Category Archives: Black Writers
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
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