Carrying the torch.

Myiti Sengstacke seeks to keep presses rolling at the legendary "Chicago Defender"

It was the early 20th century, and lynch mobs were rampant throughout the South. Robert Sengstacke Abbott, publisher of the Chicago Defender, was using his newspaper to spread reports of a somewhat better life up North.

His great-niece, Myiti Sengstacke, remembers hearing these stories of how her family used the newspaper to keep the black community informed over the course of the publication's 93 years. During that time the newspaper evolved into a pivotal voice in the black community, counting W.E.B. DuBois, Langston Hughes and Gwendolyn Brooks among its early writers.

But today, the Chicago Defender and three other weekly publications under the Sengstacke Enterprise umbrella--the Tri-State Defender, the New Pittsburgh Courier and the Michigan Chronicle--are under siege following the death of her grandfather and company chairman--John Sengstacke. The IRS has levied nearly $4 million in estate taxes since Sengstacke's death in 1997. Now his granddaughter is seeking to become one of the youngest newspaper publishers in the country while looking for funding to pay the tax bill without selling the papers.

"When he was on his death bed, I promised him that I would keep these papers alive and keep them going," she says. "His intention was never for the papers to be sold."

But because there was no explicit succession plan, the company was left with no clear direction following his death. What is known is that Sengstacke instructed Northern Trust, the trustee of his estate, to provide for his beneficiaries--six grandchildren--of whom Myiti is the oldest. To that end the bank planned to sell the estate, valued at $10-$12 million, but in keeping with her grandfather's last wish to keep the newspapers in the family, Myiti dismissed the trust and is now looking for financial alternatives to pay the tax debt.

"The loss of the grandfather, and the absence of a documented succession plan has required all the interested parties to evaluate what's best for them," says Sengstacke's attorney, Elias Matsakis of McBride, Baker & Cole in Chicago. "And that's not an easy process."

The chain's board members, which includes two appointees from Northern Trust, will vote on an organizational plan, which will include looking for financial investors. Among the potential investors is BE 100S CEO Don Barden, of the Detroit-based Barden Companies Inc. He has proposed a debt-financing recapitalization of $10 million, which would give him a stake in the business. A stipulation of any deal, says the attorney, would include Myiti Sengstacke becoming publisher of the newspaper chain and that it would remain Sengstacke Enterprises.

"We're looking to work very closely with an investor, in terms of a partnership," she says. But at 27, is Myiti Sengstacke ready to handle a job that entails overseeing all publishing duties for four weekly newspapers with 300 employees? She says yes. Before her grandfather's death, she studied business marketing and entrepreneurship at Hampton University in Virginia. She left school two credits shy of graduation when her grandfather became ill. She is currently the youngest person and the only woman on the chain's five-member board of trustees.

Frances L. Murphy, publisher of the Washington Afro-American, was a friend of John Sengstacke. They traveled together to the Soviet Union as part of a black press group in the mid-1970s. She says Myiti "will have big shoes to fill. John Sengstacke was a tremendous man.

"But Myiti is a young woman and she's got it in her blood. I think she'll do very well. She'll face what every owner faces. This is no 9-to-5 job. Myiti will have to dedicate a large part of her life to it," Murphy says. "But she's young so she should have a lot of energy to do just that."

Myiti Sengstacke has worked with the chain since she was 17-years-old in various capacities, including the public relations and accounting departments, and over the years has written stories and worked on the business side of the various publications. She currently works in promotions, marketing and advertising.

If appointed publisher, pending a vote by the board, Sengstacke says her first task would be to increase marketing for the newspapers and work on boosting their circulation and advertising revenue. Last year, revenues for Sengstacke Enterprises were about $9 million, and the four papers have a combined circulation of approximately 120,000. The Michigan Chronicle is the largest, with a circulation of 48,000, and the Defender, once the chain's flagship, now has a readership of 25,000. She'll also have to assemble a management team for both the editorial and financial side of the newspapers.

Sengstacke isn't alone in trying to increase her readership. Poor circulation figures affect many newspapers because the public is turning to electronic media to get its news, says Dorothy Leavell, president of the National Newspaper Publishers Association.

Leavell adds that the lack of advertising revenue has prevented black newspapers from offering competitive salaries to new talent. "One of the other problems that we have is attracting young readers," she says.

Speaking of youth, Sengstacke doesn't believe her age could hinder her ability to serve as publisher. "Plus, I think a majority of business is intuition, and I trust my intuition," she says. "There is a vision for these papers, and there is so much more that can be done."