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The Chicago Defender is a prominent Black newspaper based in Chicago that spoke out against Southern segregation and encouraged Black people to migrate to the North. During the Jim Crow Era, it was banned but widely read in the South, where railway porters distributed it in secret. (As of 2022, the newspaper is still active, although in an online-only format.)
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The Chicago Defender Term Timeline in The Warmth of Other Suns
The timeline below shows where the term The Chicago Defender appears in The Warmth of Other Suns. The colored dots and icons indicate which themes are associated with that appearance.
Part Three: The Appointed Time of Their Coming
...the Civil War, and then it became the way goods, packages, and Black newspapers like The Chicago Defender reached the South. But Ida Mae and her family don’t know that they’re also making...
(full context)
Part Three: Crossing Over
The South, 1915-1975. Southern observers originally blamed the Great Migration on northern recruiters, publications like The Chicago Defender , and the boll weevil (a beetle that devastated cotton crops). But in reality, migrants...
(full context)
Part Four: To Bend in Strange Winds
...finally broken free from Jim Crow, and many do their best to help. For instance, The Chicago Defender and Chicago Urban League publish “do’s and don’ts” lists for newcomers. Ida Mae appreciates the...
(full context)
Part Five: Losses
...December 1974. Alice Foster dies of cancer at just 54 years old. Black newspapers like The Chicago Defender run glowing obituaries of her, and she is buried with her father in Kentucky. Robert’s...
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