Comedian Chris Rock once quipped that Black History Month occurs in February because it’s the “shortest, coldest month.”
In fact, the late Carter G. Woodson chose the second week of February for Negro History Week because of the birthdays of Abraham Lincoln (Feb. 12) and Frederick Douglass (Feb. 14). And while February in Chicago is indeed short and usually cold, it’s filled with a number of Black History Month activities, from photo exhibitions to concerts to family fun.
Chicago is an important city in African-American history — and not only because it was among the chief destinations for the thousands of Southern workers who came seeking jobs in the nation’s urban centers in the years following World War I. Chicago also deserves to be a focal point for any Black History Month celebration because of the famous Wabash Street YMCA at 3763 S. Wabash Ave., in the city’s storied Bronzeville community, which served as a refuge for blacks who weren’t welcome at downtown hotels. Then there was the historic election of Oscar de Priest, a Republican congressman and the first African-American to be elected to a political office, post-Reconstruction.
In the mid-1960s, Martin Luther King, Jr. turned Chicago into a national base for his civil rights efforts. And photographer John Tweedle was there. The results are on view at the DuSable Museum of African-American History in “King: The Chicago Connection.”
During his career at many Chicago newsgathering organizations, Tweedle chronicled the moves of King during every one of the late civil rights activist’s Chicago visits, following King from rallies to meetings to protests for integrated housing in the city. King’s speech at the 1966 Freedom Rally at Soldier Field is the focus of the show.
Tweedle’s images, donated to the DuSable by his widow (he died in 1981), are stunning not only because of his fine eye but also because his subject granted him an unprecedented level of access. But King isn’t the only prominent African-American historical figure who will be featured during Black History Month in Chicago. Louis Armstrong and Jelly Roll Morton made jazz sing, while poet Gwendolyn Brooks gave voice to dreams and aspirations. Mae Jemison was launched into space as an astronaut, while athletes Arthur Ashe and Althea Gibson redefined the use of space on a tennis court. Justice Thurgood Marshall held sway on the highest court in the land. Watch for events that showcase their legacies throughout the month.
Some argue that Black History Month is unnecessary, that the contributions of those it honors should be not be dealt with in one month but be a permanent part of the teaching of history. Regardless, others say, the sharply focused month, and events and exhibits like “King: The Chicago Connection” dedicated to honoring the accomplishments of African-American movers and shakers, certainly heighten awareness.
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Hank Aaron * Kareem Abdul-Jabbar * Ralph Abernathy * Alvin Ailey * Ira Aldridge * Archibald Alphonso Alexander * Muhammad Ali * Richard Allen * Marian Anderson * Maya Angelou * Henry Armstrong * Louis Armstrong * Arthur Ashe * Evelyn Ashford * Crispus Attucks * James Baldwin * Josephine Baker * Ernie Banks * Benjamin Banneker * Imamu AmirI Baraka * Richmond Barthe * Count Basie * Jean-Michel Basquiat * Bob Beamon * Romare Bearden * Harry Belafonte * James “Cool Papa” Bell * Chuck Berry * Mary McLeod Bethune * Black Panthers * Julian Bond * Barry Bonds * Ralph Boston * Edward Bouchet * Benjamin Bradley * Tom Bradley * Herman Russell Branson * Carol Moseley-Braun * Lou Brock * Edward Brooke * Gwendolyn Brooks * James Brown * Jim Brown * Buck Buchanan * Edward Bullins * Ralph Bunche * Harry T. Burleigh * LeVar Burton * Lee Calhoun * Cab Calloway * Roy Campanella * Rod Carew * Benny Carter * Betty Carter * George Washington Carver * Wilt Chamberlain * Emmett W. Chappelle * Ray Charles * Charles W. Chesnutt * Shirley Anita St. Hill Chisholm * Kenneth B. Clark * Eldridge Cleaver * Alice Coachman * Jewel Plummer Cobb * Nat “King” Cole * Rebecca Cole * John Conyers * Bill Cosby * David Crosthwait, Jr. * Scatman Crothers * Paul Cuffe * Countee Cullen * Angela Davis * Benjamin O. Davis, Jr. * Benjamin O. Davis, Sr. * Miles Davis * Ossie Davis * Sammy Davis Jr. * William L. Dawson * Ruby Dee * Anita DeFrantz * Martin Robinson Delany * Robert Nathaniel Dett * Harrison Dillard * David Dinkins * Father Divine * Larry Doby * Antoine “Fats” Domino * Frederick Douglass * Charles Richard Drew * WEB Dubois * Paul Laurence Dunbar * Katherine Dunham * Marian Wright Edelman * Clarence L. Elder * Lee Elder * Joycelyn Elders * Duke Ellington * Ralph Ellison * Julius “Dr. J” Erving * Lee Evans * Medgar Evers * Myrlie Evers-Williams * James Farmer * Louis Farrakhan * Ella Fitzgerald * Curt Flood * George Foreman * Redd Foxx * Aretha Franklin * John Hope Franklin * Joe Frazier * Morgan Freeman * Charles Fuller * Henry Highland Garnet * Marcus Garvey * Henry Louis Gates, Jr. * Marvin Gaye * Althea Gibson * Bob Gibson * Josh Gibson * Dizzy Gillespie * Yolande Cornelia “Nikki” Giovanni * Doris Kearns Goodwin * Berry Gordy, Jr. * Florence Griffith Joyner * Archibald H. Grimke * Alex Haley * Lloyd Augustus Hall * Jupiter Hammon * William Christopher Handy * Lorraine Hansberry * William H. Hastie * Rickey Henderson * Jimi Hendrix * Matthew Henson * Leon A. Higginbotham, Jr. * Anita Hill * Billie Holiday * Evander Holyfield * Benjamin Hooks * Lena Horne * Charles Hamilton Houston * Gen. Oliver Otis Howard * William DeHart Hubbard * Langston Hughes * Zora Neale Hurston * Samuel Elmer Imes * Roy Innis * Jesse Jackson * Mahalia Jackson * Reggie Jackson * Samuel L. Jackson * Daniel “Chappie” James, Jr. * Mae Jemison * Ervin “Magic” Johnson * Jack Johnson * James Weldon Johnson * Judy Johnson * Frederick McKinley Jones * James Earl Jones * Lois Mailou Jones * Marion Jones * Quincy Jones * Scott Joplin * Barbara Jordan * Michael Jordan * Jackie Joyner-Kersee * Percy Julian * Ernest Everett Just * B.B. King * Coretta Scott King * Don King * Martin Luther King Jr. * Eartha Kitt * Nella Larsen * Lewis Howard Latimer * Buck Leonard * Sugar Ray Leonard * Edmonia Lewis * Reginald Lewis * Jacob Lawrence * Huddie Ledbetter * Arthur Lewis * Bill Lewis * Alain Locke * Belva Ann Lockwood * Joe Louis * Toussaint L’Ouverture * Malcolm X * Wynton Marsalis * Thurgood Marshall * Willie Mays * Henry Cecil Ransom McBay * Elijah J. McCoy * Hattie McDaniel * Floyd McKissick * Butterfly McQueen * Kweisi Mfume * Cheryl Miller * Charles Mingus * Arthur Mitchell * Thelonious Monk * Archie Moore * Garrett Augustus Morgan * Toni Morrison * Ferdinand “Jelly Roll” Morton * Robert Russa Moton * Elijah Muhammad * Huey Newton * Jessye Norman * Eleanor Holmes Norton * Jessie Owens * Satchel Paige * Charlie “Bird” Parker * Gordon Parks * Rosa Parks * Floyd Patterson * Calvin Peete * Ann Petry * P. B. S. Pinchback * Horace Pippin * Sidney Poitier * Fritz Pollard * Adam Clayton Powell, Jr. * Colin Powell * Mike Powell * Leontyne Price * Richard Pryor * Gabriel Prosser * Maurice F. Rabb, Jr. * Joseph Rainey * Asa Philip Randolph * Charles Rangel * Hiram R. Revels * Jerry Rice * Norbert Rillieux * Oscar Robertson * Paul Robeson * Frank Robinson * Jackie Robinson * Smokey Robinson * Sugar Ray Robinson * Diana Ross * Carl Rowan * Wilma Rudolph * Bill Russell * John Russwurm * Ignatius Sancho * Augusta Christine Fells Savage * Gale Sayers * Dred Scott * Ntozke Shange * Charlie Sifford * O.J. Simpson * Bessie Smith * Joel Elias Spingarn * Leon Spinks * William Grant Still * Carl B. Stokes * Lynn Swann * Howard Swanson * Henry Tanner * Mary Eliza Church Terrell * Clarence Thomas * John Thompson * Wallace Thurman * Jean Toomer * Pierre Toussaint * Virgil Garnett Trice, Jr. * Sojourner Truth * Harriet Tubman * Charles Henry Turner * Tina Turner * Nat Turner * Cicely Tyson * Gene Upshaw * Gustavus Vassa * Sarah Vaughan * Denmark Vesey * Jersey Joe Walcott * Alice Walker * Sarah “Madame C J Walker” Walker * Thomas “Fats” Waller * Booker T. Washington * Harold Washington * Muddy Waters * Faye Wattleton * J. C. Watts * Keenan Ivory Wayans * Robert C. Weaver * Junior Wells * Ida B. Wells-Barnett * Cornel West * Dorothy West * Phyllis Wheatley * Bill White * Walter White * John Edgar Wideman * Roy Wilkins * Daniel Hale Williams * George Washington Williams * Peter Williams, Jr. * Peter Williams, Sr. * Serena Williams * Venus Williams * August Wilson * Flip Wilson * Paul Winfield * Oprah Winfrey * Stevie Wonder * Granville T. Woods * Tiger Woods * Carter G. Woodson * Richard Wright * Andrew Young * Lester Young * Roger Arliner Young * James Van Der Zee
ON THE WEB
Watch a video collage on the life of Martin Luther King Jr., and meet today’s unsung heroes in towns across America at Blackvoices.com.
