Black History
Wheeler Parker, minister of a suburban Argo church, talks about Emmett Till’s 1955 lynching and brutal murder by white supremacists in Mississippi — and what triggered it.
The local TV dance show became a cultural phenomenon that took the world by storm.
This year marks nearly seven decades since the 14-year-old boy from the South Side was killed in Mississippi. Here’s a look at how the Sun-Times covered his death in 1955, including Mamie Till Bradley’s decision to show the world the brutality he endured at the hands of white supremacists.
A 2015 suit mandated court oversight of the Chicago Police Department’s stop-and-frisk practices, but civil rights groups say there are holes in a proposed deal to merge the case into a consent decree governing the department.
‘What Emmett did, he gave up a lot, but it helped a lot of people. And he still speaks from the grave,’ Emmett Till’s cousin, the Rev. Wheeler Parker Jr., who witnessed Till being kidnapped, told the Sun-Times.
“These places contain historic objects that illuminate the complicated fabric of our Nation and the injustice and inequality that Black people continue to experience today,” President Joe Biden said in signing the proclamation Tuesday.
The annual ice cream social to celebrate Emmett Till’s birthday also marked the opening of an interactive art installation, titled “Be Careful, I Always Am,” by Chicago-born artist Germane Barnes.
The Double Duty Classic game began in 2007 and showcases the history of the Negro Leagues. A group of top high school players from Chicago and the Midwest play in the game Tuesday after a tour to shore up their baseball and South Side history.
Jesse Jackson’s passing of the civil rights torch is an example of unselfish leadership.
Renault Robinson spent his life advocating for civil rights and sought to improve relations between the police and Black communities throughout Chicago.
Jackson will step down as president of Rainbow PUSH Coalition, a merger of two organizations he founded.
Jackson founded Operation PUSH in 1971. The Rainbow Coalition, which grew out of his 1984 presidential campaign, merged with PUSH in 1996.
The festival was started in 1990 by the Chosen Few DJs, a group of house music pioneers from Chicago. With house music’s recent rise in mainstream popularity, the event showcases the music that’s never left its birthplace.
The renovations will focus on a pool, a gym, various meeting rooms and reviving a decades-old mural in the historic building where Black History Month originated.
In 1962, James Meredith became the first Black student to enroll at the University of Mississippi. White mobs rioted on the Oxford campus as federal marshals protected him.
From 1977 through the mid-1980s, the resident DJ at the Warehouse was Frankie Knuckles, a record producer and remix artist hailed as the “Godfather of House Music.”
The story behind Juneteenth and how it became a federal holiday.
A vintage ’70s test kitchen where recipes were created and perfected for Ebony magazine’s national readership will be part of an exhibit highlighting the intersection of food and culture in the African American community.
National Museum of African American History and Culture tells stories that make some people uncomfortable — if they’re on the wrong side of history.
Useni Eugene Perkins is best known for his poem ‘Hey Black Child,’ but Mr. Perkins was a prolific author whose works ranged from children’s plays and poems to tomes documenting life on Chicago’s streets.
New book by Chicago writer Jonathan Eig resonates as the right wages a ‘War on Woke.’
Rev. Wheeler Parker Jr. said Thursday, “It is up to all of us to be accountable to the challenges we still face in overcoming racial injustice.”
The Mississippi lynching of 14-year-old Till became a catalyst for the Civil Rights Movement when his mother insisted on an open-casket funeral in their hometown of Chicago.
Belafonte, the singer-actor-activist who died Tuesday at 96, left a legacy that went beyond the entertainment world — he was a fierce advocate for civil rights.
He built his family a beautiful home on the South Side of the city and co-founded a business that provided steady employment so others could do the same.
The great-great granddaughter of a man who bought 15 family members out of slavery donated more than 1,700 cookbooks to Kennedy-King College.
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