Dear CAC Docents,
I would like to thank all of you who attended last Saturday’s All Docent Day program and presidential election announcement (not necessarily in that order). For those of you who could not attend, or who found themselves distracted by other things going on in the news and outside their windows: we recorded the presentation and have made it available to view here: All Docent Day Recording Link.
Our work of making the Chicago Architecture Center a community that fully and honestly represents all Chicagoans is never over. As you all return to your tours, whether that be the manuals or your own individual notecards, I encourage everyone to consider the following questions lifted from an elementary classroom wall: who writes the stories? Who benefits from the stories? And who is missing from the stories? Together, we can make all our offerings more resonant, mindful, and inclusive. Of this, I have no doubt.
Below, I have included a list of sources cited and recommended further reading, since I know this crowd appreciates that sort of thing. Please do not hesitate to get in touch with me if there is anything you want to discuss or further explore.
Warmly,
Adam
Books
(Great idea: Skip Amazon and order from your local community bookseller!)
The Black Skyscraper: Architecture and the Perception of Race (Adrienne Brown, Johns Hopkins University Press, 2019)
The Color of Law: A Forgotten History of How Our Government Segregated America (Richard Rothstein, Liveright Publishing, 2017) – Note that on 11/19 the author will be discussing his work via the Illinois Holocaust Museum, tickets for the virtual program are available here)
High-Risers: Cabrini-Green and the Fate of American Public Housing (Ben Austen, Harper, 2018)
Painting the Gospel: Black Public Art and Religion in Chicago (Kymberly N. Pinder, University of Illinois Press, 2016)
Spatializing Blackness: Architectures of Confinement and Black Masculinity in Chicago (Rashad Shabazz, University of Illinois Press, 2015)
The Warmth of Other Suns: The Epic Story of America’s Great Migration (Isabel Wilkerson, Penguin Random House, 2010)
White on Arrival: Italians, Race, Color, and Power in Chicago, 1890-1945 (Thomas A. Guglielmo, Oxford Press, 2003)
Academic Articles
”Cultural Competence or Cultural Humility? Moving Beyond the Debate” (SAGE Journals)
”Do Not ‘Decolonize’ . . . If You Are Not Decolonizing: Progressive Language and Planning Beyond a Hollow Academic Rebranding” (Critical Ethnic Studies Journal, University of Minnesota Press, 2019)
“Chicago’s Mecca Flat Blues” (Daniel Bluestone, Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians, 1998 via JSTOR, login required)
“860-880 Lake Shore Drive: Architecture as Prime Object” (Andrew Gleeson, summary of paper presented at “First Skyscrapers, Skyscraper Firsts” symposium, CTBUH World Congress 2019)
“The Fantasy World of Fred D. Jones: Rediscovering His Life in Art” (International Review of African American Art)
Other Media Resources
“Power, Politics, & Pride: Dr. King’s Chicago Crusade” (via From DuSable to Obama: Chicago’s Black Metropolis, WTTW)
“Emmett Till’s Family Home Given Preliminary Landmark Status” (WTTW, September 8, 2020)
“Is Chicago’s Historic Building ‘Bible’ Out of Date and Out of Touch?” (WTTW, September 9, 2020)
“When Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Got A Chicago Address” (WBEZ, 2016)
“Shared History: The Mecca Flat Revealed at IIT Architecture” (Preservation Chicago, 2018)
“Muddy Waters Mojo Museum Receives Grant from Landmarks Illinois” (Landmarks Illinois, September 15, 2020)
“3-Year Battle over Estate of Blues Legend Muddy Waters Takes Another Contentious Turn in DuPage County” (Chicago Tribune, 2018)
“50 Years Ago, Fred Hampton Was Murdered By Police. Each Year, His Loved Ones Tell His Story: ‘This Legacy Is Under Attack’” (Block Club Chicago, 2019)
“The police raid that killed two Black Panthers, shook Chicago and changed the nation” (Washington Post, 2019)
“Saving Fred Hampton’s boyhood home in Maywood an uphill battle, records show” (Chicago Sun-Times, 2018)
“The Lives and Careers of Black Architects through Chicago’s History” (via Chicago Architect)
Art and Poetry
“If We Must Die” (Claude McKay, 1919) and “Kitchenette Building” (Gwendolyn Brooks, 1963) (The Poetry Foundation)
Archibald Motley: Jazz Age Modernist (Whitney Museum of American Art)
“Mecca Flat Blues” (Priscilla Stewart with Jimmy Blythe, Paramount Records, 1924)
Data
City of Chicago Quick Facts (U.S. Census data, July 1, 2019)