Thursday, August 6, 2020

Robert Sengstacke Abbott


I took my 3-year-old granddaughter for a ride the other day. She got mad when I told her we weren't really going anywhere...just riding. That made no sense to her, so she fell asleep.

I ended up at Fort Frederica on St. Simons Island, Georgia, and stood outside my car to take this picture of the obelisk erected by Robert Sengstacke Abbott, founder of The Chicago Defender newspaper.

Abbott was born in c.1868 on St. Simons Island, graduated from Hampton Institute, went to law school, and founded a paper that circulated throughout the country. It was a lifeline of information and a catalyst for activism and organizing for African-Americans in the Jim Crow era.

I look forward to the day my granddaughter stays awake long enough for me to bore her with these stories, and I hope I live long enough to see her grow to appreciate them.

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