This list, which ran to 64 galley-sized pages, was obtained by Military Intelligence "in strict confidence" from the Defender's distributor during the post-World War I federal investigations of radicals. The Defender's circulation of approximately 50,000 in 1916 was an important factor in the "Great Migration" of black Southerners to northern cities. "I bought a Chicago Defender and after reading it and seeing the golden opportunity I have decided to leave this place at once," wrote a Tennessee railroad worker in 1917. By 1919 the Defender's advocacy of migration had won new subscribers, especially in the South, which contributed three-fourths of its approximately 130,000 circulation that year.

Author: James R. Grossman
Source: Newberry Library