ANN ARBOR, Mich., May 11, 2005 - ProQuest Information and Learning announces an expanded agreement with publisher Real Times Inc. to digitize historical content from The Chicago Defender, an influential national African-American newspaper, as part of ProQuest scholarly databases. The resource will be available to libraries, government organizations, and educational institutions, as well as other research organizations. ProQuest Information and Learning, a unit of ProQuest Company, is an electronic publisher of content for libraries and educational institutions worldwide.

"We have added an invaluable dimension to our new Black Studies Center with The Chicago Defender. The depth and importance of the content will make it a critical resource for any serious scholar studying the Black experience of the 20^th century in America. It will open up new areas of research and offers vital side-by-side comparison of news stories from The Defender with the other national newspapers," said Suzanne BeDell, ProQuest vice president, publishing.

For the Defender, the appeal is in the ability to add a digital dimension to the paper's renowned content. "This is the frontier of fully leveraging content," said Dr. Clarence Nixon, President and Chief Executive Officer of Real Times, publisher of the Defender, the nation's only African-American daily newspaper. "This kind of strategic partnership is key to expanding the use of our content and the knowledge of our brand."

When the database is complete, historical news content from The Chicago Defender will be available online from 1909 through 1975 both in ProQuest's forthcoming Black Studies Center and in ProQuest Historical Newspapers. Founded in 1905, The Defender became the most influential Black newspaper before World War I, with more than half of its circulation outside of its home base in Chicago. The database will launch later this year.

The Chicago Defender content will be fully searchable within the Black Studies Center. It will allow researchers to study many significant events in American history that received only cursory attention from other newspapers. The Defender strongly advocated for equality among all races. During World War I, it successfully urged African-Americans to leave the segregated South to work in the industrial North. It covered the Red Summer Riots of 1919, editorialized for anti-lynching legislation, and published Walter White and Langston Hughes, as well as early works of Pulitzer Prize-winning poet Gwendolyn Brooks.

The ProQuest Historical Newspapers project encompasses newspapers with deep historical value for researchers in various fields. The Chicago Defender will join other prestigious U.S. newspapers already in the ProQuest program: The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, The Christian Science Monitor, The Washington Post, Chicago Tribune, Los Angeles Times, The Boston Globe, and Atlanta Constitution. All of the newspapers are cross-searchable within the award-winning ProQuest interface.

Free trials are available. Libraries may receive more information by contacting their account representative at 1-800-521-0600, ext. 3183 or 3452 (outside the U.S., call +44-1-223-215-512) or pqsales@il.proquest.com. Editors may call 1-800-521-0600, ext. 6489 or email pr@il.proquest.com.

 

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