History.

Abstract

A lifelong Chicagoan, Brenetta Howell Barrett was a leader and political activist in West Side community organizations. She served in the mayoral administrations of Harold Washington and Eugene Sawyer. Active in housing, environmental and civil liberties issues, she was also involved in community protests in the 1960s and 1970s. Her papers include correspondence, office files, programs, clippings, photographs and memorabilia.

Abstract Horace Cayton (1903-1970) was a Black sociologist, co-author of  Black Metropolis and director of Chicago’s Parkway Community House in the 1940s. His papers consist of correspondence, published and unpublished manuscripts, photographs, subject research files, memorabilia and oral history recordings. In the last years of his life, Cayton conducted research, including interviews, on the life of his friend and noted author, Richard Wright. Housed with Cayton’s...

Abstract The Hall Branch is named for George Cleveland Hall, African American physician, Chicago Public Library board member and a founding member of the Association for the Study of Negro Life and History, who campaigned tirelessly for a full-service library in Bronzeville neighborhood. Hall Branch, headed by Vivian G. Harsh from 1932 to 1958, was a leading cultural institution during the Black Chicago Renaissance. The archives include administrative records, programs, correspondence, photographs,...

Abstract

South Shore Country Club, originally a private club that barred African Americans, was scheduled for demolition in 1977. A grassroots coalition of community organizations organized to save, preserve and restore the historic site for all citizens. This collection contains blueprints and drawings of the renovation of South Shore Country Club, administrative records, statistical reports, newspaper clippings, photographs and memorabilia.

Abstract

In the mid-twentieth century, journalist and writer Richard Durham created Destination Freedom, a series of radio shows dramatizing the Black experience in America. He went on to edit the Muhammad Speaks newspaper, create a television show in 1971 and assisted in the writing of Muhammad Ali’s autobiography, The Greatest. The collection contains transcripts and recordings of the radio plays, manuscripts, interviews, photographs and other audiovisual material.