By the time I forced myself to open the digital Chicago Defender newspaper; I was not excited to “read” its articles. I kept jumping around to the different color pictures and admired the positive images of African American people, but actually reading the articles were a struggle. The small type failed to keep my interest and I would click on another attractive picture to analyze the layout. I felt like a distracted child in Sunday service, just fidgeting around to pass the time.
Reading the local Black press will never be the same. There are between five to seven Black weekly newspapers in Chicago that cover community news in specific neighborhoods. However, for those big, color glossy, keepsake editions about certain issues and famous people, you could always count on the Chicago Defender to have the story most people were waiting on. The Breast Cancer month edition was used in my classroom for awareness and education. The Obama President Foundation Debate was carried seriously in a weekly edition, as were the collector’s items of our former first family, gracefully poised on the front cover. The newspaper was a teaching tool and a handy asset in the neighborhood, while elders waited in line at the grocery store or while waiting to be seated at church.
The paper sold for $1 per copy, but stacks of the newspapers were often dropped off at inner-city churches every Wednesday. The Chicago Defender was packed with current coupons, advertisements geared toward the “urban” community and sometimes posters or other special artifacts. When the news was really “hot”, patrons would be limited to taking two copies. Then there were teacher’s like me, taking a full class set (30 copies) and pushing the paper to every youth we encountered. Since many homes and families do not receive any reading material, I would assign five to seven articles to read from the Chicago Defender for comprehension and basic reading skills. Many parents’ asked to use the paper for extra credit assignments. I did not care how they used the paper, as long as I had some evidence of reading.
The last print edition ran July 10-16, 2019 (Volume 114, No. 11). A mere 16 pages and a farewell from Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot’s office was about all there was to read. Only mature people were running around town, buying up a few copies for out-of-town relatives. And young people were too blind to understand what was really going on…
Another slice of our history, gone forever…
The Traveler Weekly 