47th/South Parkway
The intersection of 47th Street and South Parkway was, during much
of the early twentieth century a bustling center of commerce and
entertainment that developed to serve the needs of the city's growing
African-American population. During the 1920s and 1930s, thousands of
African-Americans, eager to escape the social and economic hardships of
the South, moved to and started a new life in Chicago. Racial hatred,
however, limited their housing options. Most were compelled to live in
increasingly delapidated tenement buildings on the city's Near South
Side. As more and more African-Americans moved to the city, the
neighborhoods in which they settled became severely overcrowded, in no
small part due to exclusionary housing practices in predominantly white
residential districts. Such density, however, helped concentrate
African-American economic power, and the 47th Street business district
grew as a result. Chicago's African-American consumers, seldom treated
half as well as whites when shopping downtown, enjoyed far better
customer service in the stores and theaters along 47th Street. To find
out more about the district, click on the links below. |
|
Regal Theater,
ca. 1930 |
