The Southside Community Art Center Showcases Black History

I saw the ad for the Southside Community Art Center in my online weekly news alerts for the Chicago Defender, and I immediately wanted to visit Bronzeville. I was still pretty excited about the Black History potluck that my co-worker and I organized at my job and wanted to do something after Black History Month to show that Black history does not end at February 29. This Saturday, March 1, 2008, I visited the Southside Community Art Center at 3831 South Michigan Avenue. Parking is easy to find, and the neighborhood is quiet.

I've been to several museums over the years, but I enjoy learning most about African American culture that is so regularly ignored in American textbooks. It's not just of interest to me because I'm African American, but Black artists and business owners are also intriguing to me because there is still a bit of mystery about them that the Board of Education doesn't feel the need to share. The information in the Southside Community Art Center is not going to be in your average history book. The building is cozy, with a single bench and what looks like a fireplace in the main room where the monthly exhibits are located and a class being taught on the second floor. Artwork over the years has included valuable pieces from people like Charles White, Henry Avery, Archibald Motley Jr., and Marian Perkins. Various artists attended the Art Institute of Chicago, and include European, Asian, and Mexican muralists in their styles. Chicago Defender is showcasing their photographic exhibit in the Southside Community Art Center from February 1, 2008 to March 29, 2008.

My favorite piece in the exhibit was that of seven men and one woman sitting around typewriters, writing, and thinking at the Chicago Defender. Only one man looks up at the person who is creating this piece as if daydreaming while others are in deep thought and stare at their paper as if the words will leap off the page and into print. I was delighted to see the face of George Daniels, the owner of George's Music Room (a music store) in Chicago, the largest independent music retail distributor in the Midwest. Two other favorites include S. Theresa Brassell's painting of a church scene and another artist who created a photo of a man in deep thought, with a gentleman covering his face like the world is on his shoulders. The Southside Community Art Center includes photos of different African American owned businesses, entrepreneurs, and historical times. The employees are friendly and passed out gift bags to visitors. The Southside Community Art Center is a nonprofit organization that welcomes donations and gives writers and poets the opportunity to have their work displayed for consignment as well.

Exiting the building, glancing at two statues on each side of the building, and walking back to my car, I felt the history of Bronzeville. According to BronzevilleOnline.com, a TIME magazine article stated that most African Americans in Chicago lived in Bronzeville in 1938. New York had 100,000 more African Americans than Chicago, but Chicago's annual net sales in business were $4,826,897 to New York's $3,322.274. More than a half million southern migrant families looking for work in the northern regions came to live by Chicago's lakefront. These valuable businesses were mostly located on the southside of Chicago with laborers employed in packing plants and steel mills. The main districts for business were around 43^rd and 47^th streets.

Also in 1938, a southside Chicago businessman named Golden B. Darby started a fundraiser and a committee on October 25 in the Urban League's Branch Office. After three years of theater performances, card parties, Mile of Dimes street corner campaigns, lectures, and art exhibitions at churches, community centers, schools, and clubhouses, the money for the Southside Community Art Center to be built was acquired.

During World War II and by 1943, the federal government, which originally provided rebuilding funds and administrative funds for staff and faculty, ceased all payments, but that didn't stop the people from continuing to raise money to keep this center alive. In the late 1950s, the Southside Community Art Center was the only place that African Americans could regularly showcase their art. There were classes in drawing, painting, sculpture, printmaking, photography, and crafts. The continuous culture is due in large part to three women (Wilhelmina Blanks, Fern Gayden and Grace Thompson). These ladies paid the center's bills by using money of their own, in addition to support from Johnson Publishing Company (an established Chicago African American media firm that created Ebony and Jet magazine) and an executive of the company, Herbert Nipson (board chair). Submitted artwork was available for auctions, and the attention and funds from these auctions was also advertisement for the community.

Although there have been previous discussions about the location of the Southside Community Art Center, it was decided to leave it in its current area. With the history and importance of Bronzeville, which currently has 37 National Heritage Area (NHA) designations.