Writers of the Black Chicago Renaissance

John Sengstacke

John sengstacke (1912–1997) Jamal eric Watson In chronicling the history of the African American press in the United States, John Sengstacke emerges as one of the nation’s most powerful African American newspaper publishers. In 1940, at the ripe age of 27, the young Sengstacke gained national notoriety when he became the second publisher of the Chicago Defender, arguably one of the most recognized black newspapers in the country. Founded in 1905 by Sengstacke’s uncle, Robert Sengstacke Abbott, the Chicago Defender quickly emerged as a powerful voice in articulating the widespread oppression that African Americans throughout the nation faced. It also served as a creative outlet for hundreds of African American writers and artists who gathered in Chicago to hone their creative talents during what has come to be known as the Black Chicago Renaissance. From 1932 through 1950, Chicago’s black community witnessed, and participated in, important creative developments in literature, art, music, social science, and journalism that affected not only the literary world but the broader community through its social and political content and commitment. The Chicago Defender was one of a handful of newspapers that provided African Americans in Chicago and elsewhere with a platform to challenge forcefully legal segregation and the mistreatment of African Americans. As a result, Sengstacke became an important figure in the civil rights movement and a shaper of public opinion, including the opinions of those writers whose works exemplified the spirit of the Black Chicago Renaissance. Long before Sengstacke became publisher of the Chicago Defender, it was clear that he was being groomed for a life in the newspaper industry. Born in Savannah, Georgia, on May 12, 1912, he graduated from Brick Junior College and later attended Hampton Institute, a historically black college in Virginia that was eventually renamed Hampton University. As a child, Sengstacke was solely responsible for soliciting ads and laying out the news pages for the Woodville Times, a weekly newspaper that was founded by his grandfather, John H. H. Sengstacke, and later run by his father, Alexander Sengstacke. It was there that he learned the inner workings of the business, though he admitted frankly John sengstacke • 291 back then that he was not “too keen” on the newspaper business. However, he was singled out anyway by his uncle, Robert S. Abbott, who was the publisher of the Chicago Defender, and trained as Abbott’s successor. In fact, Abbott was so personally impressed by Sengstacke’s talent that he financed his nephew’s education at Hampton Institute, where he graduated in 1934. He also subsidized his studies at the Mergenthaler Linotype School, The Chicago School of Printing , Northwestern University, and Ohio State University. In 1934, Sengstacke became vice president and general manager of The Robert S. Abbott Publishing Company, and when his uncle died in 1940, he inherited the paper and became the company’s second president and publisher. Almost immediately, Sengstacke had to restructure the newspaper’s business operation. Though Abbott had acquired a massive personal fortune as publisher of the paper, the Chicago Defender was nearly bankrupt when Sengstacke took control after Abbott’s death. But over time, Sengstacke eventually nursed it back to profitability and presided over the paper’s circulation boom. Clearly, Sengstacke had big shoes to fill, and he understood the responsibilities that accompanied running the country’s largest black newspaper. Under his uncle’s leadership, the Chicago Defender had gained a national readership that extended far beyond Chicago. The paper’s decision to become a champion of the Great Black Migration was single-handedly responsible for the influx of thousands of black southerners into Chicago from southern states like Mississippi , North Carolina, and Alabama. Beginning in World War I, Abbott used his newspaper as a platform to encourage southerners to come north. He forcefully argued that the destiny of Black Americans was inextricably linked to the North, where factories were desperate for workers. The Chicago Defender printed the one-way train schedules from cities in the South to Chicago and blacks responded favorably. Some white southerners, however, were not so happy with the tenor and tone of the newspaper, and a number of African Americans report that the Defender had to be read and distributed covertly in parts of the South where its equal rights message and encouragement to migrate north was considered an affront to southern values and economy, as well as a danger to the moral and social fabric of the country as a whole. In just a few...