This is a picture, one of my Flickr favorites, from 47th and Calumet in about the Bronzeville neighborhood.
I have driven through the Bronzeville area frequently over the last month or so in a zeal for avoiding the Dan Ryan construction. This area was a mecca for black culture, I've always thought about living in an area that was a part of MY history. By MY history I'm talking about black history.
This area was thought of as ghetto but today it is gentrifying. It would be a shame for blacks to not be apart of this change. Whether we take ownership of the properties of this neighborhood or we help to change the neighborhood and make it solidly middle class. Either way it may only be a dream for now. It wouldn't surprise me that this neighborhood gets a little too expensive to live in. Even middle class families couldn't live there.
Either way I want to see this area recognized as a historic black neighborhood and I want to see other blacks live there and make it a better neighborhood. Hopefully gentification will not take away a piece of black Chicago history.
Labels: photograph
