Newsprint rolls through the rollers of a large rotary newspaper press in a dark industrial printing hall.

Robert Sengstacke Abbott: Founder of the Chicago Defender

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On January 6, 1917, The Chicago Defender ran a headline directed far beyond its home city: “Millions to Leave South.” The newspaper urged Black Southerners to consider opportunities in the North while reporting on the violence and discrimination they faced in the South.

Its founder, Robert S. Abbott, had started the paper in 1905 with 25 cents in available capital and borrowed money for printing. By 1917, railroad workers and other travelers were carrying the Defender into communities well beyond Chicago. The rise of that network—and the people who built it—became central to both Abbott’s publishing career and the newspaper’s public influence.

A Quick Look at the Life of Robert S. Abbott

Biography Summary

Robert Sengstacke Abbott was a Georgia-born newspaper founder, editor, and publisher. Trained in printing and law, he built The Chicago Defender into an influential African American newspaper that challenged segregation and encouraged northern migration. Abbott also served on Chicago’s Commission on Race Relations and prepared his nephew John H. Sengstacke for leadership before his death in 1940.

Profile

Full Name: Robert Sengstacke Abbott

Common Name: Robert S. Abbott

Born: Generally dated to 1868; some accounts give 1870, and the exact birthday is disputed

Birthplace: Frederica, St. Simons Island, Georgia

Died: February 29, 1940, in Chicago, Illinois

Education: Hampton Institute; Kent College of Law, Chicago

Major Roles: Newspaper founder, editor, and publisher

Best Known For: Founding The Chicago Defender in 1905 and promoting Black civil rights and migration through its pages

Major Organization: The Chicago Defender

A Georgia Childhood Near Education and Printing

Robert Sengstacke Abbott was born at Frederica on Georgia’s St. Simons Island, probably in 1868. Both of his parents, Thomas Abbott and Flora Butler Abbott, had experienced enslavement. His father died while Robert was an infant, and his mother later married the Rev. John Henry Hermann Sengstacke in 1874.

Sengstacke was a Congregationalist minister, educator, and publisher of a small newspaper, the Woodville Times. As the family lived in the Savannah area, teaching, religious work, and printing were part of Abbott’s early surroundings. The family resided at the Pilgrim Congregational Church parsonage in Savannah during much of the period from 1878 to 1889.

Abbott also apprenticed with the Savannah Echo, gaining early experience in newspaper printing. He would continue that training at Hampton Institute before attempting a career in law.

Printing Training, a Law Degree, and a Change in Direction

At Hampton Institute in Virginia, Abbott studied the mechanics of printing and completed his education by 1896. He also sang in the Hampton Quartet. He subsequently pursued law at Kent College of Law in Chicago, earning a degree in the late 1890s.

Despite earning a law degree, Abbott encountered racial discrimination and difficulty finding opportunities in legal practice. He ultimately turned toward publishing, drawing on the printing skills he had already acquired. His first newspaper would begin on a much smaller scale than the national enterprise it became.

The Chicago Defender Begins With Little Capital

Abbott issued the first four-page edition of The Chicago Defender on May 6, 1905. The initial publication was small, with approximately 300 copies printed. The often-repeated figure of 25 cents referred to the money he had as starting capital, not the cost of printing the first edition. An early printing bill was $13.75, largely covered by borrowing.

In the newspaper’s first years, Abbott took on writing, production, and sales work himself, including selling copies door to door. The paper covered Black community life, achievement, discrimination, and racial violence, including lynching. It developed an assertive editorial voice rather than limiting itself to routine neighborhood news.

Early financial trouble forced Abbott to leave a rented office. His landlady, Henrietta Lee, offered space in her home, including the kitchen and dining room, where the newspaper could continue operating.

Abbott could not keep producing and selling the paper alone as its ambitions grew. Contributors, paid staff, and an unconventional distribution network helped the small Chicago venture find readers elsewhere.

How the Defender Reached Readers Across the Country

Early contributors included lawyer Louis B. Anderson and businessman Julius Avendorph, who worked without pay. Around 1910, J. Hockley Smiley became the paper’s first paid employee. Smiley helped develop informal distribution, while promoter Roscoe Conkling Simmons extended the publication’s visibility. Abbott also sought reports on mob violence from Ida B. Wells-Barnett.

Reaching the South posed particular difficulties because some distributors and officials resisted the newspaper. Pullman porters and other railroad workers carried copies on their journeys; entertainers and other travelers helped as well. A single copy could reach additional readers through sharing or public readings.

The result was a readership extending through Southern communities and Northern cities. By 1916, the Defender reached dozens of cities and towns, with writers, staff, distributors, and readers all contributing to its expansion.

The growing readership supported a substantial business. By 1921, the company employed about 70 people, and its printing plant was valued at nearly $500,000. Abbott became one of the early African American self-made millionaires. Commercial success brought its own tensions, however: the paper’s forceful advocacy against racial injustice did not always sit easily alongside the need to attract advertisers.

The Great Migration Campaign and Its Wider Influence

The Defender used its growing network to challenge conditions facing Black people in the Jim Crow South. Alongside reporting on discrimination and violence, it described opportunities in Northern cities and published information relevant to those considering relocation. Its audience included readers already participating in, or weighing, a much broader movement.

On October 7, 1916, an editorial titled “Farewell, Dixie Land” advocated leaving places where Black citizens were denied equal treatment. The following January brought the headline “Millions to Leave South.” The newspaper also promoted a “Great Northern Drive,” highlighting May 15, 1917, as a campaign date. That date was a publicity focus, not the date on which a single mass departure occurred.

Railway distribution helped those messages reach Southern readers despite resistance to the newspaper’s circulation. The Defender was an influential participant in the Great Migration, but the movement had many causes and was already underway. The paper both encouraged migration and responded to it.

Its advice went beyond where people might live. Guidance on dress and public behavior expressed ideas about racial uplift and respectability that historians have also scrutinized. The paper could press for greater freedom while urging its readers to meet particular standards of conduct.

Chicago’s 1919 Racial Violence Tests the Northern Promise

The opportunities of the North did not mean an end to racial violence. In July and August 1919, Chicago was shaken by violence following the drowning of Black teenager Eugene Williams after racist aggression at a segregated lakefront. The Defender covered the crisis, including in its August 2 edition.

Abbott initially supported protests over Williams’s death and later issued appeals for restraint during the violence. His public role also expanded through an official appointment: in August 1919, Illinois Governor Frank O. Lowden named him to the Chicago Commission on Race Relations. Abbott served as one of its six Black commissioners.

The violence also disrupted the newspaper’s operations. An outside printer, fearing attacks by mobs, stopped producing the Defender. The interruption showed how vulnerable the paper was while it relied on another business to print its issues.

In November 1919, Abbott bought a headquarters at 3435–3437 Indiana Avenue and invested in a high-speed press. The purchase gave the Defender more control over its production.

The commission Abbott joined in 1919 published its investigation in 1922 as The Negro in Chicago.

Civic Initiatives, Public Disagreements, and Wider Influence

Abbott opposed segregation, but he disagreed with some other approaches to Black political advancement. He challenged Marcus Garvey’s separatist and nationalist program, and in 1923 joined other public figures urging federal prosecution of Garvey on mail-fraud charges. His call for prosecution was a political stance, not proof of Garvey’s guilt.

His civic commitments extended to organizations such as the Chicago Urban League and Wabash Avenue YMCA, as well as Hampton alumni activities. He also tried to address racial separation within religious life. In September 1922, the Defender announced a campaign inviting Black readers to visit white churches, known as Go-to-a-White-Church Sunday.

Historian William Stell interprets the campaign as an attempt at interracial religious contact shaped partly by expectations of respectable public behavior. It did not become a regularly repeated initiative. Those expectations also appeared in the Defender‘s advice to newcomers in Northern cities.

Abbott moved through several Christian affiliations and publicly affiliated with the Baháʼí faith in 1934. He also criticized religious institutions’ responses to racism.

Abbott’s influence also extended beyond publishing and organized civic work. Aviator Bessie Coleman approached him for advice after facing racial and gender barriers at American flight schools. He encouraged her to study French and seek training in France; the Defender later supported public awareness of her aviation work.

The Bud Billiken Parade and a Short-Lived Magazine

The Defender also developed initiatives not confined to hard news or migration advocacy. In 1921, it introduced a children’s section called Defender Junior featuring Bud Billiken. Abbott worked with staff members, including Lucius Harper and Dave Kellum, in the development of an annual newspaper-sponsored parade. The first Bud Billiken Parade and Picnic was held in 1929. The project was collaborative, not the work of Abbott alone.

Not every publishing venture succeeded. Abbott also published Abbott’s Monthly, a magazine whose surviving May 1931 issue names Lucius C. Harper as editor. It ceased publication in 1933 amid difficulties linked to the Depression.

Preparing John Sengstacke to Lead the Newspaper

Abbott’s later years brought changes in both family life and newspaper leadership. His first marriage, to Helen Thornton Morrison in 1918, ended in divorce in 1933. He married Edna Brown Denison the following year.

Abbott had supported his nephew John H. Sengstacke’s education and brought him into the Defender‘s leadership in 1934. Sengstacke took on greater management responsibilities in the years that followed.

By 1939, with his health declining, Abbott had transferred control of the newspaper to Sengstacke. Abbott died in Chicago on February 29, 1940, from Bright’s disease, a kidney disorder. He had founded the paper 35 years earlier and left it with a successor already involved in its management.

Succession was contested after Abbott’s death. His widow Edna and Sengstacke became involved in a prolonged legal dispute over the estate and control of the company. Sengstacke ultimately obtained sole control in 1951.

The Defender After Abbott and His Lasting Influence

Under Sengstacke’s leadership, the newspaper continued beyond its founder’s lifetime. The Chicago Daily Defender began in 1956, and the paper stopped publishing a print edition in 2019 while continuing digitally. Both milestones came after Abbott’s death.

Posthumous recognition has included a historical marker for Abbott’s Savannah boyhood home, erected in 2008, and his selection for the 2024 Georgia Writers Hall of Fame class. Such honors reflect continuing attention to the life of a founder whose work connected business development with public advocacy.

Abbott’s contribution went beyond founding a newspaper. He helped build a publishing business able to reach readers whom established distribution channels sometimes refused to serve. Its editors, contributors, carriers, and readers turned that reach into a platform for reporting and debate that extended well beyond Chicago.

Timeline

These dates highlight the main changes in Robert S. Abbott’s life, the development of the Chicago Defender, and selected later milestones in its history.

Timeline.

1868 or 1870 (disputed)

Robert Sengstacke Abbott is born at Frederica on St. Simons Island, Georgia. Historical accounts give different birth years.

1874

Abbott’s mother, Flora, marries the Rev. John Henry Hermann Sengstacke.

By 1896

Abbott completes his education at Hampton Institute, where he studies printing.

Late 1890s

He earns a law degree from Kent College of Law in Chicago.

May 6, 1905

Abbott publishes the first four-page issue of The Chicago Defender.

Around 1910

J. Hockley Smiley becomes the paper’s first paid employee as the organization develops beyond its founder’s individual efforts.

1916–1917

The Defender advocates northward migration through editorials, headlines, and the Great Northern Drive campaign, with May 15, 1917, promoted as its focal date.

1919

Chicago suffers major racial violence. Abbott joins the Chicago Commission on Race Relations and invests in new headquarters and a printing press.

1921–1922

The newspaper introduces Defender Junior. The race-relations commission publishes The Negro in Chicago, and Abbott announces a church-visiting campaign.

1929

The first Bud Billiken Parade and Picnic takes place with Abbott and his newspaper colleagues involved in its development.

Early 1930s

Abbott’s Monthly is in publication, but ceases in 1933.

1934

Abbott brings his nephew John H. Sengstacke into newspaper leadership and publicly affiliates with the Baháʼí faith.

1939–1940

Abbott transfers control of the newspaper to Sengstacke and dies on February 29, 1940.

1951–1956

Following a legal dispute, Sengstacke obtains sole control of the company in 1951. The Chicago Daily Defender begins in 1956, after Abbott’s lifetime.

2008

A historical marker recognizing Abbott’s Savannah boyhood home is erected.

2019

The Defender ends its print edition and continues as a digital publication.

2024

Abbott is selected for the Georgia Writers Hall of Fame class.

FAQs

Question: Why was the Chicago Defender important to the Great Migration?

Answer: Under Robert S. Abbott, The Chicago Defender reported violence and discrimination in the South, described Northern opportunities, and promoted the 1917 Great Northern Drive. Railroad workers helped circulate it in Southern communities. The paper influenced migration; it did not cause the entire movement by itself.

Question: Did Robert S. Abbott really start the Chicago Defender with 25 cents?

Answer: Abbott began with 25 cents in available capital, but printing the initial issue cost substantially more. A $13.75 printing bill was largely covered with borrowed money, so the quarter did not pay for the entire first print run.

Question: What is Robert S. Abbott’s exact birth date?

Answer: Robert Sengstacke Abbott was born at Frederica on St. Simons Island, Georgia, but his exact birth date is uncertain. His birth year is generally given as 1868, although some biographies use 1870. A specific month and day cannot be stated with confidence.

Question: Who succeeded Robert S. Abbott at the Chicago Defender?

Answer: Abbott’s nephew John H. Sengstacke joined the newspaper’s leadership in 1934 and assumed control by 1939. Following Abbott’s death in 1940, Sengstacke continued to run the business amid a prolonged estate and company-control dispute. He obtained sole control in 1951.

Question: Was Robert S. Abbott responsible for the Bud Billiken Parade?

Answer: Abbott helped develop the Defender‘s children’s programming and worked with colleagues, including Lucius Harper and Dave Kellum, on the newspaper-sponsored parade. The first Bud Billiken Parade and Picnic took place in 1929; it was a collaborative undertaking.

Question: How did Robert S. Abbott help aviator Bessie Coleman?

Answer: When Bessie Coleman faced barriers to flight training in the United States, Abbott advised her to study French and pursue training in France. His newspaper later helped bring attention to her aviation career.

Further Reading

Sources