The Defender: How the Legendary Black Newspaper Changed America - Hardcover

Michaeli, Ethan

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0547560699 ISBN 13: 9780547560694

Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2016

Synopsis

“An extraordinary history...Deeply researched, elegantly written...a towering achievement that will not be soon forgotten.” —Brent Staples, New York Times Book Review

NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY 
The New York Times Book Review · The Washington Post · Amazon

Giving voice to the voiceless, the Chicago Defender condemned Jim Crow, catalyzed the Great Migration, and focused the electoral power of black America. Robert S. Abbott founded The Defender in 1905, smuggled hundreds of thousands of copies into the most isolated communities in the segregated South, and was dubbed a "Modern Moses," becoming one of the first black millionaires in the process. His successor wielded the newspaper’s clout to elect mayors and presidents, including Harry S. Truman and John F. Kennedy, who would have lost in 1960 if not for TheDefender’s support. Along the way, its pages were filled with columns by legends like Ida B. Wells, Langston Hughes, and Martin Luther King.

Drawing on dozens of interviews and extensive archival research, Ethan Michaeli constructs a revelatory narrative of race in America and brings to life the reporters who braved lynch mobs and policemen’s clubs to do their jobs, from the age of Teddy Roosevelt to the age of Barack Obama.

About this title

From the Back Cover

Praise for The Defender
 
“Ethan Michaeli’s The Defender is a rich, majestic, sweeping history, both of a newspaper and of a people. In these pages, Michaeli captures the degradation and exhilaration of black America in the twentieth century, and driving this story are a handful of men and women infused with incredible courage and a deep faith in journalism’s power to seek justice.” — Alex Kotlowitz, author of There Are No Children Here.
 
“Ethan Michaeli has recreated The Defender’s remarkable history — and reminded us of the power of the press at its courageous best.” — Kevin Boyle, author of Arc of Justice: A Saga of Race, Civil Rights, and Murder in the Jazz Age
 
“Meticulously researched, engagingly written, Michaeli’s landmark history of this storied institution, which has served at key moments as lens, interpreter, catalyst or voice for blacks’ full citizenship rights, will become an essential resource in African American cultural and political studies.” — Carol Anderson, professor of African American Studies at Emory University, author of White Rage
 
“The story of The Chicago Defender is one of the great untold stories of black America — if not the great story. At every crucial juncture, from the northern migration, to Pullman strikes to civil rights right up to Barack Obama, The Defender was there chronicling, advocating and building an entire civic, political and intellectual universe.” — Chris Hayes, author of Twilight of the Elites
 
“Ethan Michaeli’s compelling book represents social history at its finest.The Defender explores America’s long struggle with race through the unique lens of an essential and underappreciated Chicago newspaper at the center of it all.” — David Maraniss, author of Once in a Great City: A Detroit Story
 
“With meticulous attention to detail and in immensely readable prose, Ethan Michaeli tells The Chicago Defender’s story and, through it, that of African Americans in the twentieth century. It is a masterful work that goes a long way toward explaining why we are where we are now.” — Jessica B. Harris, professor of English, Queens College, CUNY, and author of High on the Hog

From the Inside Flap

“This is a major work of American history — the compelling and richly researched story of the legendary African American newspaper and the astonishing collection of history-makers whose lives are forever intertwined.” — Jonathan Alter, author of The Center Holds: Obama and His Enemies
 
Giving voice to the voiceless, TheChicago Defender condemned Jim Crow, catalyzed the Great Migration, and focused the electoral power of black America. Robert S. Abbott founded The Defender in 1905, smuggled hundreds of thousands of copies into the most isolated communities in the segregated South, and was dubbed a “Modern Moses,” becoming one of the first black millionaires in the process. His successor wielded the newspaper’s clout to elect mayors and presidents, including Harry S. Truman and John F. Kennedy, who would have lost in 1960 if not for TheDefender’s support. Along the way, its pages were filled with columns by legends like Ida B. Wells, Langston Hughes, and Martin Luther King Jr.

Drawing on dozens of interviews and extensive archival research, Ethan Michaeli constructs a revelatory narrative of race in America and brings to life the reporters who braved lynch mobs and policemen’s clubs to do their jobs, from the age of Teddy Roosevelt to the age of Barack Obama.

About this edition

• Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
• Publication date: 2016
• ISBN 10: 0547560699
• ISBN 13: 9780547560694
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 656