Talk:Chatham, Chicago

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Class Project Page[edit]

This page has been selected by one of my students as a class project. Please be polite and constructive when editing or giving advice and be aware that the students involved in this project are learning Wikipedia along with learning research and writing skills. If you have any questions, please contact me. MrSilva (talk) 17:49, 17 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Possible ref.[edit]

The Jan. 8, 2013 NYT has an article about the community.Kdammers (talk) 13:29, 8 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]

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Early History[edit]

Chatham was not always the powerful African-American community it is today. The area currently known as Chatham was, in the 1860s, called either “mud lake” or “hogs swamp”. It was then settled by Italians, Hungarians, and the Irish. The community was developed, beginning in the 1910s, when Chatham’s iconic terra-cotta commercial buildings were first established along Cottage Grove Avenue and 75th Street and 79th Street. These now historic neighborhood commercial buildings were designed in the fashionable architectural styles of the early 1900s, including Classical, Renaissance, Gothic, and Spanish Revival, as well as styles originating in Chicago, such as Prairie and Sullivanesque.

Racial Transition Chatham[1] was residentially mature by 1930—all of the area’s housing had been built for its 36,228 person [null population], but its racial demographics were drastically different from Chatham’s current racial composition. In the year 1950, Chatham was less than 1% black. The African-American population of Chatham moved from Bronzeville, also known as the ‘Black Belt’, to the area. Bronzeville today is known as the Douglas and Grand Boulevard area. The Bronzeville location, which was too small to accommodate 200,000 African-American [null residents], forced blacks to live in cramped and substandard living conditions during the Second World War. When restrictive covenants that prevented blacks from moving into certain areas were outlawed in 1949, black people were able to migrate to Chatham. When the moved, they mainly populated the center of the [null community] , while the white inhabitants were concentrated in East Chatham, below 83rd Street and east of College Grove Ave. By 1960, Chatham was 63.7% black.

Chatham attracted black middle class residents because of the area’s strict property standards, high levels of community organization, and good schools. Black residents worked hard and maintained the desirable community they had moved [null int]o . One example of this effort is the Community Council training their own building inspectors to supplement the already overworked city inspectors. The city was not inspecting and fixing housing, so the citizens of Chatham took it into their own hands.

The racial transition of Chatham was highly uncontested. The lack of resistance to the transition can be credited to violence that occurred immediately north of Chatham in the Greater Grand Crossing neighborhood in 1949. While there were organizations that were against integration, such as the Chatham Improvement Association, the community council, Chatham-Avalon Park Community Council included black members in 1955. This started when two new black residents brought a large group of new black residents to the public meeting. Blacks and whites in Chatham decided to work together to conserve Chatham for the middle class, not just for whites. Several area churches, such as Salem Lutheran Church headed by Pastor Phillip A Johnson, either worked to get their congregations to accept blacks or relocated.

1960s- 1980s By the 1950s, Chatham was home to at least three black owned financial institutions. These institutions included Independence Bank, Illinois Service Federal Savings and Loan, and Seaway Bank and Trust. Having these financial institutions within the community allowed black residents to receive fair mortgages with good terms, which was highly unusual in this historic period of redlining. New construction [null continued], allowing for black homeowners to display their individual style and flare through the architectural style of their homes. Often, well known residents had equally recognizable and iconic homes to match.

One example of these homes were 8459 South Michigan. A black and white rectangular building, this house looks strikingly contemporary. It was built for an attorney and his family. Another example is 8342 South Calumet. This house is a rare two-story Miesian modern home, and it was built for Frank Anglin, a civil rights attorney who founded one of the first integrated law firms in Chicago. His wife, Helen C. Maybell, owner of Soul Queen restaurant, also had a fashionable house on 330 East 84th street. Her house is covered in rustic stone with a grand center entrance. All of these building are still in Chatham today.

Young black families flocked to the area in groups. Parents raised their children together in an economically diverse neighborhood. South Side Little League was founded in 1955, which provided an outlet for the neighborhood children. Homeownership was popular, in 1960 [null 37]% of the houses were owner occupied. Chatham’s distinct vibrancy attracted new residents and kept old residents.

Chatham had a bustling social scene. The large number of black migrants caused local churches, businesses, and community organizations to swell. Music remained the heart of the community long after the Jazz Age of the 1920s, with music harkening to the Mississippi region. Although music greats such as Louis Armstrong performed in the jazz clubs on State Street, Chatham had their own great musicians. Mahalia Jackson, the Queen of Gospel, moved to Chatham at the age of 16 in [null 1927] and began singing in South Side churches. By 1946 she has sold over 1 million copies of her first hit, “Move on Up a Little Higher”. Jackson was also an activist and inspired Martin Luther King Jr.’s “I Have a Dream” speech, for before King uttered those famous lines, it was Jackson who yelled “tell them about the dream, Martin”. She also supported the Montgomery Bus Boycott by fundraising. In her famous Chatham home located at 8358 S. Indiana,[2] Jackson hosted Edward R. Murrow, the host of the Person to Person show, where she entertained him and other Chatham Avalon Community Councilmembers.

Besides music, Chatham was also home to prolific writers. Novelists in the Harlem Renaissance often wrote in a folk tradition, but Chicago writers had a distinct, grittier style which depicted the urban ghettos. This style is called literary naturalism. Chatham was the birthplace of writer Lorraine Hansberry, author of the critically acclaimed, poignant play [null A] Raisin in the Sun. Hansberry was deeply integrated into her community, with a successful real estate broker father and a schoolteacher mother who supported both the National Association for the Advancement of Colored Peoples and the Urban League. She briefly attended University of Wisconsin-Madison before moving to New York. There she wrote her most famous play, A Raisin in the Sun, which opened to the public on March 11, 1959. The play was wildly successful, with a run of five hundred and thirty performances. Hansberry was the first African American woman to have her play produced on Broadway, and was the first black playwright and the youngest American to win a New York Critic’s Circle Award.

Black entrepreneurs also resided in Chatham. George Johnson, founder of Ultra Sheen Hair Products, was a resident of Chatham. His most popular items were the hair relaxer Ultra Sheen and Afro Sheen. Johnson also was the only sponsor of the hit show ‘Soul Train’ and founded Independence Bank in 1964.

On 87th street between the Metra Train railroad tracks to the west and Avalon Avenue to the east there was and remains a light manufacturing district. On State Street, there were barber shops, pool rooms, saloons, beauty salons, and restaurants. One famous restaurant, Soul [null Queen], located at 9031 South Stony Island in Calumet Heights, belonged to Helen C. Maybell. This restaurant hosted every important black person passing through the city, including Joe Louis, Muhammad Ali, Count Basie, and others. These shops allowed for community building and active community participation for the residents of Chatham. By the 1970s white flight rendered the community almost entirely black.

In 1968, as a part of the Civil Rights Act, the Fair Housing Act (FHA) Passed. The FHA protects buyers or renters of dwellings from discrimination from the person they are obtaining the dwelling from. This act allowed black people to move to areas all over the city of Chicago, which they did. Black communities moved to previously abandoned white suburbs and spread closer towards the Loop.

1980s- Present While the 1970s marked the end of post-war prosperity, in the 1980s, chronic unemployment hit the South Side. There were significant lay-offs as the manufacturing and industrial sector was either moved or rendered obsolete by innovation. These jobs sustained a bustling, middle class community, and without these jobs, Work was limited to local jobs with little upward mobility, such as the service sector or janitorial or maintenance work. Lots became abandoned, houses without residents became dilapidated, gangs, crime and drugs moved into the area. Residents were encountering an increasingly punitive and hostile federal government as a result of the Reagan Administration and the War on Crime and War on Drugs. Euguene Sawyer, a Chatham resident, served as Mayor of Chicago from 1987 to 1989, as the city’s second black mayor. Near the end of the 1990s Chatham continued to face rising crime, property neglect and economic [null instability]. While still a relatively safe neighborhood compared to the surrounding areas, Chatham did see a spike in violent, property, and quality of life crimes. [null Chatham] has an aging population, but still had high levels of home ownership.

Through the 1990s and into the early 2000s, sparked by the replacement of full service gas stations by mini-marts, black businesses began leaving the area. Chain grocery stores moved into the neighborhood, followed by the liquor stores that had been banned by the Chatham Avalon Park Community Council so many years ago. The crack-cocaine epidemic also affected Greater Chatham. In 2009, Chathamite Roland Burris is appointed to the US Senate to fill the empty seat left by former President Barack Obama.

Still, today Chatham boasts Chicago’s best and brightest celebrities. W. Kamau Bell, a stand-up comedian and television host, is also from Chatham. Bell currently hosts the CNN show ‘United Shades of America,’ and holds the position of Celebrity Ambassador on racial justice for the American Civil Liberties Union. Journalist Natalie Y. Moore grew up in Chatham, her experience inspiring her book The South Side: A Portrait of Chicago and American Segregation. Known as the South Side’s Lois Lane, Moore is the South Side reporter for Chicago’s NPR member station, WBEZ. Finally, Chancelor Jonathan Bennett, better known by his stage name of Chance the Rapper, grew up in west Chatham. A popular rapper, singer, record producer and philanthropist, Chance the Rapper holds three Grammys. His fame allowed him to give back to his community. Chance started the campaign, #SaveChicago, to curb gun violence, and he also donated 1 million dollars to Chicago Public Schools, among other notable philanthropic acts. His commitment to his community helped him win a National Association of the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) Image Award.

[null In] Chatham, neighborhoods in the area are showing signs of housing market stabilization, with increasing amounts of sales of single houses. Chatham was doing very well before the 2008 Great Recession, unfortunately Chatham’s residents were adversely affected by the recession. As of June 2017, Chatham holds a decade-low level of crimes committed. Chatham has strong business assets and four Level 1 elementary schools. Chatham, since its racial turnover, has been the jewel of the south side of Chicago. Once a stronghold for black middle class communities, Chatham remains, its former glory just a vestige, but with future glory in close reach.

Jip Orlando (talk) 19:58, 9 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]

References

  1. ^ Gregory, Mae (1989). Chatham, 1856-1987: A Community of Excellence. Chicago Public Library.
  2. ^ "At Home in Chatham: A Bounty of Mid-Century Modern on the South Side, Where the African-American Elite Once "Strutted Their Stuff"". {{cite news}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter: |dead-url= (help)

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