by: Dr. Clint Wilson
It was ironic -- yet fitting somehow -- that the very morning a new national organization for Black newspaper publishers was being created in Chicago, word was received that the greatest publisher of them all had died just a few miles away. He was Robert S. Abbott, founder and publisher of The Chicago Defender.
His nephew, John Sengstacke, had convened the top African-American publishers from around the nation to see about “harmonizing our energies in a common purpose for the benefit of Negro journalism.”
Soon after the first morning session of the new Negro Newspaper Publishers Association convention was gaveled to order, the members drafted a resolution of condolences to Abbott’s widow and adjourned in his memory until 1:30 p.m. Abbott’s early morning death prevented his own paper from carrying the story until the following week and by then it was the major story in Black journals everywhere. The California Eagle story of March 7, 1940 began as follows:
CHI MAYOR IN TRIBUTE TO ABBOTT Hold Final Rites for Editor Chicago Defender Editor’s Death a Shock to Country
CHICAGO, Mar. 7 – In a church filled with notables from every walk of life, funeral services were held Monday for Robert Sengstacke Abbott, pioneer Chicago journalist, who for 35 years guided the columns of the world’s best known Negro newspaper, The Chicago Defender.
No church in Chicago would have been large enough to hold the crowds which sought entrance. Although Abbott was a lifelong Presbyterian, a member of the Grace Presbyterian church here, relatives chose a larger church, one which he had especially loved, the Metropolitan Community church in the heart of Chicago’s great southside. It was packed to capacity and crowds thronged the ...
1939 – First Black Oscar Winner While Black America mourned the death of Robert Abbott, it was able to take pride in the announcement that Hattie McDaniel had become its first Oscar winner for her role in the classic movie “Gone With The Wind.” ...
1962 – Wilt “The Stilt” Scores 100 Points The sports world was abuzz with the news that Wilt Chamberlain had set a new National Basketball Association record when he scored 100 points in a game against the New York Knicks on March 2.
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