Black Chicago's Contribution to Africana Studies

Chicago, a mega center of Black urban culture, serves as a workshop for exploring many of the historical and current dimensions of the Africana Studies experience. Black Americans in transit during the Great Migration came to "The Windy City" by the thousands, creating a renaissance of Black identity that stretches from the early 1900's to the present. Some of the specific elements of this development include:

Chicago Urban League

Between 1905 and 1910 several organizations formed in northern cities to assist newly arriving Black migrants from the South to adjust to the social, political, and vocational challenges of urban life in the North. In 1911 three of these groups, including the Committee on Urban Conditions Among Negroes, the Committee for the Improvement of Industrial Conditions Among Negroes in New York, and the National League for the Protection of Colored Women—merged to become the National Urban League (NUL). In 1916 a group of individuals committed to the uplift and preservation of the Black Chicago migrant community formed the Chicago Urban League in affiliation with the NUL. In clarifying its present-day mission, the Chicago organization states that its objective to "eradicate racial segregation, discrimination, and the disenfranchisement of all poor communities."

The Chicago Defender Newspaper

Robert S. Abbott (1868-1940), a revolutionary journalist ranking among the greatest African-American leaders of his time, in 1930 published the following words of wisdom spoken by his father:

Before I started on my life’s work—journalism—I was Counseled by my beloved father that a good newspaper was one of the best instruments of service and one of the strongest weapons ever to be used in defense of a race which was deprived of its citizenship rights. (Roi Ottley, The Lonely Warrior, p. 1)

Abbott founded The Chicago Defender in 1905 and served as its manager and editor for the major part of his work life. The publication continues today as a nationally respected source of Black news and advocate for African American community uplift.

Bronzeville

As multitudes of African-Americans migrated to Chicago seeking better jobs and social and political freedom, White residents generally and real estate agents specifically forced them to live on the city’s South Side in small units—“kitchenettes,”—for which they were over-charged. Bronzeville was one of the residential centers and cultural wellsprings of the African-American community, as Lindberg describes:

Legendary "Bronzeville"—the Black Belt of yesteryear—encompassed much of Douglas and Grand Boulevard. Its boundaries extended roughly from 26th Street to 47th, and from State Street on the west to the shores of Lake Michigan. It was here, in a string of jumping cabarets, the Duke Ellington, Count Basie and other legendary jazz men performed their music. (Richard Lindberg, Ethnic Chicago: A Complete Guide to the Many Faces & Cultures of Chicago, p. 222)

Provident Hospital

Provident Hospital and Training School opened in 1891 on the South Side of Chicago as the first Black-controlled hospital in the U.S. Dr. Daniel Hale Williams, a prominent African-American surgeon, founded the institution in reaction to the racially exclusionary policies of Chicago nursing schools that refused to accept Black students. Due to the poverty of the majority of its patients, Provident struggled as a business and was finally forced to close in 1987. However, the Cook County Board of Commissioners purchased the hospital in 1991 in order to improve the healthcare of South Side residents and reopened the facility in 1993.

Dr. Dan Hale, conducted the first open-heart surgery at Provident, and Dr. Theodore Lawless, an outstanding African-American physician, instructor, and researcher, who made numerous contributions to the field of dermatology, donated funds for a research laboratory at the hospital.

Rainbow/PUSH Coalition

Jesse Jackson (1941-- ), a civil rights activists, Baptist minister and presidential candidate was one of the most successful and trusted assistants of Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr., the great civil rights leader. Jackson successfully directed Operation Breadbasket in the late 1960's, a campaign designed to force white-owned businesses operating in Black communities to hire African-American workers, and in 1971 he founded PUSH (People United to Serve Humanity). In 1984 and 1988, supported by another of his organizations, Rainbow Coalition, Jackson ran in the Democratic presidential primaries.

Du Sable Museum

In 1961, Margaret Taylor Burroughs and her husband Charles, together with a diverse group of Chicago artists and intellectuals, opened the Ebony Museum of Negro History and Art. The new facility which was the first museum in the nation to focus on African-American history, was an expression of their commitment to preserve and celebrate Black culture. The building was named after Jean Baptiste Point du Sable in 1968 and was expanded to include a new wing dedicated to the late African-American Mayor Harold Washington in 1993. At present the Du Sable Museum of African-American History is the oldest museum of its type in the U.S. and is the only major independent institution in Chicago established to preserve the culture of Black people.

Salaam Restaurant

The Salaam Restaurant is the $5 million debt-free, economic self-improvement enterprize of the Nation of Islam. Located in Englewood, an impoverished African-American community, the establishment was designed to honor the Taj Mahal in India, and conceived to inspire Black pride and entrepreneurship. During its grand opening in 1995, Minister Louis Farrakhan, head of the Nation of Islam, commented, "We placed this in the heart of the 'ghetto' to say to Black people here, we love you and you are worth every dime that we spend on you. This is your palace and you can come here and be treated like the kings and queens you are."