Chicago maps illustrate racial inequities among neighborhoods. Life expectancies for residents in Black neighborhoods are lower. The presence of preventable diseases in white neighborhoods is lower. But all seventy-seven communities in the city have a public library branch, which are welcoming third spaces for everyone who walks through the doors. One in particular holds a special place for me.
All of my books—and a number of journalism projects—start with research (and a thank you in the acknowledgements) at the Vivian G. Harsh Research Collection of Afro-American History and Literature. Housed at Woodson Regional Library off of West 95th Street, Harsh is the largest of its kind in the Midwest, holding treasures from Chicago Defender archives to historian and activist Timuel Black’s papers.
Zora Neale Hurston and Langston Hughes have items in the collection. But archives are not just big names in Black America. This year I have been researching feminist aspects of the Black Radical Congress held in Chicago in 1998 and the author Era Bell Thompson, a former editor at Ebony Magazine. Last year while reporting on hair relaxers, I learned about Annie Malone—a pioneering entrepreneur in beauty during the same era as Madam C.J. Walker—who had a hair school in Chicago. Toni Bond served as executive director of the Chicago Abortion Fund in the 1990s and her papers reveal the reproductive justice movement in the city.
Vivian Harsh was the first Black library director for Chicago Public Library. In 1932, she managed the George Cleveland Hall branch in Bronzeville. This was the city’s first full-service library for African Americans. She turned the library into a salon for Black culture by hosting readings with writers Richard Wright, Margaret Walker and Gwendolyn Brooks. She started the “Special Negro Collection” during the Chicago Black Renaissance. Naming the collection after her is a tribute to her care and preservation of Black folk.
Archives aren’t only for scholars; they are for the curious. Do you know who Addie Wyatt is? Leroy Bryant? Milton O. Davis? Dr. T.R.M. Howard? Take a visit to Harsh and learn about these influential Chicagoans. It is free and open to the public and you can peruse documents in the reading room. You can’t check out any of the materials or photos and the staff is extremely helpful. Churches, cooks, unions, public housing and the blues are among the myriad topics.
Vivian G. Harsh Research Collection of Afro-American History and Literature, Woodson Regional Library. 9525 S Halsted St. Visit by appointment only, from 1–5pm on Tuesdays, Wednesdays, and Thursdays; 1-4pm every third Saturday of the month. harshcollection@chipublib.org, (312) 745-2080. chipublib.org/vivian-g-harsh-research-collection