Chicago Black Renaissance

Lost Black History – Free weekly contribution for NNPA members.

By Don Valentine 

Following the culturally rich Harlem Renaissance of the 1920s, Chicago fostered its own vibrant gumbo of writers, painters, and a golden age of jazz/gospel. World War I’s labor demands lessened racial barriers. Visionary Robert Sengstacke Abbott, founder and editor of the influential Chicago Defender, recognized this opportunity and encouraged Southern Blacks—sharecroppers and their descendants—to move North. The used Pullman porters to distribute thousands of copies throughout the South, advertising jobs and a more tolerant racial climate.

This explosion of untethered Black talent from the South blossomed into a unique constellation of artists, writers, and musicians unparalleled in the U.S. During this era, Chicago became a fulcrum for jazz legends such as Earl “Fatha” Hines, Jelly Roll Morton, Erskine Tate, Fats Waller, and Cab Calloway. In 1922, King Oliver invited trumpeter Louis Armstrong to join his Creole Jazz Band in Chicago. Louis quickly surpassed King Oliver, with his remarkable talent as an improvisational soloist. Thomas Dorsey, the “Father of Gospel Music,” composed over four hundred songs that revitalized Black religious music. The Chicago Black Renaissance also transformed the blues, incorporating drums, bass, harmonica, and electric guitar, forging the new sound of Chicago Blues. Prominent figures of this “Renaissance” included Chester Burnett, Willie Dixon, Muddy Waters, and Koko Taylor.

That era fostered a wealth of new literary talent, mirroring the spirit of collaboration found in groups like the South Side Writers Group, akin to the Harlem Writers Club. Notable writers of the era included Richard Wright (“Native Son”), poet Margaret Walker (“For My People”), Gwendolyn Brooks (Pulitzer Prize-winning Annie Allen), and Lorraine Hansberry (A Raisin in the Sun), to name a few. This same “Windy-City” energy extended to the visual arts and social activism nurtured at the acclaimed South Side Community Arts Center, a crucible for the creative genius of artists such as photographer Gordon Parks (“American Gothic”), Elizabeth Catlett (“Sharecropper”), Charles Seebree, and Jonathan Green, among others who achieved international acclaim after working there.

Unlike Harlem’s Renaissance, which benefited from significant White patronage, historians emphasize the more organic and self-driven nature of Chicago’s artistic flourishing. Chicago Tribune columnist Dawn Turner Trice noted this distinction, writing, “…Chicago artists didn’t have relatively large numbers of wealthy White patrons who helped support their art.” Art scholar and curator Dr. Kelli Morgan further elaborated on the movement’s character, noting, “These artists were greatly influenced by Marxism, and the role of the Black worker in American society was very important to their work.”

The Black Press: Sentinel of Our Story