Robert Abbot
Robert Abbott
(November 24, 1868 – February 29, 1940)[1] was an American lawyer, newspaper editor, and publisher. He founded The Chicago Defender, the most influential Black American newspaper at the time. It became the most widely circulated Black newspaper in the country.
Early life
Abbott was born on November 24, 1868, in Frederica, Saint Simons, Georgia (although some sources say he was born in Savannah, Georgia[2]).
He studied printing at Hampton Institute (now Hampton University), a historically black college in Virginia.[2] He graduated from Kent College of Law, a law school (now Chicago–Kent College of Law at the Illinois Institute of Technology) in Chicago, 1899.
The Chicago Defender
In 1905 Abbott founded The Chicago Defender, a newspaper which defended the rights of Black Americans, and became known as "America's Black Newspaper". It printed editorials that attacked white oppression and the lynching of Black Americans. The editorials were popular among Black Americans in the Southern United States.
The Defender's positive reporting on opportunities for Black Americans in the Northern states played a part in making many Black Southerners move North during the Great Migration.
Abbott was editor of the The Chicago Defender until he died on February 29, 1940, in Chicago.
References
- ↑ PBS.ORG – Robert Sengstacke Abbott
- ↑ 2.0 2.1 Yenser, Thomas, ed. (1933). Who's Who in Colored America: A Biographical Dictionary of Notable Living Persons of African Descent in America 1930-1931-1932 (Third ed.). Brooklyn, New York: Who's Who in Colored America. p. 1.
Other websites
- Robert Abbott, Encyclopædia Britannica for Kids.
- Robert Abbot at Find a Grave
- PBS: Robert Sengstacke Abbott
- PBS: The Chicago Defender
- Pablo J. Davis, "Robert S. Abbott," New Georgia Encyclopedia Archived 2012-10-12 at the Wayback Machine
- Robert Sengstacke Abbott Boyhood Home: Founder of the Chicago Defender historical marker