American History
Glamorous Quinceañera dresses and an Indigenous ceremonial mask are among the items that will be on display in “Aquí en Chicago,” an upcoming Chicago History Museum exhibit celebrating the long history of Latinos in the city.
From a mother who lost her first-born baby, a son who never got to know his father, and a young man so badly injured that he still struggles to breathe, three decades have not healed the wounds from the Oklahoma City bombing on April 19, 1995.
State councils have been working on programming for America250, an initiative marking the milestone anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence in 1776. But the Republican administration’s deep cost-cutting effort across the federal government has led the National Endowment for the Humanities to cancel its grants.
Lincoln’s New Salem State Historic Site is a replica of the hamlet where Lincoln lived for six years during his early adulthood, and where he won his first elective office – though only after losing his first election.
Shermann “Dilla” Thomas has a new gig at theDuSable Black History Museum as a brand ambassador and social media chief — an opportunity he’s called a “dream job.” It’s just one of his many projects — from giving bus tours to posting on TikTok about the city’s lesser-known history.
The history of the month dates back almost a century, and the way it is celebrated and evolved has created history in itself.
State Rep. Sonya Harper (D-Chicago), sponsor of the Enslavement Era Disclosure and Redress Act, said it’s a way for corporations that profited on the backs of enslaved people to help repair the legacy of harm caused for generations of Black Americans.
The first episode of the four-part series, called “Exodus,” details the first wave of migration north from southern states that helped turn the Bronzeville neighborhood of Chicago into a Black metropolis.
Almost six decades later, urban historian Shermann “Dilla” Thomas is making sure new generations know the details of Martin Luther King Jr.’s time in Chicago through his educational tours of the city’s neighborhoods.
While it is now a time-honored tradition, the establishment of the holiday had a prolonged, difficult path to acceptance.
José “Cha Cha” Jiménez in the 1960s founded the Young Lords as a street gang to counter the growing hostility toward the Puerto Rican community in Lincoln Park, at the time one of the most impoverished neighborhoods of Chicago.
Chicago is home to one of the largest urban Native American populations in the United States. More than 65,000 Native Americans live in the greater metropolitan area, representing about 175 different tribes.
“Too many in Illinois believe we need to travel to the East Coast to visit locations on the Underground Railroad, unaware of the enormous activity that took place in their own backyards here,” task force member and Tazewell County Clerk John Ackerman said.
In 1966, the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. came to Chicago’s West Side to protest against discriminatory housing practices. The neighborhood went into an uproar following his assassination in 1968, resulting in numerous riots and looting. “When the West Side Burned” outlines the destruction and struggle to recover.
African Americans were fighting for their rights through common law long before what many people know conventionally as the Civil Rights Movement. That’s the conclusion award-winning scholar and author Dylan Penningroth came to in his book “Before the Movement: The Hidden History of Black Civil Rights.”
Since the 19th century, Chicago has hosted 14 Republican National Conventions, the most recent in 1960. This week Vice President Kamala Harris will accept her nomination at the 12th Democratic National Convention to be held in Chicago.