Josie Brown Childs Papers

Josie Brown Childs was born in Clarksdale, Mississippi on October 13, 1926. When Josie Brown was 10 months old her mother, Julia Brown, moved the family to Memphis, Tennessee. In 1948 or 1949 Josie Brown moved to Chicago. She married James (Jack) Childs in 1968. The couple had four children: Jack Jr., Christopher, Kendall, and Patricia. From about 1953-2003, the Childs family, attended church at the Congregational Church of Park Manor (70th Street and Martin Luther King, Jr. Drive). Jack and Josie owned J.M. Childs and Associates, a Chicago accounting firm, for prominent musicians.

Josie Brown Childs was involved in local politics and community organizing to further African American involvement in the city. She worked with The Chicago Urban League, the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), the Board of the Friends of the Chicago Public Library, Planned Parenthood, T.R.U.S.T. Inc., the Board of Know Your Chicago, the Joint Negro Appeal, the National Board of Council on Lay Life and Work, and the South Shore Commission planning events. Childs also worked for the congressional campaigns of Abner Mikva, Ralph Metcalfe, and Harold Washington. She was an Illinois organizer for the presidential campaigns of Adlai Stevenson Sr., John F. Kennedy, Lyndon B. Johnson, and Jimmy Carter. She was also an Illinois Democratic delegate at the 1980 Democratic National Convention (DNC) in New York City. At the convention, she voted in favor of the Convention’s nomination of Presidential hopeful, Jimmy Carter.

In 1983, Childs ran for the 5th Ward aldermanic seat against seven men. She ran as an independent to protest the 5th Ward Democrats’ exclusion of Hyde Park residents from the campaign. Childs did not win the election. She then worked under Mayor Harold Washington in the Mayor’s Office of Special Events as Program Coordinator.

Childs continued planning events in Chicago after working for Mayor Washington. She planned the 1998 16th Annual Duke Ellington Conference, featuring the first staging of his musical “My People” since its premier in 1963. She also helped to organize the 2003 Great Lakes Experience Reunion Weekend at the Great Lakes Navy Base.

Scope and Contents The Josie Brown Childs Papers span the years 1943 to 2005. The bulk of the materials relate to her professional career in the 1980s and include correspondence, memorabilia, reports, guides to the delegates at the 1980 Democratic National Convention, and newspaper clippings. This collection will appeal to researchers interested in Chicago politics, especially Mayor Harold Washington and the Democratic Party, and African American cultural events.