The Defender: How The Legendary Black Newspaper Changed America By Ethan Michaeli

Fascinating and beautifully written history of black America as documented through the records of “The Defender,” a Chicago-based newspaper written for the black community. One of the few books I wasn’t tempted to speed read through because every sentence mattered in this book. Ethan Michaeli’s ability to organize the archival information that survived “The Defender” into this cohesive, spell-binding narrative is mind boggling. While he is generous in his praise and credits to those who helped him, clearly it was his love and vision that brought this work to life.

Growing up a white girl in Bartlesville, OK, the home of two large oil companies in the 50’s and 60’s, we were a very homogeneous community. My exposure to a black community was limited and the few black students in our high school seemed to be as much a part of our activities as any of us. So, I gave little thought to the civil rights movement or what the black students were actually going through during those years. It wasn’t until I moved away from home after graduation in 1965 that I woke up to what life was like outside of the “Emerald City,” as we used to call Bartlesville. This book makes me realize how ignorant we all were back then.

This is such a timely book as well. If one doesn’t believe that history repeats itself, the history of “The Defender” will lay it out for you in chapter after chapter. The idea that racism has ever been eradicated or that equality has ever been reached is a theme that rises and falls time and again in this historical account. The fact that this story is about members of the black community who have wealth and political position is what drives home the reality of how few strides our country has made in fully integrating black America.

In this age of renewed divisiveness, I was reminded in reading “The Defender,” how important it is to know our history. Like so many history books, it is long and can be daunting at first glance. But, just like the story it tells, it’s not meant to be experienced all at once. Having originally read it on the Kindle version, I found myself disappointed when, only 71% through the book, the story was over. The rest of it was the exhaustive list of credits and footnotes that went into researching and writing the book. So, yes, it is a long book … as befits the long journey on which it takes the reader. But it’s not a long read. The writing is accessible and pleasurable for anyone who enjoys a good book.

This isn’t a “black history” book. This is an American history book. And, it’s one that a lot more people need to be reading right now!

This is a beautiful book and is well deserving of all its recognition. I am grateful to Mr. Michaeli for writing it crisply and capably.

It recounts history that is poorly understood. I am in my late 60s and lived through many of the events that form the backdrop to what the exceptional people at the Defender accomplished. I had missed many of them in both tone and specificity. For example, while I knew that both Truman and JFK had won close elections and that the African American press made a big difference in JFK’s, it had not been counted out for me that this very newspaper led these victories.

It makes little difference that I am finally learning more about how institutional racism erases the memory of the past, since I near the end of my life. If you are young, please read this book.

Mr. Michaeli deals very well with the challenges and mechanics of how the Defender rose. He is less analytic (and maybe not interested) in how it declined and if its decline could have been stopped. I recently watched Henry Gates’ documentary about Black America Since MLK which deals more analytically about how the successes of the movement were the foundation of many of the problems that we face today. As we all know, only about 10% of the population are leaders and in both the civil rights and the women’s movement, when we were ostracized, our leaders were concentrated and many constructive things happened. As wealthier neighborhoods and high end schools integrated, many leaders have appropriately left the community, leaving concentrated poverty, and perhaps concentrated followership, behind. A similar thing has happened to feminism.

As we enter a new federal administration, I was surprised by power of a whole new media constructed by a cohort of white supremacists financed by the Koch brothers’ network. It has a language that is the opposite of respectful and has reincarnated the fact free world of yellow journalism and threatened violence that the Defender confronted when it was founded. I have been astonished by how well it has played our MSM for fools. Per Caitlin Moran, we will not be able recover until we have an honest platform and a language that is respectful. Hence, reading about how the Defender confronted and chipped away at a far worse media and far worse white supremacy was uplifting, if sad. The Defender’s model of a subscription based media platform is being replicated to a limited extent today. If you are in pain about how middled aged women put a groper in the White House, read this book. The heroes in it lived through far worse and did not lose heart.