Robert S. Abbott was founded The Chicago Defender with an initial investment of 25 cents. The Defender, which was once heralded as “The World’s Greatest Weekly”, soon became the most widely circulated black newspaper in the country, and made Abbott one of the first self-made millionaires of African American descent. Abbott also published a short-lived paper called Abbott’s Monthly.

On this date in 1950, Gwendolyn Brooks awarded Pulitzer Prize (May 1) for her book of poetry, Annie Allen. She was the first Black cited by the Pulitzer committee.