Chicago's Intriguing South Side

Can I just tell you how cool the South Side of Chicago is? It is. The organization I work for is holding a benefit dinner in October and, instead of naming the tables "1", "2", "3," I thought I would name them after landmarks on the South side. Not landmarks from across the city, but just those located on the South Side, which speak to the great impression African-Americans have made on our city and our country.

In my reflecting I feel blessed to have spent my childhood on the north side of town in Rogers Park, which offered much religious diversity, and now to be experiencing in my adulthood the South Side where, except for the burgeoning Nation of Islam, tends to be a fairly churched community. In fact, some of the largest congregations in the history of the nation were formed of African-Americans that worshipped together on the South Side. Homes of some the nation's great music heroes - homes of folks like Ida B. Wells, Phyllis Wheatley, Louis Armstrong, the Chess Bros.- scatter the Bronzeville neighborhood in which I live. Martin Luther King Jr. gave some of his greatest charges from inside the churches. And Jesse Jackson (all comments aside) headquarters his Rainbow-PUSH coalition right down the street from me. The nation's great abolitionists (as well as those who were a far-cry from) took up residence on the South Side. Blues and Jazz music gained its fame right here in Bronzeville, with its rugged jazz artists forming what would be the basis for America's rock n' roll obsession.

So fun! Come down here. We'll take a tour.