Archive for July 2019

This week, the Chicago Defender, one of the most renowned black newspapers in America, will cease to produce a print edition. Though it will continue to publish online, the demise of the Defender as a physical object, a hundred and fourteen years after its founding, marks another sad milestone in the decline of print newspapers.…

In the spring of 2011, the brothers Melvin Davis and Licurtis Reels were the talk of Carteret County, on the central coast of North Carolina. Some people said that the brothers were righteous; others thought that they had lost their minds. That March, Melvin and Licurtis stood in court and refused to leave the land…

Last week, Hampton University stakeholders announced a new collaboration with USA Triathlon to add women’s triathlon to their roster of varsity sports. With this announcement, Hampton “becomes the first Historically Black College and University (HBCU) to participate in the sport on a varsity level, reports Hampton University News. Read more at Because of Them We Can.

For as long as she can remember, Hanna Wagari, a longtime resident of San Diego and the Director of Marketing for a multinational cosmetics company, has straightened her hair every time she’s had a job interview. “I feel that white people find me less intimidating and more likable when my hair is straight,” said Wagari,…

African Americans have long been punished for appearing in professional or academic settings while wearing their natural hair. In 2010, a Black woman in Alabama refused to cut her dreadlocks, and a job offer disappeared. Last December, a video of a Black high school wrestler who was forced get his dreadlocks cut off before a…

CHICAGO — Decade by decade, the newspaper told the story of black life in America. It took note of births and deaths, of graduations and weddings, of everything in between. Through eras of angst, its reporters dug into painful, dangerous stories, relaying grim details of lynchings, of clashes over school integration and of the shootings…

For nearly 115 years, the Chicago Defender has been a vital news source for African Americans in Chicago and beyond. At a time when Black voices were largely excluded from mainstream media platforms, the Defender covered both major events—the 1919 Chicago Race Riot, the murder of Emmett Till, the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr.—and the details of Black community…

After more than a century, the Chicago Defender, the iconic news outlet for African Americans in Chicago and beyond, printed its last copy. It will be continuing only as a digital operation. Watch on CBS Chicago.

CHICAGO — Wednesday’s edition of the Chicago Defender is the last one available in print. After more than a century as the main source of news for generations of black Chicagoans, the iconic Chicago newspaper will now only be available in digital form. “We grew up with the Defender,” said reader Lawrence Keenon. “It is…