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Soledad O'Brien spoke to broadcast students at Illinois State University about journalism inside the TV-10 studio.
February became known as Black History Month in the late 1920’s due to the efforts of Dr. Carter G. Woodson from Harvard University. Disturbed by the absence of black people in history books, he took on the challenge of creating a journal on “Negro History.” Locally, efforts by people like Caribel Washington, Frances Irvin, Dr. Mildred Pratt, Jack Muirhead, and countless others, the B/N Black History Project has revealed astonishing and interesting facts regarding the contributions and history of black people in McLean County.
Bill Flick’s column on January 16th titled, “We’ve come a long way….since MLK Jr.”, quoted past Pantagraph headlines like the 1924’s article on the Klu Klux Klan initiations near what is Jersey Avenue today, or the one about the “Colored Peoples Float…” in the Memorial Day Parade involving a struggle between the NAACP and the Louis E. Davis American Legion Post who didn’t want the float containing the words, “Our War Dead Died Together” to appear in the parade. The project contains documents, videos, etc., that give insight into what life was like here in McLean County. For example, did you know the second floor over the Lucca Grill awning used to be a nightclub for black people? I bet you didn’t know that Richard Bell, a black auto repairman, bought land in what is now Forest Park, next to Miller Park, and turned it into an amusement park! Segregation was the norm, even in our Northern community, and businesses such as General Electric and State Farm didn’t begin to hire black people until the ‘60s after much struggle by people like Ruth Waddell and Caribel Washington. Residents like Luvada Hunter went door to door to white residents trying to persuade them to have black neighbors. I had the opportunity to attend several MLK functions in January and heard presentations from Arun Ghandi, grandson of Mohandas Ghandi, and Soledad O’Brien, CNN commentator.
One of the lines that stuck with me was a quote from Dr. King, which says, “The hottest hell is reserved for those who remain neutral in times of great moral conflict.” To me that means we need to continue to get involved, speak up, and work for the social and civil rights of every human being, because we are indeed in times of great moral conflict.
I’m Camille Taylor for the WJBC forum.
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