| Type | Weekly newspaper |
|---|---|
| Owner(s) | Real Times Inc. |
| Publisher | Hiram Jackson |
| Founded | 1936, as Detroit Chronicle |
| Headquarters | 1452 Randolph St #400, Detroit, Michigan, 48226 U.S. |
| Circulation | 27,000 weekly(as of 2015) [1] |
| Readership | 120,000 weekly in 2015 |
| Website | michronicleonline.com |
The Michigan Chronicle is a weekly African-American newspaper based in Detroit, Michigan. It was founded in 1936 by John H. Sengstacke, editor of the Chicago Defender . Together with the Defender and a handful of other African-American newspapers, it is owned by Detroit-based Real Times Inc. Its headquarters are in the Real Times offices in Midtown Detroit. [2]
The Chronicle's first editor was Louis E. Martin, whom Sengstacke sent to Detroit on June 6, giving him a $5.00 raise above his $15-per-week salary at the Chicago Defender, $10 in cash and a one-way bus ticket. The Chronicle's first issue had a circulation of 5,000 copies. In 1944, long-time publisher Longworth Quinn joined Martin at the Chronicle. Quinn became a leader in Detroit's African-American business and church groups, and those groups supported the Chronicle. [3]
The Chronicle garnered national attention in its early years for its "radical" approach to politics -- advocacy of organized labor and the Democratic Party. Albert Dunmore, who edited the Detroit edition of the Pittsburgh Courier in the 1940s, remarked in 2010 that most African-American newspapers of the time took the opposite stance, because of "the anti-Black attitude prevalent in the organized labor ranks and the heavily southern influence in the Democratic Party". [3]
James Ingram of the Michigan Chronicle was one of several negotiators involved in the Attica Prison Riots in September 1971.
In 2001, Detroit City Council member Kay Everett credited the Michigan Chronicle with having played a key role in local civil rights struggles of the 20th century, such as supporting the election of Mayor Coleman A. Young and, especially, reporting on violence against African Americans: [4]
"It was a lone voice in the wilderness when police brutality against African Americans was commonplace", Everett wrote. "Its coverage of STRESS, the Detroit Police Department's controversial undercover unit, should have won the paper a Pulitzer Prize. During STRESS's four-year run, White STRESS officers shot and killed 23 young Black men. Most shot in the back. The Michigan Chronicle was the only newspaper in the city that told the truth about the killings." [4]
Originally located at 1727 St. Antoine Street, the Michigan Chronicle is now located at 1452 Randolph St #400, Detroit, Michigan, 48226 U.S.. [3]
Sengstacke Enterprises Inc., publisher of the Chronicle and the daily Defender, would later also include the New Pittsburgh Courier and the Tri-State Defender in Tennessee. When Sengstacke died in 1997, the Chronicle was described as his most profitable newspaper, "fat with local and national advertising", with a weekly circulation of 43,582. Inheritance tax bills and provisions in Sengstacke's will made it likely that the chain would be sold, but it was administered by a trust in the interim. [5]
Amid the uncertainty over the Chronicle's ownership, longtime publisher Sam Logan left the paper in 2000 and in May of that year formed a competing weekly, The Michigan FrontPage , which he envisioned as "a weekend read", published on Fridays. [6]
The Chronicle and its sister papers were finally sold in 2003, to Real Times Inc., a group of African-American business leaders from Chicago and Detroit. Logan returned as publisher of both the Chronicle and the FrontPage, which became part of the group. [7]
Logan died in late December 2011. Hiram Jackson, president of Real Times Inc., was appointed interim publisher in his place. [8]
Autoweek is a car culture publication based in Detroit, Michigan. It was first published in 1958 and in 1977 the publication was purchased by Crain Communications Inc, its current parent company. The magazine was published weekly and focused on motor sports, new car reviews, and old cars, events and DIY. Autoweek now publishes Autoweek.com. Autoweek is owned by Crain Communications Inc., publisher of leading industry trade publications Advertising Age and Automotive News, among others, and is based in Detroit, Michigan.
The Detroit Metro Times is a progressive alternative weekly located in Detroit, Michigan. It is the largest circulating weekly newspaper in the metro Detroit area.
Robert Sengstacke Abbott was an American lawyer, newspaper publisher and editor. Abbott founded The Chicago Defender in 1905, which grew to have the highest circulation of any black-owned newspaper in the country. An early adherent of the Baháʼí Faith in the United States, Abbott founded the Bud Billiken Parade and Picnic in August 1929. The parade, which has developed into a celebration for youth, education and African–American life in Chicago, Illinois, is the second largest parade in the United States.
The New Pittsburgh Courier is a weekly African-American newspaper based in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, United States. It is owned by Real Times.
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African American newspapers are news publications in the United States serving African-American communities. Samuel Cornish and John Brown Russwurm started the first African-American periodical, Freedom's Journal, in 1827. During the antebellum South, other African-American newspapers sprang forth, such as The North Star, founded in 1847 by Frederick Douglass.
Real Times Media LLC is the owner and publisher of the Chicago Defender, the largest and most influential African American weekly newspaper, as well as five other regional weeklies in the eastern and Midwestern United States. Its headquarters are in Midtown Detroit.
John Herman Henry Sengstacke was an American newspaper publisher and owner of the largest chain of African-American oriented newspapers in the United States. Sengstacke was also a civil rights activist and worked for a strong black press, founding the National Newspaper Publishers Association in 1940, to unify and strengthen African-American owned papers. Sengstacke served seven terms as president of the association, which by the early 21st century had 200 members.
Geoffrey Nyarota is a Zimbabwean journalist and human rights activist. Born in colonial Southern Rhodesia, he trained as a teacher before beginning his career with a Zimbabwean state-owned newspaper, The Herald. As editor of the state-owned Bulawayo Chronicle in 1989, he helped to break the "Willowgate" scandal, which resulted in several resignations from the cabinet of President Robert Mugabe.
Louisville Defender is a weekly newspaper in Louisville, Kentucky.
The Pittsburgh Courier was an African-American weekly newspaper published in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, from 1907 until October 22, 1966. By the 1930s, the Courier was one of the leading black newspapers in the United States.
Automotive News is a weekly newspaper written for the automotive industry, predominantly individuals corresponding with automobile manufacturers and automotive suppliers. Based in Detroit and owned by Crain Communications Inc, Automotive News is deemed to be the newspaper of record for the automotive industry. The brand has a team of more than 55 editors and reporters globally.
The Chronicle is a popular daily newspaper in Zimbabwe. It is published in Bulawayo and mostly reports on news in the Matebeleland region in the southern part of the country. It is state-owned and therefore usually only publishes news that supports the government and its policies. It also covers stories on national and international news, as well as entertainment, sport, business, travel, job offers and real estate. It was established in 1894 and it was the largest newspaper in the country following The Herald.
The Michigan FrontPage is a weekly African-American newspaper based in Detroit, Michigan, serving the African-American community. It was founded in 2000 by a former publisher of the Michigan Chronicle and has been owned by the Chronicle's parent company, Real Times Inc., since 2003. Its headquarters are in the Real Times offices in Midtown Detroit.
The Atlanta Daily World is the oldest black newspaper in Atlanta, Georgia, founded in 1928. Currently owned by Real Times Inc., it publishes daily online. It was "one of the earliest and most influential black newspapers."
The Chicago Defender is a Chicago-based online African-American newspaper. It was founded in 1905 by Robert S. Abbott and was once considered the "most important" newspaper of its kind. Abbott's newspaper reported and campaigned against Jim Crow-era violence and urged black people in the American South to settle in the north in what became the Great Migration. Abbott worked out an informal distribution system with Pullman porters who surreptitiously took his paper by rail far beyond Chicago, especially to African American readers in the southern United States. Under his nephew and chosen successor, John H. Sengstacke, the paper dealt with racial segregation in the United States, especially in the U.S. military, during World War II. Copies of the paper were passed along in communities, and it is estimated that at its most successful, each copy was read by four to five people.
The Tri-State Defender is a weekly African-American newspaper serving Memphis, Tennessee, and the nearby areas of Arkansas, Mississippi and Tennessee. It bills itself as "The Mid-South's Best Alternative Newspaper". The Defender was founded in 1951 by John H. Sengstacke, owner of the Chicago Defender. In 2013, the paper was locally purchased from Real Times Media by Best Media Inc.
Robert Abbott Sengstacke, also known as Bobby Sengstacke, was an African-American photojournalist during the Civil Rights Movement for the Chicago Defender in Chicago, Illinois. Sengstacke was well known for his famous portraits of Martin Luther King Jr. and other prominent civil rights leaders. Sengstacke inherited the family–owned Sengstacke Newspaper Company. After retiring from journalism in 2015, Sengstacke moved to Hammond, Indiana where he lived until his death due to a respiratory illness in 2017 at age 73.
