By Kay Bolden
When Morgan Jennings, a junior at Lewis University, won the university’s Kathleen W. Bolden Trailblazer Scholarship, she didn’t know much about Bolden or about Joliet. Her involvement with the college’s History Center changed all that. As the student coordinator for Reclaiming the Narrative: Restoring Black Voices to the Story of Joliet, Jennings has been visiting churches and organizations on Joliet’s south side and listening to Black elders tell the untold stories of the local Black community.
“It’s been very inspiring to learn about the growth and resilience of the Black community in Joliet, and how all these organizations have been interconnected in so many ways,” she said.
Reclaiming the Narrative has been collecting artifacts, documents, photos, and historical information about Black history in the region. Led by Professor Dennis Cremin, Ph.D, Reclaiming the Narrative will lift up stories that were overlooked by or intentionally excluded from past collections. The project focuses on four Black institutions in Joliet: Mt. Zion Baptist Church, the National Hook-Up of Black Women (Joliet Chapter), Second Baptist Church, and Warren-Sharpe Community Center.
Cremin, who manages the History Center and whose fields of research include state and local history, received funding for the project through a grant from the Gaylord and Dorothy Donnelley Foundation. “This work not only diversifies our historical collection,” he said. “It also gives voice and context to our overall history, which we didn’t have before.”
All the research will be used by students and historians to create a traveling exhibit, sharing the stories with audiences all over Joliet.
Jennings commented on the importance of personal recollections in the project. “You can go to a museum and see a big exhibit on another culture or group. But it means so much more to you, has so much more impact, when you can hear the stories of the people who lived through it. There are so many, varied Black experiences. This project gives us the chance to put a spotlight on small organizations that work in the community.”
Community activist Gwen Ulmer agrees. “Too often, when we hear about African Americans in the media, it is so often negative, because we weren’t the ones who wrote the history. But we are positive people. We have done great things. Being involved with this project allows us to bring light to what was hidden. It shows our true culture–faith, hard work, and family-oriented.”
A native of Matteson and a 2019 graduate of Homewood-Flossmoor Community High School, Jennings enrolled at Lewis to major in history. She later added minors in Theology and Arabic Language and Culture. This past summer, she spent several weeks studying and learning in Jordan. “When you study ancient civilizations and traditions, it’s easier to see all the connections between the past and the present,” she said.
The late Kathleen Bolden, 1937-1994, was a Lewis alumna, a community activist, and the founder of Warren-Sharpe Community Center. The Trailblazer scholarship in her name is sponsored by her son, Attorney A. Scott Bolden, a senior partner at Reed Smith LLP in Washington, DC. “My mother taught Black History at the University, and she believed education was power,” Bolden said. “My family and I are deeply gratified that this scholarship supports a student who is continuing that legacy.”
Segregated Suburbs–A Lecture by Paige Glotzer, Ph.D
The Lewis University History Department invites all to a lecture by Paige Glotzer, Ph.D, acclaimed author of How the Suburbs Were Segregated: Developers and the Business of Exclusionary Housing 1890-1960. This lecture complements the work being done by the Lewis University History Center, Reclaiming the Narrative: Restoring Black Voices to the Story of Joliet.
In this presentation, Glotzer will trace African American history going back a century and explore how early financial connections to slavery shaped what later became known as redlining–a system that routinely denied home loans to Black buyers and enforced racial segregation in housing.
When: Tuesday, October 18, 2022, at 2:00pm
Where: St. Charles Borromeo Convocation Hall, Lewis University North Campus, 101 Airport Rd, Romeoville
This event is free and open to the public. Reception with light refreshments will follow. Please register online at alumni.lewisu.edu/scaepaniak22.
Kay Bolden is a features writer at The Times Weekly – Kayb@thetimesweekly.com
