TA K E N O T E The Newberry Receives Outstanding Public History Project Award On March 23, the Newberry accepted the 2020 Outstanding Public History Project Award for Chicago 1919: Confronting the Race Riots. Due to the risk of hosting large events during the COVID-19 outbreak, the National Council on Public History held the 2020 awards ceremony online. “We wanted to bring the city together to engage in public conversations about the 1919 Chicago race riots and to connect that past with the structural racism of the present,” said Brad Hunt, the Newberry’s Vice President for Research and Academic Programs, in an acceptance video shared via Twitter. “The events of 1919 were a critical moment. After the riots, whites moved to solidify and reinforce racial divides. This was a story that had to be told.” Throughout 2019, nearly 2,700 Chicagoans joined the Newberry and its project partners for 11 community conversations exploring the decisive role the riots played in cementing racial division and inequality in Chicago. Programs included film screenings, youth poetry slams, panel discussions, and even a bike tour visiting the key sites of violence and resistance during the riots. “This project is a model umbrella initiative that stretched across the city and brought people together to remember one dark event and its aftermath,” noted the NCPH award committee. “The most impressive aspect of the project is the way diverse organizations such as the Chicago Urban
Above: The Newberry and Blackstone Bicycle Works lead a bike tour of the key sites of violence during the 1919 Chicago race riots. June 29, 2019. Photo by Peter Pawinski Below: Scholars Eve Ewing and Kenneth Warren discuss literary responses to racial violence in Chicago. September 24, 2019. Photo by Anne Ryan
League, Chicago Architectural Club, Chicago History Museum, Chicago Public Library, and the Newberry Library worked together to make this project happen.” Chicago 1919: Confronting the Race Riots was made possible by a grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities, and by additional support from Allstate Insurance Company and Edith Rasmussen Ahern and Patrick Ahern.
Chicagoans gather to discuss the interconnections between race, migration, and housing. May 4, 2019. Photo by Anne Ryan
2
Spring/Summer 2020
