sales, etc. However, subscribers sent in money for the mailed copy of the newspaper as well as others with a similar format and message.

“He (Robert Abbott) didn’t support the Great Migration until he saw that the migration was hurting the economy in the south,” says Michaeli.

The newspaper continued to fight for their message and legitimized black culture. They also hired Earl Calloway for their entertainment editor.

Calloway was the newspaper’s link to many historical acts including the Jackson Five. Black actors, athletes, and musicians were a common feature in the newspaper underneath John Songstacke, the successor to Robert Abbott.

Unfortunately, like most newspapers in the modern world, “The Chicago Defender” does not have as large of an audience and print numbers it once had, but it does continue to publish.

When asked by an audience member where black political activism had gone in the modern era, Michaeli said, “The gradual decline of print journalism shows that a lot of it has shifted to online. It’s certainly still there just not as much in print.”

And of course print journalism still exists in some regard as Michaeli just published a book that “took 6 years to write after [he] got the contract.”

The event Michaeli spoke at was sponsored by the Center for Race and Ethnicity, the History Department at UMass Lowell and Bob Forrant.

And don not be misled into thinking that the speaker, because he was talking about very important parts of U.S. history, was somehow devoid of humor throughout the event.

While recalling a story about how he was called by Michael Jackson, a seemingly impossible occurrence to most people who would be skeptical of the high pitched voice on the other end of the line, Michaeli said “Later when Janet Jackson called, I was much more prepared and courteous.”

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