Abhayvir Singh
Response 4 of 5
“Selling the American dream myth to black southerners: The Chicago defender and the great migration of 1915-1919”
By Alan D. Desantis
The Reconstruction era from 1863 to 1877 failed to bring significant change in the lives of African-Americans in the south. 1915 to 1919 marked the era when African-Americans abandoned the south and fled up north for a better life. Such significant was the resettlement that this period is known as the Great Migration. The Push Pull Economic Theory was a major factor of the migration to the north. Post-slavery and post-Reconstruction south was not a slavery-free south. Jim Crow had emerged as the new de facto slavery. Pushed out due to unfair property distributions, trade terms and pulled by not necessarily fair but certainly better employment prospects, southern African-Americans could not give up the offer for a better life, now that it was available. There were many social aspects associated with the decision to leave the lynching rampant south. Southern social scenes were not fair to people with dark skin. The attitudes and practices of the “old” and bygone” days, remained pervasive. Also, when many African-Americans had already established themselves up north, that in itself motivated others to join them. This same concept applies to migration patterns today. When a traditional enclave begins to break, residents of those enclaves are motivated by where they then establish themselves. There’s this sense of familiarity with people of your own background and experience that is unparalleled.
Desantis introduces The Chicago Defender, a black weekly newspaper founded in 1905, as another major factor in the migration to the north. In his 1845 Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, Douglass denotes the struggle in acquiring education in the south. He had to endure extreme hardships and battles before he was able to acquire copies of the Columbian Orator. His slave masters too went to lengths to conceal literature from the slaves. Soon after, he wrote abolitionist pieces in the North Star. Such was the contrast of literature and the press in the north versus the south. The Chicago Defender, the most read black newspaper in the country at the time, persuaded its readers for migration up north by providing many examples of better life collectively associated with the American Dream. Who wouldn’t want to leave the south which promised no future for African-Americans, for the north, a land of hope and future. The paper summed it up into three parts, discontent with the inhumane south, a land of hope in the north, and thus migration to the north. Many consider it dishonest and unethical for the paper to have portrayed the north in a hopeful and promise-filling light. However, it is this appeal that changed the lives of many African-Americans for the better. The journalism may not have been unbiased and may be unethical, but the era in the south was certainly beyond both unbiased and unethical.
From Douglass establishing one of the first black newspapers, the North Star, whose name in itself also promotes the north, to the popular success of the Chicago Defender denotes progress for the north. The south continued its ways towards unofficial slavery. The Chicago Defender was so popular in the south that “In 1919, its shipping manifest included over 1,542 small towns and cities throughout the south such as Fry’s Mill, Arkansas; Bibsland, Louisiana; Tunica, Mississippi; Yoakum, Texas; and Palataka, Florida, which each brought over one hundred copies of the Defender per week.” This paper was available, and was not restricted. The paper in itself, in its progress and success offered hope that the southern African-Americans were finally able to grasp.
1- What is your opinion on the portrayal of the north in the Chicago Defender? Is it justified considering the times?
2- How do you think that the Chicago Defender became so widespread and popular?
