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Coverage: 1909 to 1975
Provides full page and article images (PDF) with searchable full-text of The Chicago Defender, one of the most influential black newspapers in the United States. Robert Sengstacke Abbott founded The Defender in May 1905, and by the outbreak of the First World War, it had become the most widely-read black newspaper in the country, with more than two thirds of its readership based outside Chicago. When Abbott died in 1940, his nephew John Sengstacke became editor and publisher of The Defender, which began publishing on a daily basis in 1956. The first full-text issue presented here is from January 1, 1910, as earlier issues have not been found. The newspaper was instrumental in the Great Migration of the early twentieth century, in publicizing the lynchings in the southern states, and in its use of political cartoons to highlight race issues.
