6 minute read
Annual Party Pays Homage To The Legacy Of Ida B. Wells
from August 2 - 8, 2023
Annual Party Pays Homage To The Legacy Of Ida B. Wells
by Kyra Walker
The Ida B. Wells Festival on June 24 celebrated the 161st birthday of the journalist, suffragist, educator and co-founder of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP). Wells’s legacy lives on through her great-granddaughter, Michelle Duster. Duster is a writer, speaker, professor and champion of racial and gender equity, who focuses on Black history. Writing came easily to her, she said, and “Our positive stories are so underrepresented, I wanted to make a contribution.”
"The intention is to make Wells’s birthday party an annual event that includes many Bronzeville institutions, so that the entire community is involved," she said.
What keeps Duster motivated to ensure the story of her great grandmother is still heard?
“African American women are greatly underrepresented,” she responded. “It’s important to know the work of Ida because people need to know the rights we have were a struggle. We need to connect the past and present. I look at it as the contributions of African American women. The work I do has great meaning. I like the idea of celebrating and inspiring everyone.”
The Bronzeville Black Metropolis National Heritage Area is a special district from 18th street on the north to 71st street on the south, Lake Michigan on the east, and Canal Street on the west. More than 500,000 of the approximately seven million African Americans who left the South between 1916 and 1970 settled in Chicago’s Bronzeville.
Bernard C. Turner, executive director of this National Heritage Area, led a 90-minute tour starting at the Sixth Grace Presbyterian Church, 600 E. 35th St. (at Cottage Grove), and then heading to the former headquarters of Supreme Life Insurance building, 3501 S Martin Luther King Drive, the first insurance company in the northern U.S. owned and operated by African Americans.
“Restrictive covenants meant African Americans were prevented from moving outside a tight area, which nevertheless provided opportunities for entrepreneurs,” Turner said.
In addition to his work as executive director of the Bronzeville Black Metropolis National Heritage Area, Turner has led tours for the Chicago History Museum, and has written and published two books, “A View of Bronzeville,” (2002) and “A New View of Bronzeville” (2021).
Turner pointed out some of the 91 historic plaques in Bronzeville sidewalks, such as the one to Earl “Fatha” Hines, a jazz pianist and bandleader.
Hines was among famous musicians like Louis Armstrong and Johnny Dodds who performed in the 1920s at the Sunset Cafe, 315 E. 35th St., which is now the beauty supply store Urban Beautique. Built in 1909, the building still has a 1920s mural and the original stage where musicians used to perform. The side of the building displays information about its transition from an automobile garage to the legendary venue. It was also a hardware store. Now, the beauty supply store has “the best selection of eyelashes in Chicago,” Turner said.
Turner’s next stop was the Eighth Regiment Armory, 3533 S. Giles Ave. This was the first armory in the U.S. for an African American regiment. Its origins actually date to Blacks living in Chicago in the 1870s. In World War I, the Fighting Eighth won the Croix de Guerre with Palm, the French government’s highest military decoration. According to an historic plaque on the building, the Fighting Eighth saw action in WWII as artillery and combat engineers.
The armory closed in the early 1960s, when it became a gymnasium. Since 1999, it has been a Chicago public school, the Chicago Military Academy Bronzeville.
Next was Wells’s last home at 3624 S. Martin Luther King Drive. She lived here with her lawyer-husband, Ferdinand Barnett, and their children. This was also where she started the Alpha Suffrage Club, the first voting rights club for Black women in Illinois, around the time that Illinois became the first state to grant women limited voting rights, in 1913.
The tour concluded at the Light of Truth Monument dedicated to Wells at 37th and Langley. The monument was created by Englewood sculptor Richard Hunt, whose work is on display at the Art Institute of Chicago, Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago, the DuSable Museum, the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis, the MLK Reflection Park in Memphis, and more.
The monument displays Wells’s famous quote, “The way to right wrongs is to turn the light of truth upon them,” which stemmed from her anti-lynching campaigns in the South of the 1890s. She was born enslaved in 1862 and freed as a baby by the Emancipation Proclamation in 1863.
The film, “Light of Truth,” described many important aspects of Ida’s life, from the time she was thrown off a train because she refused to move to the Black coach car to a pamphlet she co-edited about the horrors of lynching in the South. She initially won the railroad case, because she was asked to move to a Black car, (not the women’s car), which was a violation of the 14th Amendment’s equal protection clause. However, her win was overturned two years later.
The festivities didn’t stop with the walking tour. On the back lawn of Ida B. Wells Preparatory Elementary Academy, there was face painting, a bouncy house, and African clothing for purchase. Streamers in the African colors – red, green and yellow – decorated the trees. The people of this community came together and enjoyed good food and talking about sports.
Duster said it is important for African Americans to “really make an effort to learn about people who came before us. We need to always be learning. Go to museums, watch YouTube. Self-care is also important. We as people need to take care of ourselves.”
Though my interaction with Michelle was brief, I like how humble she is and how passionate she is about her work. Being the relative of a legend, she has big shoes to fill.
