Conducted personal tour of Black Chicago for fellow journalist
by Sharon Fountain, Chicago Crusader
The historical tour through Black Chicago was scheduled to begin at 9:30 a.m. But at 9:40 a.m. Charles Taylor, from Houston, was still waiting for the tour bus to arrive at 8th Street and Michigan Avenue outside Kitty O’Shea’s Irish restaurant at the Hilton Chicago Hotel.
Taylor was sure he was waiting at the right spot after looking at an email he received from the National Association of Black Journalists (NABJ), which was wrapping up its annual convention at the Hilton Chicago. A senior majoring in media arts at Louisiana State University, Taylor was among thousands of young people who attended the convention that week. Taylor believed the historical tour of Black Chicago would be a nice way to wrap up an exciting week.
But with no tour bus in sight, things appeared to be headed downhill for Taylor.
I was there to photograph the NABJ guests boarding the tour bus. I arrived at 9:15 a.m., 15 minutes before the tour started. Taylor was there and we waited silently while watching people walk to Grant Park for the Lollapalooza music festival.
Taylor wasn’t the only NABJ visitor given a personal tour by a Chicago resident. Former Cook County Board President Todd Stroger gave Atlanta Voice Editor Donnell Suggs a tour of Black Chicago after Mahogany Tours was fully booked.
Taylor held on to the hope that he would board the air-conditioned tour bus. But 30 minutes after I arrived to wait for a photo moment, Taylor finally voiced his frustration. He had paid $35 for the tour and was looking forward to seeing interesting historic Black sites that he had read or heard about at home. The 9:30 morning tour, which would last two hours, would be the only chance Taylor would have to see Black Chicago, as he had events scheduled at noon and beyond.
He was staying at the Hampton Suites Hotel in Streeterville, so he also had to use an Uber or cab to take him back to his hotel room. As he shook his head in disgust and headed back inside the hotel, I offered to give him a personal tour of Chicago’s Black historic neighborhoods. I told him that I was a Chicago Crusader journalist who had written many historical pieces on our city’s rich Black history, its people, places and important events that shaped Black Chicago and Black America.
I have always wanted to conduct a historic black tour in Chicago during the summer. I believe a historic tour is an extension of my role as a journalist, educating others about Black Chicago and connecting generations with the city’s rich past.
After an inspiring week of NABJ seminars and panel discussions, as a resident of the host city, I was excited to share compelling stories about Black Chicago’s past and its amazing impact on the nation in politics, business, media, religion, literature and sports.
Taylor said, “You sound like somebody I can trust” after I identified myself and my profession. I walked to the next block to get my car and picked him up. Our impromptu tour began. According to Taylor, my tour exceeded his expectations to the point where he said it was probably better than the tour he paid for but didn’t get.
Our first stop was the Johnson Publishing Company building, located just a block south of the Chicago Hilton. I showed Taylor a picture of the Ebony and Jet sign that still sits atop the 11-story building, giving him a brief history of the building, including its glory days after John H. Johnson purchased the property using a white friend to pose as the buyer while he posed as a janitor. Today it’s an official Chicago landmark and high-rise apartment building after Johnson Publishing Company went bankrupt. Pausing in front of the building, Taylor got out of the car and was able to take a picture of the historic Chicago marker on the building.
The next stop was the iconic Chicago Defender building at 24th and Michigan. It’s now an event space company, but Taylor marveled at the building’s masonry and the clock tower at the top. He listened intently as I told him how the building was the centerpiece of the Defender’s glory days, when it was a Black daily newspaper known worldwide for its role in the Great Migration in Chicago.
We drove to Dr. Martin Luther King Drive, where Taylor would learn that it’s the oldest street in the world named after the slain civil rights leader. He said he couldn’t believe it when I told him Chicago’s white mayor at the time, Richard M. Daley, renamed the street after King out of fear Blacks would come downtown to riot after King was assassinated. With its numerous landmarks, historic mansions, Greystone residences and churches, King Drive in Bronzeville was the heart of our tour.
Taylor saw Dunbar High School, where singer Jennifer Hudson and actor Redd Foxx attended. He saw the Supreme Life Insurance Building at 35th and King, where John H. Johnson was just a mail clerk before he started his media empire. I took Taylor to the home of journalist Ida B. Wells and to the Lu Palmer mansion.
We turned west on 39th /Pershing to see Chicago’s oldest Black high school, Wendell Phillips Academy. Taylor seemed in awe of the building as I told him that singers Nat King Cole, Sam Cooke, actors Redd Foxx and Marla Gibbs once roamed the halls.
We traveled to Prairie Avenue, where music producer Quincy Jones grew up. At 33rd and Indiana, Taylor saw the ruins of Pilgrim Baptist Church, known as the “Birthplace of Gospel Music,” and the future site of the museum. He also saw the current church site across the street, where worshippers attend on Sunday.
Along the way, I shared stories of Black Chicago during segregation, when a drastic shortage of housing forced large families to share small apartments. Pulitzer-prize-winning poet Gwendolyn Brooks moved six times to Bronzeville before she made it big. At 47th and King Drive, Taylor got out of the car and took a picture in front of the large photo of Brooks.
Across the street at the historic T.K. Lawless building, named after the world-famous Black dermatologist, Taylor took a picture of the large black-and-white photo of Nat King Cole, who lived on Vincennes in Bronzeville. Taylor also saw the mansion Lawless owned on King Drive before he died. It’s now owned by former Alderman Dorothy Tillman.
During our tour, we visited the last building the Chicago Defender operated out of at 46th and King Drive before its staff moved out during the pandemic. A few blocks away, Taylor saw the mansion of Defender founder Robert S. Abbot, who died there in 1940 on the same day as Black publishers across the country met at the historic Wabash YMCA to form what today is called the National Newspaper Publishers Association (NNPA) also referred to as the Black Press of America.
In the Washington Park neighborhood, Taylor saw the former childhood home of playwright Lorraine Hansberry, whose “Raisin in the Sun” play was based on her experiences living in a white neighborhood during segregation.
After visiting the home of Emmett Till in Woodlawn and ordering soul food at Daley’s, Chicago’s oldest restaurant, I took Taylor back his to hotel in Streeterville. We didn’t have time to see Barack Obama’s mansion, Providence Hospital, Kanye West’s childhood home and Michelle Obama’s home. When I told him other sites we missed, Taylor shook his head and said, “I guess I’m going to have to come back!”
By the end of the tour, Taylor forgot about the tour bus not showing up. Excited about the personal tour, he offered me a $20 tip and called it a day. To Taylor, the tour was well worth it.
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