By: E&P Staff When the Chicago Defender sold its landmark Moorish headquarters in the historically black Bronzeville neighborhood, it moved space in a downtown high-rise. Now, it's moving back.
The black-oriented newspaper, which changed from daily to weekly publication last year, said Thursday that it is moving its offices to a building on South Martin Luther King Drive in Bronzeville. The move will be completed by May 25, according to an article in the paper by Kathy Chaney.
Defender President Michael House said when he took the job last April he knew immediately the paper needed to move back to the South Side of Chicago.
"We are going back where we belong," he told Chaney. "It's the beginning of a new era of the Chicago Defender that reinforces our strong commitment to the African-American community and the communities of greater Chicago."
At the new building -- formerly the Metropolitan Funeral Home -- the paper will be more accessible for readers and advertisers, House said. "They can just come on in and continue building a relationship with us," he said.
The Defender's first home was literally that: Robert Abbott created the paper on his kitchen table May 5, 1905. It moved once before 1956 when Abbott's successor and nephew, John Sengstacke, moved the paper, which began publishing daily, into the landmark Defender Building on South Michigan Avenue.
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