The Negro in Illinois: The WPA Papers

22. Defender

22. Defender The black press was to play a central role in the history of African Americans in Illinois. Before the establishment of The Negro in Illinois, Horace Cayton supervised a study of the black press, plans for which included a ten-chapter book. Much of the work was carried out by black journalist Henry N. Bacon. This material was folded into a forty-eight-page chapter Arna Bontemps wrote in 1941 under the heading “Newspapers.” This draft was significantly condensed for an essay titled “Defender,” which appears here. Copies of the chapter are in Jack Conroy’s papers at Newberry Library and Bontemps’s papers at Syracuse University. A copy of this essay was also sent to Chicago Defender editor Lucius Harper with a letter from Bontemps asking him to review it. The envelope it was sent in was marked “Federal Works Agency” with the address of Bontemps’s office, 4901 Ellis Avenue, and dated May 11, 1942. It was discovered in the Abbott-Sengstacke papers when they were given to the Harsh Research Collection in 2009. Although focusing heavily on the Defender, it is a more recent draft and was therefore chosen as the final version of the chapter on African American newspapers. Among the out-of-town visitors to the African Congress held in conjunction with the 1893 World’s Columbian Exposition was Robert Sengstacke Abbott, almost age 23, principally known as the tenor of the Hampton Quartette, which frequently toured the country. The young man listened to Frederick Douglass’s address, “What I Know about Field Slavery,” and heard Ida B. Wells, already famous for her anti-lynching crusade throughout the United States and England, tell of the destruction of her Memphis newspaper, Free Speech, at the hands of a mob. Abbott also was interested in journalism, and had been learning the printer’s trade at Hampton Institute, Virginia. Abbott enjoyed his World’s Fair visit, and in 1897 returned to Chicago with the intention of staying. He was a fully qualified printer, but found that printing firms were reluctant to hire a Negro. He picked up odd jobs and his trade, and took up the study of law in night classes at Kent College of Law, where his closest friend and counselor was Harry Dean, subsequently a sea captain and adventurer. Dean has recounted his somewhat astounding experience in a book, The Pedro Corino, written in collaboration with Sterling North. Dolinar_Text.indd 183 3/14/13 9:59 AM 184 Chapter twenty-two John R. Marshall (later Colonel Marshall of the Eighth Illinois Infantry), a Hampton graduate, was a Chicago brickmason, and to him Abbott brought a letter of recommendation from General Samuel C.Armstrong, founder of Hampton and at that time its principal. Marshall’s circle of acquaintances was large, and included many persons of prominence and authority. The young printer-lawyer benefitted from his association with the popular brickmason, who for years encouraged and actively assisted him in the pursuit of his ambitions.1 Edward H. Morris, possibly Chicago’s most successful Negro attorney of the period, told Abbott bluntly that he was “a little too dark to make any impressions on the court in Chicago,” and advised a debut in a smaller town. The beginner displayed his most hopeful shingle in nearby Gary, Indiana, but it was almost totally ignored by the citizens of that steel-making community. Giving up his attempt to practice law, Abbott fell back upon his intermittent printing jobs. But he had another idea. The evening of May 6, 1905, found him peddling on the street and from door to door copies of a four-page paper, the Chicago Defender, bearing an arrogant sub-title, “The World’s Greatest Weekly.” The publisher was also editor, business manager, and the entire staff. The editorial desk doubled as a kitchen table in the apartment of Mrs. Henrietta P. Lee on South State Street. Mrs. Lee also proffered the use of her telephone, and the Western Newspaper Union, a printing company specializing in small country weeklies, was persuaded to extend as much as $25 credit. Abbott seldom was able to pay the full amount of the bill at once, but was forced to take out a portion of the edition, sell it, and then return with the proceeds to bail out the remaining copies held in escrow by the printer. Abbott’s friend Marshall had introduced him to a foreman in the Chicago Tribune engraving plant who arranged a month’s...