Media and culture THE ONCE AND FUTURE CHICAGO DEFENDER
The trustee has been ousted by the heirs of the late owner, and Analysis by Laura S. Washington When it comes to Chicago politics, the African-American press plays by its own set of rules. The black media of the '90s, in fact, are truer to the early, precorporate days of American journalism, when "advocacy" wasn't a dirty word and newspapers feverishly crusaded for causes and freely cultivated politicians. Their philosophy: What's good for "our people" is good for the paper. And for a time, no one did it better than John Sengstacke and his Chicago Defender, the nation's largest black daily. But the Defender has since forgotten its legacy and has dealt itself out of the game. It happened long before owner and editor John Sengstacke died last May at 84. He inherited the legacy from his uncle, Defender founder Robert Abbott. The clout of Abbott's Defender helped spur The Great Migration, the phenomenon that lured tens of thousands of blacks from the impoverished, Jim Crow South to northern metropolises with exhortations of jobs and opportunity. Founded in 1905, the Defender is one of 350 black newspapers in the nation, and one of only two, including the Atlanta Daily World, that are dailies. The pioneers, launched in the early 19th century, protested slavery and were backed by black abolitionists. Their circulation peaked during World War II, when they led the charge against southern lynchings, discrimination and segregation. Today's Defender is 50 years past its prime. Its quality has slipped and its circulation — at least 160,000 nationwide in the 1940s — has plummeted to about 20,000 in a metro area with 1.5 million African Americans. Veteran crusading journalists like Vernon Jarrett still can't believe it. Jarrett was a Great Migration baby. The young man from Paris, Tenn., landed in Chicago in 1946 and Sengstacke hired him as a reporter. "The Defender was crucial in terms of black people's conception of themselves," says Jarrett, a black history buff who later wrote political columns at both the Chicago Tribune and the Chicago Sun-Times. In the white media, blacks were invisible. "We didn't get married, didn't have babies. We didn't die," he adds. The Defender told their stories. The Defender was the Freedom Train of its time, and Sengstacke was the engineer. As an adviser to President Harry S. Truman, he helped convince Truman to desegregate the military. He persuaded President Franklin D. Roosevelt to admit the first black correspondent to White House briefings. And in 1955 his support helped elect Chicago's "boss," Richard J. Daley, mayor. But when the progressive movement emerged in the 1970s, Sengstacke's paper stuck with the Democratic Machine — though what black activists called "the plantation" was fading fast. His close relationship with the Daley family endured through the son, current Mayor Richard M. Daley, to the end. And the crusading paper was off stage for the crusade that elected Harold Washington as Chicago's first black mayor — Sengstacke did not play a major role in the 1983 campaign. "The Chicago Defender blew it on the great triumph of our time," Jarrett says. During "Council Wars," Washington took a beating from the downtown press. But the Defender frustrated him most, friends recall. Washington's press office would slip scoops to the Defender, often to no avail. Meanwhile, his opposition worked overtime feeding reporters dirt on Washington — with great success. "The Defender during those years didn't support the mayor. ... All he was asking was that the free black press give him fair treatment," recalls the Rev. B. Herbert Martin, Washington's pastor and adviser. In February 1986, after a Defender editorial attacked Washington's policies, Martin had had enough. He lugged a heavy-duty tow truck chain to the Defender'?, South Side headquarters, he recalls, and affixed himself to a granite post at the front door, vowing to remain until Sengstacke repented. Washington supporters picketed the paper. Sengstacke threatened to arrest Martin for trespassing. The media, of course, went wild. When 32 / April 1998 Illinois Issues Sengstacke surrendered 36 hours later and promised fair coverage, the Defender proclaimed on its front page, "We are Family," over a photo of Martin and Sengstacke joining hands. Did the coverage change? "No," says Martin. What was Sengstacke's beef? Friends speculate this complex, ironwilled newspaperman felt Washington should have been more deferential. We'll never know for sure. After Sengstacke's death, his family and The Northern Trust Co. fell out over his will. The bank, which Sengstacke named trustee of his estate, argues he wanted to sell the Defender to benefit his grandchildren. His heirs say the patriarch wanted the paper to remain family owned and run. Black activists are siding with the latter, and in early March the family fired Northern. With threats of a boycott in the air, the bank was probably glad to go. The paper remains in limbo. But no one in the black community is writing off the Defender. They can't afford to. Voter participation has dropped to record lows, as many African Americans turn off to news they can't use. They hunger for stories "about us" — the kind of talk they hear in barber shops and on black radio — that still get short shrift in other media. Elected officials still take care to include the paper in their ad budgets, and PR pros advise their clients that getting a photo in the Defender is golden. Black politicians regularly ring up longtime City Hall reporter Chinta Strausberg. And while most reporters at other papers would never admit it, the smart ones scour the Defender daily for leads. Black Chicagoans are ready for a new crusade. And if the Defender can revive its legacy, it can play the game its way — and win. Laura S. Washington is editor and publisher of The Chicago Reporter, published by the Community Renewal Society, and a contributing columnist for the Chicago Tribune. From 1985 to 1987 she served as deputy press secretary to Mayor Harold Washington. Illinois Issues April 1998 / 33 |
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