John Herman Henry Sengstacke (November 25, 1912 – May 28, 1997) 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.
A nephew of newspaper founder, Robert Sengstacke Abbott, Sengstacke was Abbott's designated heir to take over the Chicago Defender, which he did after his uncle's death in 1940. Sengstacke also published the Michigan Chronicle in Detroit; the Tri-State Defender in Memphis, Tennessee; and acquired the Pittsburgh Courier in 1966, re–opening it the next year as the New Pittsburgh Courier. Sengstacke worked with President Franklin D. Roosevelt to have African-American reporters admitted to presidential press conferences. He pressed for opportunities in the United States Postal Service for African Americans. One of Sengstacke's major political goals was to desegregate the armed forces. President Harry Truman supported this goal, naming Sengstacke to the commission he formed in 1948 to integrate the military. Sengstacke died in 1997 at age 84. In 2000, he was posthumously presented with the Presidential Citizens Medal by U.S. President Bill Clinton.
Biography
Early life and education
John Herman Henry Sengstacke was born in Savannah, Georgia, to Herman Alexander (called Alexander) Sengstacke and his wife Rosa Mae Davis on November 25, 1912. He was named for his paternal grandfather, John H. Sengstacke, a Congregationalist minister, teacher and publisher. The elder Sengstacke was the son of Herman Sengstacke, a German sea captain, and his wife Tama Melrose, a former slave from West Africa whose freedom he purchased in Georgia. She died young after the birth of their daughter. Sengstacke returned to Germany, taking his mixed-race children for relatives to raise while he was on ships. Later, Sengstacke and his son returned to the US.
Several years later, John H. Sengstacke was ordained as a Congregationalist minister. After settling in Woodville, now a neighborhood of Savannah, Georgia, he became a teacher to improve black education, and a publisher of two local newspapers, including the Woodville Times. Sengstacke had married the widow Flora Butler Abbott, a former slave from St. Simon's Island, Georgia. She had a year-old son Robert, whom he treated as his own. Robert Abbott took his stepfather's surname as his middle name. The Sengstackes also had seven children together, including Alexander; they were half-siblings to Robert Abbott.
Beginning in 1905, when Abbott had settled in Chicago after getting a law degree, he founded and published The Chicago Defender. It rapidly achieved high circulation in the early 20th century as the African-American population expanded in Chicago and other northern cities by the Great Migration. It became known as the major Black newspaper of the country, and Abbott became a millionaire by 1918.
When his nephew John H.H. Sengstacke was young, Abbott noticed his interest and work on his father's newspaper, and designated him as Abbott's successor for the Chicago Defender. Young John worked with his father Alexander on the Woodville Times, founded by his namesake grandfather. Abbott groomed Sengstacke to take over the Chicago Defender, paying for his nephew's education at Hampton Institute, his own alma mater and a historically black college. During the summers Sengstacke worked on the Defender, graduating from Hampton in 1934. Abbott also subsidized his nephew's additional studies at the Mergenthaler Linotype School, The Chicago School of Printing, Northwestern University, and Ohio State University. Abbott appointed Sengstacke as vice president and general manager of The Robert S. Abbott Publishing Company in 1936, after he had assisted as an aide.
In 1939 Sengstacke married Myrtle Elizabeth Picou, a Louisiana Creole from New Orleans and Los Angeles. They had three children, John Herman Henry Sengstacke III; Lewis Willis Sengstacke, named for Myrtle's side; and Robert Abbott Sengstacke, named in honor of his uncle. Myrtle was an activist in her own right, working at political fundraising, as well as cultural and art activities.