Chicago was one of the most important sites of Black relocation.
According to its byline, the Chicago Defender, founded in May 1905 by Robert S. Abbott out of his landlord’s kitchen with an initial run of 300 copies and an investment of twenty-five cents, was one of the most influential Black newspapers in the world!
In its pages, Abbott actively promoted Black migration to Chicago, publishing accounts of the all too familiar racial atrocities Blacks faced in the South.
In 1910 the paper acquired its first full-time paid employee, J. Hockley Smiley, who was instrumental in helping
The Chicago Defender to attract a national audience and address issues of national scope (PBS). Perhaps the claim to world supremacy was exaggerated; nonetheless, the Chicago Defender was so influential White Southerners barred its official distribution, leaving Pullman Porters to facilitate its surreptitious distribution throughout the South. The Defender, like the Afro-American, was the voice of the migration and the source of hope for many who sought assistance in finding work, accommodation, and relatives should they move to the city. In this period, there were approximately fifty Black-owned newspapers in the country including the Los Angeles Sentinel, the Atlanta Daily World, the New York Amsterdam News, the Pittsburgh Courier, and the Norfolk Journal and Guide, with origin stories similar to that of The Chicago Defender. These weekly publications also served to acculturate new residents from the South. They supported the cultivation of Black communal identity across time and space.