Robert E. Weems and Jason P. Chambers (eds)
- Published in print:
- 2017
- Published Online:
- May 2018
- ISBN:
- 9780252041426
- eISBN:
- 9780252050022
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of Illinois Press
- DOI:
- 10.5622/illinois/9780252041426.003.0001
- Subject:
- History, African-American History
The editors provide a historic overview of African American entrepreneurship in Chicago. Beginning with the pioneering entrepreneurial exploits of Jean Baptiste Point Du Sable, persons of African ...
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The editors provide a historic overview of African American entrepreneurship in Chicago. Beginning with the pioneering entrepreneurial exploits of Jean Baptiste Point Du Sable, persons of African descent have long engaged in commercial activities in the Windy City. Early on, during the nineteenth century, most black Chicago businesspersons featured whites as their primary clients. Yet, because the twentieth century featured a simultaneous rise in both the city’s African American population and white antagonism toward blacks, a new breed of black entrepreneur emerged that focused upon serving the needs of a perceived “Black Metropolis.” This ultimately resulted in Chicago’s primacy as a center of black business activity. However, in the early twenty-first century, due to a variety of circumstances, Chicago’s African American business community has diminished.
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The editors provide a historic overview of African American entrepreneurship in Chicago. Beginning with the pioneering entrepreneurial exploits of Jean Baptiste Point Du Sable, persons of African descent have long engaged in commercial activities in the Windy City. Early on, during the nineteenth century, most black Chicago businesspersons featured whites as their primary clients. Yet, because the twentieth century featured a simultaneous rise in both the city’s African American population and white antagonism toward blacks, a new breed of black entrepreneur emerged that focused upon serving the needs of a perceived “Black Metropolis.” This ultimately resulted in Chicago’s primacy as a center of black business activity. However, in the early twenty-first century, due to a variety of circumstances, Chicago’s African American business community has diminished.
Jeffrey Helgeson
- Published in print:
- 2014
- Published Online:
- September 2014
- ISBN:
- 9780226130699
- eISBN:
- 9780226130729
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- University of Chicago Press
- DOI:
- 10.7208/chicago/9780226130729.001.0001
- Subject:
- History, African-American History
In 1983, black Chicagoans elected Harold Washington as the city’s first black mayor. In the process, they overthrew the white Democratic machine and its regime of “plantation politics.” This book ...
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In 1983, black Chicagoans elected Harold Washington as the city’s first black mayor. In the process, they overthrew the white Democratic machine and its regime of “plantation politics.” This book details the long-term development of black Chicago’s political culture, beginning in the 1930s, that both made a political insurrection possible in the right context, and informed Mayor Washington’s liberal, interracial, democratic vision of urban governance. Building upon recent studies of the “Long Civil Rights Movement,” which focus largely on a black radical tradition, this book recovers the history of a long tradition of black liberalism at the ground level. Men and women, largely unsung, made history by engaging with – rather than rejecting – the institutions and ambitions of urban life, and by connecting their individual aspirations to the collective interests of the race. They maintained popular critiques of overlapping systems of race, class, and gender inequality and developed local crucibles of black power that made pragmatic reform possible and set the stage for Washington’s victory and – in surprising ways – even the ascendance of Barack and Michelle Obama. The tragedies of incomplete and uneven racial progress are undeniable. Yet, in struggles for decent housing, good jobs, and political power over a half a century people worked to overcome racial segregation and inequality in everyday life. Consequently, this study shows that the image of the Second Great Migration as an inexorably tragic event is no longer tenable, while it also integrates the story of black urban politics into the deeply ambiguous history of American liberalism.Less
In 1983, black Chicagoans elected Harold Washington as the city’s first black mayor. In the process, they overthrew the white Democratic machine and its regime of “plantation politics.” This book details the long-term development of black Chicago’s political culture, beginning in the 1930s, that both made a political insurrection possible in the right context, and informed Mayor Washington’s liberal, interracial, democratic vision of urban governance. Building upon recent studies of the “Long Civil Rights Movement,” which focus largely on a black radical tradition, this book recovers the history of a long tradition of black liberalism at the ground level. Men and women, largely unsung, made history by engaging with – rather than rejecting – the institutions and ambitions of urban life, and by connecting their individual aspirations to the collective interests of the race. They maintained popular critiques of overlapping systems of race, class, and gender inequality and developed local crucibles of black power that made pragmatic reform possible and set the stage for Washington’s victory and – in surprising ways – even the ascendance of Barack and Michelle Obama. The tragedies of incomplete and uneven racial progress are undeniable. Yet, in struggles for decent housing, good jobs, and political power over a half a century people worked to overcome racial segregation and inequality in everyday life. Consequently, this study shows that the image of the Second Great Migration as an inexorably tragic event is no longer tenable, while it also integrates the story of black urban politics into the deeply ambiguous history of American liberalism.
Jeffrey Helgeson
- Published in print:
- 2014
- Published Online:
- September 2014
- ISBN:
- 9780226130699
- eISBN:
- 9780226130729
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of Chicago Press
- DOI:
- 10.7208/chicago/9780226130729.003.0008
- Subject:
- History, African-American History
This chapter argues that the long tradition of neighborhood-based politics – and the race-conscious, pragmatic, liberal political culture black Chicagoans had created – had its best moment in the ...
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This chapter argues that the long tradition of neighborhood-based politics – and the race-conscious, pragmatic, liberal political culture black Chicagoans had created – had its best moment in the election of Harold Washington as the city’s first black mayor. His electoral insurgency bridged divides in black Chicago with appeals to shared racial interests in the overthrow of the white Democratic machine’s “plantation politics.” After the election, Washington pivoted from black nationalist politics to the politics of progressive reform, seeking to use interracial political alliances and government power to foster democratic political power and fair play and equal opportunity for individuals seeking housing and economic opportunity. In particular, the chapter highlights how people who appeared in previous chapters helped develop a hybrid political vision of “equity planning” that aimed to link economic development to bringing jobs, housing, recreational spaces, and municipal services to working-class communities.Less
This chapter argues that the long tradition of neighborhood-based politics – and the race-conscious, pragmatic, liberal political culture black Chicagoans had created – had its best moment in the election of Harold Washington as the city’s first black mayor. His electoral insurgency bridged divides in black Chicago with appeals to shared racial interests in the overthrow of the white Democratic machine’s “plantation politics.” After the election, Washington pivoted from black nationalist politics to the politics of progressive reform, seeking to use interracial political alliances and government power to foster democratic political power and fair play and equal opportunity for individuals seeking housing and economic opportunity. In particular, the chapter highlights how people who appeared in previous chapters helped develop a hybrid political vision of “equity planning” that aimed to link economic development to bringing jobs, housing, recreational spaces, and municipal services to working-class communities.
Rashad Shabazz
- Published in print:
- 2015
- Published Online:
- April 2017
- ISBN:
- 9780252039645
- eISBN:
- 9780252097737
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of Illinois Press
- DOI:
- 10.5406/illinois/9780252039645.003.0002
- Subject:
- Sociology, Race and Ethnicity
This chapter examines how carceral power became a permanent fixture in Black Chicago during the Progressive Era. It documents the rise of policing in the Black Belt and shows how carceral power ...
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This chapter examines how carceral power became a permanent fixture in Black Chicago during the Progressive Era. It documents the rise of policing in the Black Belt and shows how carceral power entered Black Chicago via attempts to control interracial sex and socializing in the Black/white sex districts on the South Side. The chapter first provides an overview of policing on Chicago's Black Belt as well as the geography of lynching and that of interracial social spaces in the city. It then considers the ways that policing of the Black Belt served as a mechanism to access and consolidate whiteness, organize the racial geography of the city, and for the Black middle class to push for the sexual regulation of Blacks. It also explores how interracial sex districts shaped Chicago's response to Black migration and the subsequent measures it took to control Black masculinity. Finally, it considers the role race scholars and Reconstruction discourses from the South played in framing and mobilizing the hysteria around interracial socializing and sex in Chicago.Less
This chapter examines how carceral power became a permanent fixture in Black Chicago during the Progressive Era. It documents the rise of policing in the Black Belt and shows how carceral power entered Black Chicago via attempts to control interracial sex and socializing in the Black/white sex districts on the South Side. The chapter first provides an overview of policing on Chicago's Black Belt as well as the geography of lynching and that of interracial social spaces in the city. It then considers the ways that policing of the Black Belt served as a mechanism to access and consolidate whiteness, organize the racial geography of the city, and for the Black middle class to push for the sexual regulation of Blacks. It also explores how interracial sex districts shaped Chicago's response to Black migration and the subsequent measures it took to control Black masculinity. Finally, it considers the role race scholars and Reconstruction discourses from the South played in framing and mobilizing the hysteria around interracial socializing and sex in Chicago.
Christopher Robert Reed
- Published in print:
- 2017
- Published Online:
- May 2018
- ISBN:
- 9780252041426
- eISBN:
- 9780252050022
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of Illinois Press
- DOI:
- 10.5622/illinois/9780252041426.003.0002
- Subject:
- History, African-American History
This chapter surveys the evolution of African American-owned businesses in Chicago from the mid-to-late nineteenth century until the early twentieth century. During the nineteenth century, the most ...
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This chapter surveys the evolution of African American-owned businesses in Chicago from the mid-to-late nineteenth century until the early twentieth century. During the nineteenth century, the most successful black entrepreneurs, such as tailor John Jones and caterer Charles H. Smiley, primarily served white clients. By the early twentieth century, as Chicago’s African American population grew, a new breed of black entrepreneur emerged. Even before the World War One “Great Migration,” persons such as newspaper editor Robert Abbott, real estate professional and banker Jesse Binga and personal care products manufacturer Anthony Overton saw the enormous profit potential associated with catering to the needs of the city’s burgeoning “Black Belt.”
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This chapter surveys the evolution of African American-owned businesses in Chicago from the mid-to-late nineteenth century until the early twentieth century. During the nineteenth century, the most successful black entrepreneurs, such as tailor John Jones and caterer Charles H. Smiley, primarily served white clients. By the early twentieth century, as Chicago’s African American population grew, a new breed of black entrepreneur emerged. Even before the World War One “Great Migration,” persons such as newspaper editor Robert Abbott, real estate professional and banker Jesse Binga and personal care products manufacturer Anthony Overton saw the enormous profit potential associated with catering to the needs of the city’s burgeoning “Black Belt.”
Matthew J. Cressler
- Published in print:
- 2017
- Published Online:
- May 2018
- ISBN:
- 9781479841325
- eISBN:
- 9781479815425
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- NYU Press
- DOI:
- 10.18574/nyu/9781479841325.003.0004
- Subject:
- Religion, Religion and Society
This chapter introduces “the Living Stations of the Cross,” a Black Catholic reenactment of the passion and death of Jesus performed annually by parishioners of Chicago’s largest Black Catholic ...
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This chapter introduces “the Living Stations of the Cross,” a Black Catholic reenactment of the passion and death of Jesus performed annually by parishioners of Chicago’s largest Black Catholic church from 1937 to 1968. This devotional practice serves as a lens through which to better understand the ways in which Catholic ritual life and relationships distinguished Catholic converts from the Protestant churches proliferating around them in the midst of the Great Migrations. It argues that Black Catholics should be understood as sharing in the same impulse as other new religious movements or “religio-racial movements,” such as the Black Hebrews and Black Muslims, who adopted religious practices and bodily disciplines that marked them as different from the assorted Black evangelical practices that were quickly coming to be understood as normative for Black religious life (known by the shorthand “the Black Church”).Less
This chapter introduces “the Living Stations of the Cross,” a Black Catholic reenactment of the passion and death of Jesus performed annually by parishioners of Chicago’s largest Black Catholic church from 1937 to 1968. This devotional practice serves as a lens through which to better understand the ways in which Catholic ritual life and relationships distinguished Catholic converts from the Protestant churches proliferating around them in the midst of the Great Migrations. It argues that Black Catholics should be understood as sharing in the same impulse as other new religious movements or “religio-racial movements,” such as the Black Hebrews and Black Muslims, who adopted religious practices and bodily disciplines that marked them as different from the assorted Black evangelical practices that were quickly coming to be understood as normative for Black religious life (known by the shorthand “the Black Church”).
John Lowney
- Published in print:
- 2017
- Published Online:
- May 2018
- ISBN:
- 9780252041334
- eISBN:
- 9780252099939
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of Illinois Press
- DOI:
- 10.5622/illinois/9780252041334.003.0003
- Subject:
- Literature, Film, Media, and Cultural Studies
This chapter argues for renewed recognition of Black Chicago Renaissance writer Frank Marshall Davis, whose first collection of poetry, Black Man’s Verse (1935), was widely celebrated for its ...
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This chapter argues for renewed recognition of Black Chicago Renaissance writer Frank Marshall Davis, whose first collection of poetry, Black Man’s Verse (1935), was widely celebrated for its innovative adaptations of African American vernacular forms, including the blues and jazz. Situating Davis within recent scholarly reassessment of the Black Chicago Renaissance, this chapter demonstrates how Davis’s jazz writing, as a journalist, critic, and poet, exemplifies the global orientation of the Black Chicago Renaissance that is becoming increasingly recognized. Davis’s jazz writing is especially important, for the subsequent Black Arts generation as well as for his Popular Front contemporaries, not only because of his development of inventive vernacular forms, but also because of his insistence on the African roots of African American music. In articulating how African musical principles inform jazz, Davis also underscored the international and interracial importance of jazz for black and working-class social progress.Less
This chapter argues for renewed recognition of Black Chicago Renaissance writer Frank Marshall Davis, whose first collection of poetry, Black Man’s Verse (1935), was widely celebrated for its innovative adaptations of African American vernacular forms, including the blues and jazz. Situating Davis within recent scholarly reassessment of the Black Chicago Renaissance, this chapter demonstrates how Davis’s jazz writing, as a journalist, critic, and poet, exemplifies the global orientation of the Black Chicago Renaissance that is becoming increasingly recognized. Davis’s jazz writing is especially important, for the subsequent Black Arts generation as well as for his Popular Front contemporaries, not only because of his development of inventive vernacular forms, but also because of his insistence on the African roots of African American music. In articulating how African musical principles inform jazz, Davis also underscored the international and interracial importance of jazz for black and working-class social progress.
Christopher Robert Reed
- Published in print:
- 2012
- Published Online:
- April 2017
- ISBN:
- 9780252037023
- eISBN:
- 9780252094392
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of Illinois Press
- DOI:
- 10.5406/illinois/9780252037023.003.0001
- Subject:
- History, African-American History
This chapter examines the local historical context of the Black Chicago Renaissance. It discusses the existence of a layered class structure within the black community, and underscores the importance ...
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This chapter examines the local historical context of the Black Chicago Renaissance. It discusses the existence of a layered class structure within the black community, and underscores the importance and the complicated tradition of support of the arts by elite black and later members of the black entrepreneurial and professional middle class. Black patronage, for both aesthetic and exploitative reasons, served an important function in providing space for creative expression and the means for its distribution and commoditization. Furthermore, the chapter is a response to the claims made by social scientists Charles S. Johnson and E. Franklin Frazier. In 1923, Johnson declared that Chicago's intellectual life had numerous excuses for not existing. In 1929, Fraser echoed Johnson's assertion, insisting that Chicago had no intelligentsia.Less
This chapter examines the local historical context of the Black Chicago Renaissance. It discusses the existence of a layered class structure within the black community, and underscores the importance and the complicated tradition of support of the arts by elite black and later members of the black entrepreneurial and professional middle class. Black patronage, for both aesthetic and exploitative reasons, served an important function in providing space for creative expression and the means for its distribution and commoditization. Furthermore, the chapter is a response to the claims made by social scientists Charles S. Johnson and E. Franklin Frazier. In 1923, Johnson declared that Chicago's intellectual life had numerous excuses for not existing. In 1929, Fraser echoed Johnson's assertion, insisting that Chicago had no intelligentsia.
Elizabeth Schroeder Schlabach
- Published in print:
- 2013
- Published Online:
- April 2017
- ISBN:
- 9780252037825
- eISBN:
- 9780252095108
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- University of Illinois Press
- DOI:
- 10.5406/illinois/9780252037825.001.0001
- Subject:
- Literature, American, 20th Century Literature
This book examines the flowering of African American creativity, activism, and scholarship in the South Side Chicago district known as Bronzeville during the period between the Harlem Renaissance in ...
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This book examines the flowering of African American creativity, activism, and scholarship in the South Side Chicago district known as Bronzeville during the period between the Harlem Renaissance in the 1920s and the Black Arts Movement of the 1960s. Poverty stricken, segregated, and bursting at the seams with migrants, Bronzeville was the community that provided inspiration, training, and work for an entire generation of diversely talented African American authors and artists who came of age during the years between the two world wars. This book investigates the institutions and streetscapes of Black Chicago that fueled an entire literary and artistic movement. It argues that African American authors and artists—such as Gwendolyn Brooks, Richard Wright, Langston Hughes, painter Archibald Motley, and many others—viewed and presented black reality from a specific geographic vantage point: the view along the streets of Bronzeville. The book explores how the particular rhythms and scenes of daily life in Bronzeville locations, such as the State Street “Stroll” district or the bustling intersection of 47th Street and South Parkway, figured into the creative works and experiences of the artists and writers of the Black Chicago Renaissance.Less
This book examines the flowering of African American creativity, activism, and scholarship in the South Side Chicago district known as Bronzeville during the period between the Harlem Renaissance in the 1920s and the Black Arts Movement of the 1960s. Poverty stricken, segregated, and bursting at the seams with migrants, Bronzeville was the community that provided inspiration, training, and work for an entire generation of diversely talented African American authors and artists who came of age during the years between the two world wars. This book investigates the institutions and streetscapes of Black Chicago that fueled an entire literary and artistic movement. It argues that African American authors and artists—such as Gwendolyn Brooks, Richard Wright, Langston Hughes, painter Archibald Motley, and many others—viewed and presented black reality from a specific geographic vantage point: the view along the streets of Bronzeville. The book explores how the particular rhythms and scenes of daily life in Bronzeville locations, such as the State Street “Stroll” district or the bustling intersection of 47th Street and South Parkway, figured into the creative works and experiences of the artists and writers of the Black Chicago Renaissance.
Darlene Clark Hine and John McCluskey Jr. (eds)
- Published in print:
- 2012
- Published Online:
- April 2017
- ISBN:
- 9780252037023
- eISBN:
- 9780252094392
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- University of Illinois Press
- DOI:
- 10.5406/illinois/9780252037023.001.0001
- Subject:
- History, African-American History
Beginning in the 1930s, Black Chicago experienced a cultural renaissance that lasted into the 1950s and rivaled the cultural outpouring of the Harlem Renaissance of the 1920s. This book analyzes this ...
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Beginning in the 1930s, Black Chicago experienced a cultural renaissance that lasted into the 1950s and rivaled the cultural outpouring of the Harlem Renaissance of the 1920s. This book analyzes this prolific period of African American creativity in music, performance art, social science scholarship, and visual and literary artistic expression. Unlike Harlem, Chicago was an urban industrial center that gave a unique working-class and internationalist perspective to the cultural work being done in Chicago. The chapters discuss the forces that distinguished the Black Chicago Renaissance from the Harlem Renaissance and place the development of black culture in a national and international context. The chapters also provoke explorations of renaissances in other cities. Among the topics discussed in this volume are Chicago writers Gwendolyn Brooks and Richard Wright, The Chicago Defender and Tivoli Theater, African American music and visual arts, and the American Negro Exposition of 1940.Less
Beginning in the 1930s, Black Chicago experienced a cultural renaissance that lasted into the 1950s and rivaled the cultural outpouring of the Harlem Renaissance of the 1920s. This book analyzes this prolific period of African American creativity in music, performance art, social science scholarship, and visual and literary artistic expression. Unlike Harlem, Chicago was an urban industrial center that gave a unique working-class and internationalist perspective to the cultural work being done in Chicago. The chapters discuss the forces that distinguished the Black Chicago Renaissance from the Harlem Renaissance and place the development of black culture in a national and international context. The chapters also provoke explorations of renaissances in other cities. Among the topics discussed in this volume are Chicago writers Gwendolyn Brooks and Richard Wright, The Chicago Defender and Tivoli Theater, African American music and visual arts, and the American Negro Exposition of 1940.
Elizabeth Schroeder Schlabach
- Published in print:
- 2013
- Published Online:
- April 2017
- ISBN:
- 9780252037825
- eISBN:
- 9780252095108
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of Illinois Press
- DOI:
- 10.5406/illinois/9780252037825.003.0003
- Subject:
- Literature, American, 20th Century Literature
This chapter looks at the many spheres of policy gambling, a game that rose to prominence between 1908 and 1955. It understands policy as performance art, as informing black cultural production ...
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This chapter looks at the many spheres of policy gambling, a game that rose to prominence between 1908 and 1955. It understands policy as performance art, as informing black cultural production throughout Bronzeville, and as a patron and fiscal support of the Chicago Black Renaissance. Most importantly, the chapter seeks to demonstrate the relationship between lived actual realities of Bronzeville's mass culture of games and luck, and the grist mill that the game and its derivative culture provided for both the people in Bronzeville who hoped to imagine themselves beyond their existence, and the writers and artists who recognized the rich cultural material that was the policy game.Less
This chapter looks at the many spheres of policy gambling, a game that rose to prominence between 1908 and 1955. It understands policy as performance art, as informing black cultural production throughout Bronzeville, and as a patron and fiscal support of the Chicago Black Renaissance. Most importantly, the chapter seeks to demonstrate the relationship between lived actual realities of Bronzeville's mass culture of games and luck, and the grist mill that the game and its derivative culture provided for both the people in Bronzeville who hoped to imagine themselves beyond their existence, and the writers and artists who recognized the rich cultural material that was the policy game.
Jeffrey Helgeson
- Published in print:
- 2012
- Published Online:
- April 2017
- ISBN:
- 9780252037023
- eISBN:
- 9780252094392
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of Illinois Press
- DOI:
- 10.5406/illinois/9780252037023.003.0008
- Subject:
- History, African-American History
This chapter considers the 1940 American Negro Exposition in Chicago, the first black-organized world's fair that sought to showcase African American artists on a national stage. It delineates the ...
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This chapter considers the 1940 American Negro Exposition in Chicago, the first black-organized world's fair that sought to showcase African American artists on a national stage. It delineates the diversity of voices and competing visions of racial progress that defined the character of the Black Chicago Renaissance. Historians have described the exposition as a failure; the event did not attract mass audiences, and it did not create a broader public debate about the meanings of black identity, legacies of slavery, or contemporary discrimination in the United States. Yet, by examining the exposition as presented, rather than what it failed to be, the chapter uncovers important and sometimes surprising influences on the fair's messages.Less
This chapter considers the 1940 American Negro Exposition in Chicago, the first black-organized world's fair that sought to showcase African American artists on a national stage. It delineates the diversity of voices and competing visions of racial progress that defined the character of the Black Chicago Renaissance. Historians have described the exposition as a failure; the event did not attract mass audiences, and it did not create a broader public debate about the meanings of black identity, legacies of slavery, or contemporary discrimination in the United States. Yet, by examining the exposition as presented, rather than what it failed to be, the chapter uncovers important and sometimes surprising influences on the fair's messages.
Elizabeth Schroeder Schlabach
- Published in print:
- 2013
- Published Online:
- April 2017
- ISBN:
- 9780252037825
- eISBN:
- 9780252095108
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of Illinois Press
- DOI:
- 10.5406/illinois/9780252037825.003.0002
- Subject:
- Literature, American, 20th Century Literature
This chapter focuses on the South Side Community Art Center and the South Side Writers' Group that predate the fame of Richard Wright and Gwendolyn Brooks. As pillars of the Bronzeville's community, ...
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This chapter focuses on the South Side Community Art Center and the South Side Writers' Group that predate the fame of Richard Wright and Gwendolyn Brooks. As pillars of the Bronzeville's community, these institutions of art and literature generated a unique aesthetic consciousness/political ideology for which Chicago Black Renaissance would garner much fame. The chapter emphasizes how the artists and authors of both institutions evidenced a strong commitment to and conditioning by the streets and people of Bronzeville. The aesthetic formula characterized by these visual arts and literary groups collided in ways that always articulated a vital political and modern consciousness that sustained the Renaissance movement into the 1940s.Less
This chapter focuses on the South Side Community Art Center and the South Side Writers' Group that predate the fame of Richard Wright and Gwendolyn Brooks. As pillars of the Bronzeville's community, these institutions of art and literature generated a unique aesthetic consciousness/political ideology for which Chicago Black Renaissance would garner much fame. The chapter emphasizes how the artists and authors of both institutions evidenced a strong commitment to and conditioning by the streets and people of Bronzeville. The aesthetic formula characterized by these visual arts and literary groups collided in ways that always articulated a vital political and modern consciousness that sustained the Renaissance movement into the 1940s.
Elizabeth Schlabach
- Published in print:
- 2012
- Published Online:
- April 2017
- ISBN:
- 9780252037023
- eISBN:
- 9780252094392
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of Illinois Press
- DOI:
- 10.5406/illinois/9780252037023.003.0005
- Subject:
- History, African-American History
This chapter talks about how Richard Wright and Gwendolyn Brooks, perhaps the two most famous literary figures of the Black Chicago Renaissance, shared a common struggle to discern a new black ...
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This chapter talks about how Richard Wright and Gwendolyn Brooks, perhaps the two most famous literary figures of the Black Chicago Renaissance, shared a common struggle to discern a new black consciousness in the physical and metaphoric spaces of Chicago's South Side streets. The chapter analyzes the photographic 12 Million Black Voices of Wright and Edwin Rosskam, as well as Wright's last novel, The Outsider, to show how he depicted the confining realities of the kitchenette apartment along with the segregated, overcrowded city pavement of black neighborhoods. It compares Wright's attempt to define and defy these urban realities to poet Gwendolyn Brooks' Street in Bronzeville and Maud Martha that similarly elucidated the intense material deprivation of African Americans.Less
This chapter talks about how Richard Wright and Gwendolyn Brooks, perhaps the two most famous literary figures of the Black Chicago Renaissance, shared a common struggle to discern a new black consciousness in the physical and metaphoric spaces of Chicago's South Side streets. The chapter analyzes the photographic 12 Million Black Voices of Wright and Edwin Rosskam, as well as Wright's last novel, The Outsider, to show how he depicted the confining realities of the kitchenette apartment along with the segregated, overcrowded city pavement of black neighborhoods. It compares Wright's attempt to define and defy these urban realities to poet Gwendolyn Brooks' Street in Bronzeville and Maud Martha that similarly elucidated the intense material deprivation of African Americans.
Moira Hinderer
- Published in print:
- 2011
- Published Online:
- March 2016
- ISBN:
- 9780814776469
- eISBN:
- 9780814777466
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- NYU Press
- DOI:
- 10.18574/nyu/9780814776469.003.0015
- Subject:
- Religion, Religion and Society
This chapter records the first use of “Defender Jr.,” the Chicago Defender's children's column, as a means of accessing children's interpretations of their religious experiences. These columns, ...
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This chapter records the first use of “Defender Jr.,” the Chicago Defender's children's column, as a means of accessing children's interpretations of their religious experiences. These columns, particularly the children's letters to the editor, are used in conjunction with diaries, memoirs, and the broader historical context, to examine religious life for newly arrived young migrants to Chicago during the Great Migration. Religious leaders at the time had expressed adult fears of loss of control over young people in a new environment, as well as concerns about a broader cultural shift in religious practices. Meanwhile, the children seemed to feel comfortable in a diverse and changing religious environment. Young people continued to feel strong ties to religious beliefs and practices, although those beliefs and practices sometimes differed from those of their parents.Less
This chapter records the first use of “Defender Jr.,” the Chicago Defender's children's column, as a means of accessing children's interpretations of their religious experiences. These columns, particularly the children's letters to the editor, are used in conjunction with diaries, memoirs, and the broader historical context, to examine religious life for newly arrived young migrants to Chicago during the Great Migration. Religious leaders at the time had expressed adult fears of loss of control over young people in a new environment, as well as concerns about a broader cultural shift in religious practices. Meanwhile, the children seemed to feel comfortable in a diverse and changing religious environment. Young people continued to feel strong ties to religious beliefs and practices, although those beliefs and practices sometimes differed from those of their parents.
Elizabeth Schroeder Schlabach
- Published in print:
- 2013
- Published Online:
- April 2017
- ISBN:
- 9780252037825
- eISBN:
- 9780252095108
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of Illinois Press
- DOI:
- 10.5406/illinois/9780252037825.003.0006
- Subject:
- Literature, American, 20th Century Literature
This concluding chapter evaluates Bronzeville's and the Chicago Black Renaissance's narrative of decline. It argues that the experience of Bronzeville's residents during this period was not one of ...
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This concluding chapter evaluates Bronzeville's and the Chicago Black Renaissance's narrative of decline. It argues that the experience of Bronzeville's residents during this period was not one of unmitigated triumph followed by unfortunate demise; instead it was a contradictory blend of expansion, progress, and stagnation. From 1910 to 1950, neighborhood residents produced and witnessed a remarkable growth in cultural, economic, and political institutions designed to serve their growing needs. Thus, the history of the neighborhood is a conflicting mixture of opportunity and subjugation. As an ending note, the chapter comes to terms with the actual existing economic, political, and cultural relations of the period, showing how the once vibrant neighborhood succumbed to the pressures of segregation and economic disparity.Less
This concluding chapter evaluates Bronzeville's and the Chicago Black Renaissance's narrative of decline. It argues that the experience of Bronzeville's residents during this period was not one of unmitigated triumph followed by unfortunate demise; instead it was a contradictory blend of expansion, progress, and stagnation. From 1910 to 1950, neighborhood residents produced and witnessed a remarkable growth in cultural, economic, and political institutions designed to serve their growing needs. Thus, the history of the neighborhood is a conflicting mixture of opportunity and subjugation. As an ending note, the chapter comes to terms with the actual existing economic, political, and cultural relations of the period, showing how the once vibrant neighborhood succumbed to the pressures of segregation and economic disparity.
Joanna Dee Das
- Published in print:
- 2017
- Published Online:
- April 2017
- ISBN:
- 9780190264871
- eISBN:
- 9780190264901
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780190264871.003.0002
- Subject:
- Music, Dance, History, American
“Becoming a New Negro in Chicago” delves into Dunham’s childhood and young adulthood in order to understand her artistic and intellectual foundations. Her early years in the Chicago suburbs were ...
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“Becoming a New Negro in Chicago” delves into Dunham’s childhood and young adulthood in order to understand her artistic and intellectual foundations. Her early years in the Chicago suburbs were filled with family trauma, but also taught her how to navigate race, class, and colorism divisions. When she moved to the city in 1928, Dunham joined the University of Chicago anthropology department, the New Negro Movement, and Chicago’s dance community. The chapter analyzes how she brought these three worlds together to articulate a place for dance in the fight for racial equality. Her first effort, the Ballet Nègre with Mark Turbyfill, folded quickly. Her second, the Negro Dance Group with Ludmila Speranzeva, was more successful, but Dunham felt that her knowledge of Africanist culture practices was lacking. She turned to anthropology to fill in the gaps and thus achieve her dream of presenting black dance as an art form.Less
“Becoming a New Negro in Chicago” delves into Dunham’s childhood and young adulthood in order to understand her artistic and intellectual foundations. Her early years in the Chicago suburbs were filled with family trauma, but also taught her how to navigate race, class, and colorism divisions. When she moved to the city in 1928, Dunham joined the University of Chicago anthropology department, the New Negro Movement, and Chicago’s dance community. The chapter analyzes how she brought these three worlds together to articulate a place for dance in the fight for racial equality. Her first effort, the Ballet Nègre with Mark Turbyfill, folded quickly. Her second, the Negro Dance Group with Ludmila Speranzeva, was more successful, but Dunham felt that her knowledge of Africanist culture practices was lacking. She turned to anthropology to fill in the gaps and thus achieve her dream of presenting black dance as an art form.
Brian Dolinar (ed.)
- Published in print:
- 2013
- Published Online:
- April 2017
- ISBN:
- 9780252037696
- eISBN:
- 9780252094958
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- University of Illinois Press
- DOI:
- 10.5406/illinois/9780252037696.001.0001
- Subject:
- History, African-American History
A major document of African American participation in the struggles of the Great Depression, The Negro in Illinois was produced by a special division of the Illinois Writers' Project, one of ...
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A major document of African American participation in the struggles of the Great Depression, The Negro in Illinois was produced by a special division of the Illinois Writers' Project, one of President Franklin D. Roosevelt's Works Progress Administration programs. Headed by Harlem Renaissance poet Arna Bontemps and white proletarian writer Jack Conroy, The Negro in Illinois employed major black writers living in Chicago during the 1930s, including Richard Wright, Margaret Walker, Katherine Dunham, Fenton Johnson, Frank Yerby, and Richard Durham. The authors chronicled the Negroes' experience in Illinois from the beginnings of slavery to Abraham Lincoln's emancipation and the Great Migration, with individual chapters discussing various aspects of public and domestic life, recreation, politics, religion, literature, and performing arts. After the project was canceled in 1942, most of the writings went unpublished for more than half a century—until now. The editor of this book provides an informative introduction and epilogue which explain the origins of the project and place it in the context of the Black Chicago Renaissance.Less
A major document of African American participation in the struggles of the Great Depression, The Negro in Illinois was produced by a special division of the Illinois Writers' Project, one of President Franklin D. Roosevelt's Works Progress Administration programs. Headed by Harlem Renaissance poet Arna Bontemps and white proletarian writer Jack Conroy, The Negro in Illinois employed major black writers living in Chicago during the 1930s, including Richard Wright, Margaret Walker, Katherine Dunham, Fenton Johnson, Frank Yerby, and Richard Durham. The authors chronicled the Negroes' experience in Illinois from the beginnings of slavery to Abraham Lincoln's emancipation and the Great Migration, with individual chapters discussing various aspects of public and domestic life, recreation, politics, religion, literature, and performing arts. After the project was canceled in 1942, most of the writings went unpublished for more than half a century—until now. The editor of this book provides an informative introduction and epilogue which explain the origins of the project and place it in the context of the Black Chicago Renaissance.
