In the area they called “Chicakgou” Pottawattomie Indians, who nomadically passed through the region, recorded the first settler as Jean Baptiste Pointe du Sable. Du Sable, an African-French trader, came to the region in 1790 to establish the first businesses, which of course leveraged his trading talents and others he acquired. A successful businessman, Du Sable employed many people of different races on the banks of the Chicago River. So in both a historic and practical sense Du Sable was clearly the Father of Chicago.

    In the early 1800’s, Chicago became an important Midwest commercial center and a way station for African Americans who fled slavery.  Illinois Black Codes constrained the movement of all African Americans, making it particularly hard for people on the Underground Railroad heading towards to Wisconsin and Canada. So effective were these codes, at the beginning of the civil war, Chicago had a Black population of only 1,000.

    Owners in the meatpacking, grain processing, oil processing and heavy metal industries made great fortunes.  Jobs, though numerous, were often cyclical.  Excluding the great recessions, economic balance was maintained by one industry peaking as another industry cut back.  Heeding the call for continuous work, all walks of life migrated here from 1870-1930, thus building another Chicago nickname, “The City That Works.”  For African Americans Chicago would also be known as a place to escape.

    The great journalist Ida B. Wells moved to the city after being run out of Memphis for reporting on Blacks being lynched.  She was followed by scores of African Americans escaping the South’s orgy of violence.  By 1910, Black population in Chicago totaled 40,000.  By 1920, it swelled to 80,000, leading to this decade being remembered as the era of the Great Northern Migration.  African American migrants settled on the Southside of the city in a section called the Black Belt or Southside.  Another smaller Black community sprouted up on the Westside.

    But African Americans did not escape oppression. It is well documented that they were last hired in boom times, first fired during business contractions.  Even in boom times qualified African Americans were limited in trade and labor unions, while less qualified European immigrants were admitted and rapidly promoted. Only when industrialists needed them to break strikes, were African Americans hired and promoted in numbers representative of their capabilities.  Such biased employment practices created a climate of enmity and distrust towards Africans Americans and contributed to more segregation, which severed inter-group communication outside of work.  Despite strikebreaker practices hated by all, African Americans maintained enough menial labor jobs in the factories to support businesses in the two Black communities.

    The US Department of Defense was uneasy about training large numbers of African Americans with weaponry, so many who volunteered were not permitted to serve.  Nevertheless, some African Americans served honorably in WWI and those who stayed behind found many jobs that would normally be inaccessible.  When WWI ended in 1918, Chicago had more than its share of returning veterans.  European American veterans expected to claim first priority for the same jobs, while African American vets hoped more jobs would finally open to them.  Many European American veterans were jealous of African American economic accomplishments in their absence.  When it took longer than expected to absorb veterans in the workforce that led to demands that Black workers be fired or laid off for White veterans.  Such was the powder keg behind the Chicago Race Riot of 1919.

    The fuse was lit under highly questionable circumstances.  A few European Americans either made up or exaggerated charges against a single African American at a downtown establishment. Events escalated to a mob mentality that set to harm all persons of African descent and their property. The police did little or nothing to stop it.  By the time white mobs assembled and finished their destruction, 38 African Americans were killed and most Southside businesses, excluding many run by organized crime, were burned and looted.  Its important to emphasize, not all European Americans participated in or condoned the riotous mob.

    Perhaps it was Chicago’s resolute sense of defiance against racism that attracted droves of African Americans to migrate here anyway.  In 1928 Republican Oscar de Priest became the first African American elected to the U.S. House of Representatives since Reconstruction ended in the 1870s.  By 1930, Chicago’s Black population jumped to 240,000.  Thus, the period between 1910 and 1930 became known as the “Great Migration.” It was also an era for Southside mobsters who employed Black performers at their Grand Terrace Ballroom – Chicago’s version of the Cotton Club.

    As organized crime in Chicago waned, businesses in the Overton Hygienic Building (Chicago Bee Building) and others along State Street enabled Bronzeville to function like a self-contained city.  During this time, the Bronzeville district in the Southside competed with Harlem in how its political, business and cultural renaissance would shape the conscious of African Americans.

    During and after World War II, a second wave of African Americans and European Americans moved to Chicago for jobs.  Due to restrictive housing covenants, African American migrants huddled into the Southside and Westside, causing severe housing shortages in both areas.  Racism and shortsighted urban planning spurred civic leaders to build high-rise housing projects in mostly Black communities.  The 6-mile long Godzilla of these projects, Robert Taylor Homes, was built adjacent to the west side of Bronzeville.  A few years later, more high-rise housing projects were built on the eastern side of Bronzeville.  This sandwiching effect devastated a community that previously had a well-functioning mix of working poor to middle-class residents.  The super-warehousing of poor people triggered Black middle-class flight out of Bronzeville, thereby crippling businesses, schools and churches.  In stark contrast to Bronzeville, more sensible housing distribution approaches and scale were used in European American communities to preserve their vitality.

    The city has been fortunate to have a cadre of respected Black leaders.  Chicago elected its first black mayor, Harold Washington, in 1983. A respected politician by friends and foes alike, Washington died in office of a heart attack in 1987. Based largely on her supportive Chicago base, Carol Mosley-Braun became the second Black US Senator in the 20th century.  Jesse Jackson, Jr. is a multi-term US Representative with a shot at higher office. Even a former Black Panther, Bobby Rush and a Soul balladeer, Jerry Butler, are publicly elected representatives.  Chicago can boast of having three of the richest African Americans: Ebony and Jet magazines publisher John Johnson, Oprah Winfrey and Michael Jordan (when in town). Before Michael Jordan stole of the heart of Chicago sports fans there was Walter Payton of the Chicago Bears. Michael, Oprah and Walter owned or had naming rights to popular Chicago restaurants for a time.  Of course Rev. Jesse Jackson and Louis Farrakhan also let their leadership presence be known.

    Even though the region has many years ahead to reabsorb thousands of people from the Godzilla-like housing projects being town down, entrepreneurial activity and sensible public works are yielding numerous visible results in Bronzeville. Assuming the pace of renovation increases over this decade, Bronzeville will likely experience a second Black Renaissance.