It’s still Black History Month and the theme is ‘African Americans and Labor’ so let me tell you about a tour I took with my mom last November supporting 3 Black owned businesses. Last year while my mom was visiting we went on a Chicago Mahogany Tour. I’d seen Dilla popping up on my Twitter timeline for a minute but was not available when he had tours available. But I was that weekend. So I quickly bought our tickets so we could see a new part of Chicago we hadn’t seen yet. It was a few months ago so I don’t remember everything word for word but these are some highlights I remember.
The tour started at the beginning of Route 66 in downtown Chicago. The neighborhood we toured was North Lawndale. Y’all Dilla really is a walking Chicago history book. As we were approaching a library, Dilla asked if anyone knew the name of the Librarian at the Library of Congress. Oh, did I forget to mention I knew her name. Her name is Dr. Carla Hayden. I just didn’t know she had worked in Chicago. We passed the library where she and the former Prime Minister of Israel Golda Meir both once worked.
Y’all we’re going to go from an intellectual history fact to one of the most incredulous pieces of history anywhere. Chicago had this place called Hobo University. I kid you not. I mean I’m all for education but some things don’t need to be formalized, lol.
Allstate was an offshoot of Sears, Roebuck and Co. I don’t remember the exact story and don’t want to mess it up but it was a customer who gave a traveling salesman working for Sears some feedback. That feedback created a new division that eventually became an independent company. At one place in the tour, you can see both the old and new Sears tower at the same time. It’s pretty cool.
Dr. King once lived briefly in North Lawndale. Now there’s an updated apartment complex with commercial businesses on the ground floor in that place.
We stopped at Beelove Cafe, a coffee shop to support a local business. Ida Artisan Ice Cream was inside the cafe that day for an ice cream social. Baby that ice cream was soo good. Chile…I can still taste it. I had the Cookie Monster flavor.
Another interesting tidbit is the juvenile justice system was created in Chicago to help kids who worked actually get paid because their salaries were being held by the bosses. It was a system created to help kids but now it’s a system that harms them.
I think the tour was about 2 hours but you lose track of time listening to all the interesting things about the neighborhood. When we arrived back at the Chicago Cultural Centre my mom and I were interviewed about our experience living in America which will be part of the 250th year birthday of America in a video. I don’t remember the name of the organization who was creating the video but hopefully our part makes it in the video. I look forward to going on another Chicago Mahogany tour this year but in a different neighborhood.
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