Reviews
"Ethan Michaeli's The Defender is a rich, majestic, sweeping history, both of a newspaper and of a people. In these pages, Michaeli captures the degradation and exhilaration of black America in the twentieth century, and driving this story are a handful of men and women infused with incredible courage and a deep faith in journalism's power to seek justice." -- Alex Kotlowitz , author of There Are No Children Here. "In the spring of 1905 Robert Abbott sat at a card table squeezed into a corner of a realtor''s office on Chicago''s South Side to put together the first issue of a newspaper he called The Defender. In the 110 years since it has more than lived up to its name, its pages filled with searing reports of racial injustice and fierce editorials in support of its readers'' rights. Now Ethan Michaeli has recreated The Defender''s remarkable history--and reminded us of the power of the press at its courageous best." -- Kevin Boyle , author of the National Book Award-winning Arc of Justice: A Saga of Race, Civil Rights and Murder in the Jazz Age "This is a major work of American history--the compelling and richly-researched story of the legendary newspaper and the astonishing collection of history-makers whose lives are forever intertwined." -- Jonathan Alter , author of The Center Holds: Obama and his Enemies "Here, at long last, is the story that needed to be told. In The Defender , Ethan Michaeli has laid out the power and importance of a fearless newspaper in the struggle for black equality. Meticulously researched, engagingly written, Michaeli's landmark history of this storied institution, which has served at key moments as lens, interpreter, catalyst or voice for blacks'' full citizenship rights, will become an essential resource in African American cultural and political studies." -- Carol Anderson , Professor of African American Studies at Emory University, author of White Rage "The story of the Chicago Defender is one of the great untold stories of black America − if not the great story. At every crucial juncture, from the northern migration, to Pullman strikes to civil rights right up to Barack Obama, the Defender was there chronicling, advocating and building an entire civic, political and intellectual universe. It is remarkable to me that this book wasn''t written until now and an absolute god-send that Ethan Michaeli has stepped in to fill the void." --C hris Hayes , author of Twilight of the Elites , host of MSNBC''s " All In with Chris Hayes ." "Ethan Michaeli''s compelling book represents social history at its finest. The Defender explores America''s long struggle with race through the unique lens of an essential and underappreciated Chicago newspaper at the center of it all." -- David Maraniss , author of the forthcoming Once in a Great City: A Detroit Story "Just as the Defender has broken important journalistic ground time and again in its' storied history, author Ethan Michaeli is an original and intrepid force in Chicago media, having devoted his life to elevating and celebrating the silenced voices of Chicago's public housing projects. Michaeli on the Defender is an unbeatable combination." -- Dave Isay , founder of StoryCorps, author of Listening is an Act of Love " The Defender is the kind of superb nonfiction you don''t see much anymore--a big, fluidly written, marvelously researched story about fascinating people who shaped American culture. Ethan Michaeli has written a book that is as important as it is compulsively readable." -- Jonathan Eig , author of The Birth of the Pill
