History in Bronzeville

Ray Charles played "Shake A Tailfeather" at "Ray's Music Exchange," or what is actually Shelly's Loan and Jewelry at 300 East 47th Street in Bronzeville Chicago.  You can still see the mural, which took one month to paint, featuring Muddy Waters, B.B. King and Ray Charles on the side of the store.  The scene cost $600,000 to produce, according to the Chicago Sun-Times.

Baseball player and owner Andrew "Rube" Foster organized the first black baseball league, the Negro National League, in 1920.  He was voted into the Baseball Hall of Fame in 1981 as the first negro league representative.  Foster lived near 39th Street and Wentworth Avenue in Bronzeville Chicago, according to the Chicago Tribute project.  

When Bessie Coleman graduated from the Federation Aeronautique Internationale in France, she became the first licensed African-American aviatrix (female aviator) in the world.  Since she could not work as a commercial pilot in the United States, she performed in stunt-flying shows all across the country.  On April 30, 1926, she was killed during a practice run at an airshow in Jacksonville, Florida.  Coleman was inducted into the Women In Aviation Hall of Fame in 1995.  She resided with her family near 41st St and King Drive in Bronzeville Chicago, according to the Chicago Tribute Project.  In 1990, Chicago Mayor Richard M. Daley renamed Old Mannheim Road near O'Hare International Airport "Bessie Coleman Drive."  In 1992, Daley declared May 2nd as "Bessie Coleman Day in Chicago."

Daniel Burnham developed urban plans for the cities of Chicago, San Francisco, and Washington D.C. and chaired the 1893 world's fair (otherwise known as the Columbian Exposition).  His famous "Plan of Chicago" featured such ideas as the lakefront park system, the straightening of the Chicago River, and the northerly extension of Michigan Avenue.  Burnham lived with his family at 4300 South Michigan Avenue.  He famously said: "Make no little plans. They have no magic to stir men's blood."

Also known as "Dr. Dan," Daniel Hale Williams was an African-American doctor credited for performing the first successful open-heart surgery.  Dr. Williams founded Provident Hospital, the first hospital in America established and fully controlled by African-Americans.  It opened in 1891.  Williams practiced medicine at 445 East 42nd Street from 1905 to 1929.

Ida B. Wells co-founded the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) in 1909.  She moved to Chicago in 1895 and lived at 3624 South King Drive with her family from 1919 to 1930.  Her home is both a Chicago landmark and national landmark.

Trumpeter and singer Louis Armstrong was perhaps the single most important jazz musician in the 20th century.  He came to Chicago during the heyday of jazz music in the 1920s to join his mentor, Joe ("King") Oliver.  He performed frequently at clubs in and near the famed "State Street Stroll" in the heart of Bronzeville.  During his storied career, Armstrong performed with Bing Crosby, Dizzy Gillepsie, Duke Ellington, and Ella Fitzgerald.  He was posthumously awarded a grammy lifetime achievement award in 1972.  In 1925, he married pianist and composer Lillian Hardin, and they bought a home at 421 East 44th Street.

Art historian and teacher Dr. Margaret Burroughs founded the DuSable Museum of African-American history with her husband, Charles, in 1961 in the ground floor of their home at 3806 South Michigan Avenue.  When she was 22 years old, Burroughs founded the South Side Community Arts Center.  In 1977, the Chicago Defender named her one of Chicago's most influential women.

Nat "King" Cole was a legendary vocalist and pianist.  He is regarded as one of the most influential musical personalities in American history.  His family moved to Chicago when he was four, and he attended Wendell Phillips Academy.  He showcased his piano skills at the savoy ballroom and the Regal Theater while living at 4023 South Vincennes Avenue.

Oscar DePriest was Chicago's first African-American alderman and the first African-American congressman elected in the 20th Century.  He was elected alderman of the 2nd Ward in 1915, and he won a seat in the U.S. House of Representatives in 1928.  Following his service in the Nation's Capitol, he served as alderman again from 1943 to 1947.  He resided at 4536 South King Drive in Bronzeville.

Quincy Jones is all things music.  He produces, composes, and conducts and has netted 27 Grammy Awards from 79 nominations spanning a vast array of musical styles.  In 1982, he produced the "Thriller" LP for Michael Jackson, which subsequently became the best-selling album in American history.  Jones was born in Chicago and lived at 3631 South Prairie Avenue until he was 10 years old.

Novelist Richard Wright lived in Chicago for a decade and drew from his surroundings to write one of his most famous works, Native Son.  He resided at many south side addresses, but 3742 south indiana avenue was his last known Chicago address, at the "La Veta" apartment building.

Robert S. Abbott founded the Chicago Defender in 1905.  It was one of the most widely read African-American publications in the country.  According to the Chicago Tribute Project, Abbott is "widely regarded as the greatest single force in African-American journalism."  The Defender's success made him one of the country's first African-American millionaires.  He bought a house (pictured) at 4742 South King Drive and lived here for the rest of his life. 

Sam Cooke was a pioneer of soul, r&b, pop, and gospel music. Between 1957 and 1964 he charted 29 top-40 hits, including “Chain Gang,” “You Send Me,” “Twisting the Night Away,” “Having a Party,” “Another Saturday Night,” and "Wonderful World.” Cooke's family moved from Mississippi to Chicago in 1933 (when he was two years-old) and initially lived in a kitchenette apartment at 33rd and State streets, but they soon moved to the top floor of the four-story Lenox Building, which was at 3527 South Cottage Grove. Cooke attended Doolittle Elementary School and Wendell Phillips High School. He began singing gospel with his siblings in a group known as the Singing Children, founded by his father. He became the lead singer of the gospel group the Soul Stirrers in 1950, and in 1957 he signed with Keen Records and released "You Send Me," which spent six weeks at no. 1 on the Billboard R&B chart and three weeks at no. 1 on the Billboard pop chart. The singer-songwriter founded his own record label, SAR Records, in 1961. His life ended abruptly in a Los Angeles motel on December 11, 1964, when the motel manager, Bertha Franklin, shot and killed him in self-defense.  The legendary Sam Cooke was only 33 years old at the time.  Controversy still surrounds his death.  His funeral was held in Chicago at the A.R. Leak Funeral Home.

A portion of 36th Street is now named "Sam Cooke Way" in his honor.

In 1955, Sonny Rollins was invited to replace Harold Land in the Clifford Brown and Max Roach Quintet.  Within a year, he definitively established himself as a tour de force of the tenor saxophone and a master of the hard bop idiom.  He is arguably the greatest tenor saxophonist in jazz history.  The albums he recorded between 1955 and 1959 are among the most expressive and exhilarating examples of the art.  His sound was confident, effortless, and authoritative.  His solos were beautifully conceived and brilliantly executed, and his compositions were masterpieces.  For most of 1955 Rollins lived in a YMCA at 3763 South Wabash Avenue in the heart of Bronzeville, not far from Comiskey Park.  He came to Chicago after leaving a drug rehabilitation program at a federal narcotics hospital in Lexington, Kentucky, figuring that a return to his New York City home would lead him again into the temptations of heroin.

On March 2, 2011, President Barack Obama award Sonny Rollins the National Medal of Arts.

Stephen A. Douglas, who hailed from the great State of Illinois, served in the United States Congress as both a senator and a representative and was selected as the Democratic Party's nominee for the Presidency in 1860.  He was an architect of the controversial Kansas-Nebraska Act and may best be remembered for his highly publicized debates with Abraham Lincoln in 1858, when the two politicians battled each other for a seat in the United States Senate.  Douglas purchased a substantial amount of land in the city and donated 10 acres to the old University of Chicago.  This intersection was once part of the 53-acre Douglas estate known as "Oakenwald."  Today the Stephen A. Douglas Tomb, which was designated as a Chicago landmark on September 28, 1977, can be found at 35th Street and Cottage Grove Avenue.

When the legendary Marx Brothers comedians came to Chicago on the vaudeville circuit in the 1910s, they resided at 4512 South King Drive. Their improvised comedy act was zany, sharp, and often satirical.  After Chicago, the group quickly moved on to Broadway and then to hollywood, where they gained international fame.

Vivian Harsh, who resided at 4801 South Michigan Avenue, was the Chicago Public Library system's first african-american librarian and began collecting literature for a special African-American section, which still exists today as the Vivian G. Harsh Research Collection of Afro-American History and Literature at the Woodson Regional Library.  Harsh also started a lecture series featuring Gwendolyn Brooks, Richard Wright, and Langston Hughes.

In 1852, Mercy Hospital became the first hospital built in the State of Illinois at 2537 South Prairie Avenue.  In 1859, it became the first Catholic hospital to affiliate with a medical school, namely, the Lind University Medical School, which was later renamed Chicago Medical College and which ultimately became Northwestern University Medical School.  Lind University Medical School was the first such school in the United States to use a graded curriculum.  While campaigning for the Presidency with the Bull Moose Party, Theodore Roosevelt spent eight days at Mercy Hospital in October 1912 recovering from an assassination attempt.  Mercy Hospital was also the birthplace of Chicago Mayor Richard M. Daley and each of his siblings.  In 1967, the original hospital (which survived the Chicago Fire) was demolished and replaced by a new facility.

Sam Cooke was one of the country's first soul and r&b singers.  He had 29 top-40 hits in the United States between 1957 and 1964, including "Twistin' the Night Away," "You Send Me," "Another Saturday Night," "Chain Gang," and "What a Wonderful World." Cooke's family moved to the fourth floor of the Lenox Building at 3527 South Cottage Grove Avenue after briefly living at 33rd and State streets.  He attended Wendell Phillips Academy High School.  He was fatally shot in a Los Angeles hotel when he was just 33 years old.  His funeral was held in Chicago.

On the morning of June 6, 1892, the very first el train departed from the 39th Street Station (at this intersection of Pershing Road and State Street) and headed off to Congress Avenue (with stops along the way), completing the trip in fourteen minutes, or twice as fast as the same journey by cable car. The maiden voyage included 27 men and three women spread among four "coach cars." Tickets were sold by live human beings and deposited by commuters inside wooden boxes. The trains ran continuously through the day (all 24 hours), and with even more regularity than they do now, and early passengers were uniformly satisfied by the experience. In fact, a reporter covering the story for the Chicago Herald-Tribune wrote that the "rapid transit" trains "so impressed many of those occupying seats that it served to loosen their tongues, and apparently sane gentlemen, entire strangers to one another, freely discussed the novel, but none the less satisfactory journey without the usual formality of introductions." (Imagine that! Total strangers talking to one another without being formallly introduced!)

The cars were painted olive green, and the interiors were finished with oak and cherry wood. The passengers enjoyed cushioned inward-facing seats that ran the length of the car, with additional rows of high-backed, forward-facing seats between the aisles. The wide windows reportedly had the "added novelty of opening easily." Iron gates that opened and closed with the arrival and departure of each train protected passengers on the platform from falling onto the tracks, and men's and women's bathrooms were available at all stations (except the congress street terminus).

Many would-be commuters complained that the crowding inside the stations was so severe that trains would often come and go before they even had the chance to board. (Transit officials pledged to alleviate the congestion before the world's fair commenced the following year.) Complaints were also raised about the noise pollution on the outside of the tracks. one local school teacher told the tribune that "the noise and confusion in our schoolrooms are simply dreadful and distracting in the extreme."

On July 27, 1919, an African-American man named Eugene Williams was swimming a bit too close to the unofficially segregated white people’s beach at 29th Street Beach and was struck in the head by a stone.  Williams panicked and drowned.  A five-day race riot ensued, during which dozens of people died, hundreds more were injured, and perhaps a thousand were left homeless.  As might be expected, the ensuing grand jury investigation resulted in the indictment of seventeen African Americans, despite extensive evidence that whites were primarily responsible for the damage and aggression.

In early 1955, Sonny Rollins, on the verge of blossoming into one of the greatest tenor saxophone players in the history of jazz music, checked out of a federal narcotics hospital that functioned as a drug rehabilitation clinic in Lexington, Kentucky, and moved to Chicago in order to avoid the temptations that would greet him if he returned to New York City.  He resided for a short time at the Central Arms Hotel at 520 East 47th Street before moving in with trumpeter Robert Gay, somewhere around 69th and Marquette.  Ultimately, Rollins ended up at the YMCA at 3763 South Wabash avenue.  He remained there until replacing Harold Land in the Clifford Brown & Max Roach Quintet and moving back to New York City.

On March 2, 2011, President Barack Obama awarded Sonny Rollins the National Medal of Arts.