In 1913, a sturdy brick and limestone building was completed and opened to the public; standing at five stories tall, what would come to be known as the Wabash Avenue YMCA was the result of community fundraising from area residents and the Chicago philanthropist Julius Rosenwald of Sears, Roebuck & Co. fame. While the building More
On the fiftieth anniversary of Fred Hampton’s murder, the Chicago History Museum remembers his life, tragic death, and legacy with an eye toward the future. In keeping with the Museum’s goal of sharing Chicago’s stories and educating the community, CHM assistant curator Julius L. Jones partnered with undergraduate research assistants from Lake Forest College to present More
This Saturday marks one hundred years since the Chicago Race Riot, which began on July 27 and ended on August 3, 1919. In this photo essay, CHM assistant curator Julius L. Jones recounts the events of that tumultuous week, as well as the legacy of activism that came from it. All images are from the More
Collections volunteer Robert Blythe writes about Chicagoan Paul King Jr., a building contractor and social justice advocate, fifty years after the Coalition of United Community Action led a demonstration on July 22, 1969, demanding that building trade unions provide on-the-job trainee positions for minority groups. Many Chicagoans were taken aback in July 1969 when two hundred More
In this blog post, CHM collections intern Chris Johnson writes about his experience processing the collection of The Chicago Reporter under the supervision of senior archivist Julie Wroblewski. Last summer, I interned at the Chicago History Museum via the Black Metropolis Research Consortium’s Archie Motley Archival Internship Program. The Black Metropolis Research Consortium (BMRC) is a More
Marcia Chatelain. South Side Girls: Growing Up in the Great Migration. Durham, NC, Duke University Press (2015). This is a very important study of lives of black girls during the Great Migration. At its core are the girls themselves, More
To cap off Black History Month, CHM cataloging and metadata librarian Gretchen Neidhardt writes about her search for the voices of African American servicemen in our archives. While in the process of digitizing the last of our paper card catalog for 6,000 small manuscript collections, I noticed that several items mentioned “Negro Troops.” (Our card More
Ethan Michaeli. The Defender: How the Legendary Black Newspaper Changed America from the Age of the Pullman Porters to the Age of Obama. New York, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company (2016). This history is beautifully written and exquisitely researched. More
This summer Ina Cox worked on the Chicago History Museum’s latest collaborative initiative, the North Lawndale History Project, developed by Paul Norrington, president and founder of the K-Town Historic District Association, Inc. She was the Senior North Lawndale Minow Fellow working with Peter T. Alter, the Museum’s historian and director of the Studs Terkel Center for Oral More
In this installation of the North Lawndale History Project series, North Lawndale Minow Fellows Zilah Harris and Wynton Alexander discuss the favorite parts of their oral history interview with a former Black Panther. Billy Lamar Brooks Sr., also known as Billy Ché or Ché, was born in Mississippi in 1948 and moved to Chicago in More