Known Resources
Movement
The period between 1910-1975 saw one of the largest population movements in the history of the United States, now known as The Great Migration. As a city with a powerful industrial base and unrivaled transportation networks since its inception, not withstanding its proximity to Chicago, Joliet served as a grand zero for newly arrived Southern migrants, escaping increased harassment and bigotry in the Southern States.
It is no coincidence that these decades also saw “movements” of another kind - organizations for Civil Rights that included the participation of iconic figures such as Ida B. Wells and Martin Luther King, Jr. in Joliet at the behest of local leaders in the black community.
This exhibit endeavors to demonstrate that form its earliest days, the organization in Joliet was not only deliberate and sophisticated, but in many cases was successful in bringing about incremental social change that had ramifications far outside the City of Joliet.
Home Owners' Loan Corporation Map of Joliet, 1937
One of 200 “Redlining Maps” produced by the Home Owners' Loan Corporation between 1935 and 1940 with the stated purpose of stabilizing homeownership across the country. The 1937 Joliet map categorizes Joliet neighborhoods into four groups. Those neighborhoods that the HOLC determined to have the highest mortgage lending risks were shaded red. The descriptions of Joliet’s “redlined” neighborhoods are not subtle, declaring the “colored section” near the downtown as a “detrimental influence.” The HOLC map essentially codified the exclusion of home sales to citizens of specific racial and ethnic groups, which has continued to have a deleterious effect on Black citizens inasmuch as homeownership is a critical factor in amassing generational wealth and it has continued to have adverse ramifications for the specific neighborhoods in which Black citizens resided. To learn more about redlining, visit Mapping Inequality: Click Here
1958-59 Brown Book Directory
1958-59 Brown Book Directory, which was published by Joliet’s only Black newspaper The Negro Voice (later known as the Black Voice and then simply The Voice), highlights the economic vibrancy of the Joliet area Black community in the South End and south side with numerous black-owned businesses and social institutions.
