Residents help tell the story of Black history in Joliet

The Black history of Joliet is largely unwritten, and the Joliet Area Historical Museum wants to tell the story with the help of local residents.

The museum on Saturday hosted “History in Our Hands,” an event that encouraged people to bring photographs, letters and artifacts that can help chronicle the Black experience in Joliet.

About 100 items were brought in to be scanned into the museum’s files or kept for research.

Many told personal stories that contribute to a larger history.

Darnell McDaniel brought in a framed article from The Herald-News about his aunt Ann Lane, a popular cook of soul food in Joliet for about a half-century starting when she and her husband bought the old South Town Restaurant in 1956.

“She was very popular in this area,” McDaniel said. “She cooked for large weddings and funerals.”

Diane Harris brought information about her father, Eddie Turner, who was a chauffeur for the prominent Joyce family and their 7UP bottling business.

“He drove them all over,” Harris said, even to Florida where he sometimes would drop them off for business or vacations and return by himself to Joliet, being stopped on the way back by police suspicious of a Black man driving a limousine with Illinois license plates.

Her father used the Green Book, a Black motorist’s guide for safe and welcoming places to stop during a time of segregation.

“He had a Green Book so he would know where to go when they [the Joyces] were not in the car,” Harris said.

Turner, who came to Joliet from Alabama, and Lane, who came from Texas, also are part of a larger story in Black history – the Great Migration that brought many from Southern states to northern industrial cities like Joliet in the 20th century.

Fitting such personal stories into a larger history will be the task of the museum, said H’Aeneise Coopwood, membership coordinator for the Joliet Area Historical Museum.

Coopwood gave a presentation Saturday on what generally is known about Black history in Joliet.

Much is known about the late Judge Raymond Bolden and a Martin Luther King Jr. appearance in Joliet in 1965, she said.

Some stories harder to find date back to the mid-19th century, including a little-known visit to Joliet by orator and writer Frederick Douglass, the most prominent African American of his time.

“Technically, much of this history is kind of hidden,” Coopwood said.

Coopwood talked about the role of the Crispus Attucks Civil League in Joliet, the formation of the city’s chapter of the NAACP in 1941 and the importance of the Second Baptist Church.

Joliet had what was called a Brown Book, serving as a guide to where Black people could do business during a time of segregation, she said.

“We had grocery stores, doctors' offices,” Coopwood said. “We also had photographers and dentists. This lets us know that this book aided residents of Joliet, as well.”

The event Saturday was co-sponsored by History on Wheels, which is developing a Joliet museum devoted to Black service in the military, and the Joliet Area African-American Context Study, a historical effort being compiled by the city of Joliet.

Items brought to the museum Saturday included church bulletins and anniversary books.

The Joliet Area Historical Museum will continue to welcome materials, museum Curator Steven Wright said.

“It will help us form a research perspective because our history on this topic is limited,” Wright said.

Those interested in making contributions can email Wright at s.wright@jolietmuseum.org or call the Joliet Area Historical Museum at 815-723-5201.

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