Abbott, Robert Sengstacke (1868-1940), was an African American journalist. He founded the Chicago Defender, which became one of the largest and most influential Black newspapers in the United States.
Under Abbott’s leadership, the Defender encouraged Black people in the Southern United States to move to the industrial states of the North. Beginning in the 1910’s and continuing after World War I (1914-1918), hundreds of thousands of Black people moved to the North in search of better job opportunities. Abbott’s editorials demanded full equality for African Americans.
Abbott was born on Nov. 28, 1868, on St. Simon’s Island, Georgia. His parents had been enslaved. He learned the printing trade at his stepfather’s newspaper, the Woodville (Georgia) Times, and later at Hampton Institute (now Hampton University) in Virginia. Abbott put himself through Kent Law School (now Chicago-Kent College of Law) by working as a printer. He graduated in 1899 and then began practicing law. But he decided he could better serve African Americans by publishing a newspaper. He founded the Chicago Defender, a weekly newspaper, in 1905. Abbott died in Chicago, Illinois, on Feb. 29, 1940.
John H. H. Sengstacke, Abbott’s nephew and heir, assumed editorial control of the Defender following his uncle’s death. In 1956, the Defender became a daily newspaper. Sengstacke built a large chain of Black newspapers around the Defender.
