People and Places

Farming community, gateway to the nearby World’s Columbian Exhibition, Jazz Age hotspot, booming business district, hub for Black organizing and arts: over the years, Woodlawn has been home to it all. Where Culture Lives: Mapping Black Social, Cultural, and Political History in Woodlawn considers what Woodlawn’s past and present might suggest about this future by drawing attention to essential sites of Black, social, cultural, and political history in the neighborhood.

Development in the early 1900s led to the construction of hotels, apartment buildings, and theaters, and business spaces in Woodlawn, particularly the strip of 63rd Street between Jackson Park and South King Drive (formerly known as South Parkway and Grand Boulevard). Though until the 1940s Black residents were largely confined to West Woodlawn due racist housing covenants, by the 1960s the entire neighborhood was an epicenter of Black social culture and political organizing. Jazz and cabaret venues were prominent, and groups like The Woodlawn Organization emerged to advocate for better conditions in schools, housing, and business. The latter half of the 20th century brought city disinvestment and neglect, but Woodlawn remained vibrant. Today, groups like Project H.O.O.D., Black Youth Project 100, Southside Together Organizing for Power, and Honey Pot Performance are working to protect and enrich Woodlawn’s existing Black spaces while creating more just futures for Black residents of the neighborhood.

Where Culture Lives: Mapping Black Social, Cultural, and Political History in Woodlawn was developed as part of the 2021 Chicago Architecture Biennial.

Exhibition Team: Mac Irvine, Curator & Researcher; Meida McNeal, Chicago Black Social Culture Map Project Director; Jo de Presser, Technical Director; Micah Salkind, Community Data & Research Manager; Ebere Agwuncha, Exhibition Layout Designer.