Author Archives: Richard Guzman

Robert S. Abbott: Champion of “The Race”

In 1905 Robert Abbott began one of the biggest return-on-investment acts of his day: he invested 25 cents to issue 300 copies of his newspaper The Chicago Defender.  Eventually this two-cent weekly paper—which he heralded as “The World’s Greatest Weekly”—made … Continue reading

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Willard Motley: His “Race”

In the Afterword of my book Black Writing from Chicago, after I apologize first for not including the great novelist Leon Forrest, I apologize second for not including Willard Motley.  I wrote: “Among other worthy novelists that could not be … Continue reading

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Homelessness and Public Libraries

The VIDEO below shows a couple of minutes of a sneak preview we attended for the movie The Public on March 18, 2019.  It featured a wonderful Q&A with Emilio Esteves, where he explains the connection between public libraries and … Continue reading

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