The Chicago Defender: "American newspapers once stood for something more than a marketing plan."

My book of the month is The Defender: How The Legendary Black Newspaper Changed America, by Ethan Michaeli.

As foreign as the concept may be at present, the book is about standing up. You listening, Mr. Hanson?

New Book Highlights Historic Black Newspaper (NPR)

American newspapers once stood for something more than a marketing plan. The Chicago Defender was founded in the early 20th century to fight segregation in the South, build strong and lively African-American communities in the North and to root for the Chicago American Giants. It would become in many ways one of the most influential newspapers in the United States. The Defender could claim partial credit for the Great Migration north, the end of segregation in the U.S. military, the election of presidents, including Warren Harding, Harry Truman and John F. Kennedy and encouraging the career of a young South Side legislator named Barack Obama. Ethan Michaeli, who was once a reporter for The Chicago Defender in the 1990s, has written a book "The Defender: How The Legendary Black Newspaper Changed America."