Bronzeville: A History of Chicago’s Bronzeville Neighborhood

Bronzeville is a neighborhood on Chicago's South Side, located in the broader Douglas section. From the 1920s through the 1940s, Bronzeville was a hub of Black American life in Chicago. Many thousands of Black Americans had made their way to the city during the Great Migration of the early twentieth century. In Bronzeville, they founded a neighborhood that was Chicago's answer to New York's Harlem. In what was then called the city’s Black Metropolis, residents pursued a middle-class lifestyle while keeping the company of many leaders in Chicago's Black Renaissance.

The Bronzeville area is bounded by a handful of geographic markers.

• Northern border: East 31st Street
• Southern border: East 51st Street
• Eastern border: South Cottage Grove Avenue and South Martin Luther King, Jr. Drive
• Western border: South LaSalle Street and the Dan Ryan Expressway
• Central business district: The neighborhood's central business district is located on 47th Street (particularly near the corner of S. Wabash Ave.).
• Other landmarks: Geographically, Bronzeville is located north and west of Hyde Park (home of the University of Chicago) and south of the City of Chicago's downtown area, often referred to as the Loop. It is also near the home field of the Chicago White Sox, most recently named Guaranteed Rate Field.
• Transit: The Chicago Transit Authority's Green Line and Red Line trains serve the neighborhood.

Bronzeville has a rich history and maintains a vibrant cultural legacy.

• Name and origins: Chicago alderman Louis B. Anderson built a spacious house at 3800 South Calumet Avenue in 1922 and named it Bronzeville. Soon after, the neighborhood at large adopted this name, which doubled as a reference to the darker skin color of most of the neighborhood’s residents. These residents were largely Black Americans, a great number of whom had arrived from the American South during the Great Migration.
• Black Metropolis: From the 1920s through the 1940s, Bronzeville was dubbed Chicago’s Black Metropolis. It has housed many cultural institutions including two Black newspapers—the Chicago Bee newspaper, which was housed in the famous Chicago Bee Building on South State Street, and the Chicago Defender newspaper, which still publishes an online version today. Bronzeville is also home to the Victory Monument at 35th Street and King Drive, the Wabash YMCA, the Sunset Cafe (a live music nightclub on 35th Street), and the Regal Theater (a nightclub and theater at the corner of 47th Street and Martin Luther King Drive). Many notable Black Chicagoans like Civil Rights activist Ida B. Wells and Pulitzer Prize-winning poet Gwendolyn Brooks lived in Bronzeville.
• Economic decline: Following World War II, dwindling investments in public transit combined with significant investments in highway construction and largely white, suburban neighborhoods inspired many Chicago residents to leave the city. Many middle-class and upper-class residents left the Bronzeville neighborhood, in part prompting an economic decline.
• Bronzeville today: Today Bronzeville is known for the Illinois Institute of Technology (IIT), the DuSable Museum of African-American History, and an active business district on 47th Street. It still features classic buildings like the Forum, the Chicago Bee Building, the Supreme Life Building, the Overton Hygienic Building, and the Michigan Boulevard Garden Apartment Building.

In the course of its history, Bronzeville has been home to many prominent residents.

1. 1. Ida B. Wells (1862–1931): Acclaimed journalist Ida B. Wells-Barnett was an early leader in the Civil Rights movement. Her groundbreaking reporting uncovered the endemic lynching of Black people throughout the United States. She went on to be one of the founders of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP). She spent nearly four decades in Chicago, living there alongside her husband and fellow Civil Rights activist Ferdinand L. Barnett.
2. 2. Richard Wright (1908–1960): Richard Wright, the author of Native Son and Black Boy, spent many formative years in Bronzeville, where he participated in the Federal Writer's Project and joined the American Communist Party.
3. 3. King Oliver (1885–1938): A jazz pioneer, Joe "King" Oliver migrated north to Chicago from Louisiana. He composed some of the early standards of the jazz repertoire including "Dippermouth Blues" and was famous for his cornet playing.
4. 4. Louis Armstrong (1901–1971): King Oliver's prized pupil Louis Armstrong became one of the leading figures of jazz music over the course of his long career. Although famously associated with New Orleans and New York, Armstrong spent several years in Bronzeville, where he regularly played at the Sunset Cafe and Dreamland Cafe.
5. 5. Nat King Cole (1919–1965): Famed crooner and pianist Nat King Cole spent his high school years in Bronzeville. He attended Wendell Phillips Academy High School, although he dropped out at fifteen to pursue music. He would eventually settle in Los Angeles, but it was Chicago where he cut his musical teeth.
6. 6. Bessie Coleman (1892–1926): Bessie Coleman was both the first Black American woman and the first Native American woman to hold a pilot's license. She made her living as a stunt pilot and was famous for her performances at air shows. She lived in Bronzeville in her early twenties.
7. 7. Mahalia Jackson (1911–1972): Jackson was a gospel music star who enjoyed success thanks to hits like "Move On Up a Little Higher." Following a childhood spent in Louisiana, she made Chicago's South Side her home.
8. 8. Thomas A. Dorsey (1899–1993): Another gospel music legend, "Georgia Tom" Dorsey wrote many church music standards including "Peace in the Valley" and "Take My Hand, Precious Lord." He moved to Chicago at age twenty and remained there, playing both gospel and blues music, until his death at ninety-three.
9. 9. Andrew “Rube” Foster (1879–1930): Andrew "Rube" Foster was the founder of the Negro National Baseball League and was nicknamed "the father of Black Baseball." Born in Texas, he pursued a playing career, and when that ended, he moved to Bronzeville and focused on running his upstart league, which gave many Black players the chance to compete professionally.

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