Chicago Defender and Seaway Bank Changes!

[Mark S. Allen]

As a veteran activist and as Chairman of National Black Wall Street Chicago we salute the personal and professional legacy of Walter Grady, retiring after 30 years of committed service to Seaway Bank and the Black business community; and offer welcome and congratulations to the next generation leadership of Mrs. Veranda Dickens as new Chair of The Board and Mr. Darrell Jackson and new President and CEO of Seaway Bank.  As a child of the Civil Rights Movement growing up in the organizations led by the Rev. Jesse Jackson and Operation Breadbasket, Operation PUSH etc; and under the leadership of the Rev. Willie T. Barrow, I personally spent well over 20 years from my youth to adult conducting consumer education and consumer actions projects that led to many personal business accounts and community development investing with and from the Seaway Bank legacy; and civically working under the late Jacoby Dickens on many political empowerment activities most notably the election of Chicago's first Black Mayor Harold Washington.  Hopefully looking forward to working with this new generation of leadership at Seaway Bank on creating, sustaining and increasing Black business and community in the Black Wall Street legacy spirit!

Changes at Seaway . . .

Darryl Jackson   Veranda Dickens

Walter Grady President of Seaway Bank retires after 30 years of service on July 31. Mrs. Veranda Dickens is the Chair of the Board making her the solo woman in Chicago and one of few woman in the nation to Chair a bank. She is Chicago's prettiest banker. Darrell Jackson joins Seaway as President and Chief Executive Officer effective August 1. He brings more than 30 years of banking to the position. He has served as executive Vice President and President of Wealth Management Group at Northern Trust. He was the creator of Northern's DreamMaker's Forum which introduced top African American entrepreneurs to leading national financiers. Seaway Bank is Chicago's largest African-American owned bank and the third largest in the U.S. Seaway employs 300 with more than $540 million in assets.

National Black Wall Street Chicago is looking forward to hosting Cheryl Mainor and The Chicago Defender at our monthly economic power luncheon on Thursday, July 17th from 1:00 PM to 3:00 PM at National Black Wall Street Chicago offices at 4655 South king Drive, Suite 203. Donation $20.000

Interim Publisher Vows to Restore Paper's Influence

THE CHICAGO DEFENDER

In a shakeup at the Chicago Defender, the onetime bulwark of the black press that has become a shell of its former self, an executive of the parent Real Times Media has been installed as its interim publisher and the executive editor, who had been serving as interim publisher, placed on "hiatus." Cheryl Mainor, the Real Times executive, told Journal-isms Monday that the company plans to restore the newspaper to a position of influence consistent with "our history here."

Cheryl MainorOnce a daily, the Defender is a weekly with a circulation of about 16,000, Mainor said. According to the U.S. Census, there are about 1,299,693 African Americans in Cook County, Ill., which includes Chicago, and 893,187 in the city itself.

The shakeup comes as the Defender prepares to celebrate its 110th anniversary next year and the city girds for its 2015 mayoral election. Among other steps, the paper plans to restore editorials. "The Defender is going to have something to say," Mainor said.

Hiram E. Jackson, CEO of Real Times Media, based in Detroit, went to Chicago on Friday to inform staffers of the "reorganization." Ronald E. Childs, who had been executive editor and then took on the additional title of interim publisher and then publisher, is officially "on hiatus right now," Mainor said.

Ronald E. Childs

Childs, who describes himself as a "journalist who has worked in public relations," was asked whether he planned to return to his public relations firm or had anything to say about his tenure. He messaged on Sunday, "Will issue a public statement in a few weeks."

Janelle Frost remains managing editor and thus is the highest ranking editorial employee.

In addition to the Defender, Real Times properties include the Atlanta Daily World; Michigan Chronicle; FrontPage Detroit; The New Tri-State Defender, in Memphis, Tenn.; the New Pittsburgh Courier and RTM Digital Studios, an archival image licensing firm.

Mainor is Real Times' regional vice president of sales and marketing. She said she planned to be interim publisher "for the next 30 days or so" while she implements a reorganization. The Defender has 13 full-time business and editorial employees, she said, confirming that production for all Real Times publications is now performed in Detroit.

"We're trying to be a broad-based and progressive company," Mainor said, and Real Times is "making sure that the Defender is that as well." She noted that Real Times has "Who's Who" publications in 27 markets, an LBGT publication that is multicultural, and produces specialty tabloids.

In Chicago, there is "a vacuum in terms of the voice of the black press. We're ready to fill that vacuum. The Defender has been there," she said, but "the black press in general is not what it once was. There are so many places to get information now." Asked whether the Defender has the resources to restore the newspaper and its digital properties to their former position of influence, Mainor said, "I anticipate bringing on the people we need to bring in in order to implement the goals that we set. . . . We will be successful."

The Defender plans to "deliver content to people in the way that they want it," regardless of platform, Mainor added. Last year, the company hired Barry Cooper, digital media expert and the founder of the original BlackVoices.com, "to strategically transition its traditional print properties into a more robust digital platform," as the New Pittsburgh Courier reported then.

Mainor also pointed to partnerships between Real Times and the entertainment website EURweb.com and with Interactive One, and said the company was working on others.

Mainor said she recently learned that the late renowned singer-songwriter Oscar Brown Jr., a Chicagoan, had composed a song about the Defender.

As related by the Brown family to Myiti Sengstacke Rice for her 2012 book, "Images of America: Chicago Defender," the lyrics are:

"Colored boys in Chicago, Illinois/Used to serenade the neighbors/As they peddled their papers/ To a tune heard on Friday afternoon/ In a section known as Bronzeville/ recollection's grown so fond still/ Chicago Defender, Chicago Defender paper/ Chicago Defender, Chicago Defender pap'/ In those days when your address told your race/ Bronzeville was the South side section/ With the brown skin complexion/ Where the cries of street peddlers used to rise/ It would wake our Bronzeville spirits/ Once a week when we would hear this:/ Chicago Defender, Chicago Defender pap'/ Through the slums as every Friday comes/ Black Dispatches they'd be sellin'/ "Get the news" they'd be yellin' . . . / Chicago Defender, Chicago Defender paper."

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Chairman & COO National Black Wall Street Chicago
(Rev. Willie T. Barrow Consumer Education and Consumer Action Project)
Founder/Lead Organizer, Illinois Voter Restoration Civic Education Project
Chief of Staff to National Chairman, National Black Wall Street USA
"And The Ordinary People Said" News Blog, www.chicagonow.com
Chairman, Community Reinvestment Organizing Project
Listed in 2012 Edition Who' Who In Black Chicago
4655 South King Drive, Suite 203
Chicago, Illinois 60653
direct 773-392-0165
The Rev. Al Sharpton calls Mark Allen "one of Chicago's legendary political activists and one of the best organizers of his generation"