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Photo: Unknown authorUnknown author, Public domain via Wikimedia Commons
Countless jazz legends played at this legendary jazz club, including: Bix Beiderbecke, Jimmy Dorsey, Benny Goodman, Earl Hines, Fletcher Henderson, Count Basie, and of course, Louis Armstrong. The club was run by unsavory mafia types and the musicians often had no choice but to keep playing here! Disjointed as it may be, the legendary club no longer exists and the building houses a hardware store. Nonetheless, the Sunset Cafe is Chicago's number one jazz history site and should not be missed by anyone traveling along The Jazz Track. There has been talk of resurrecting the club, but plans remain embryonic. Feel free to stop in if you'd like — the owner is used to all sorts of foreign jazz aficionados wandering in.
The Sunset Cafe, also known as The Grand Terrace Cafe or simply Grand Terrace, was a jazz club in Chicago, Illinois operating during the 1920s, 1930s and 1940s. It was one of the most important jazz clubs in America, especially during the period between 1917 and 1928 when Chicago became a creative capital of jazz innovation and again during the emergence of bebop in the early 1940s. From its inception, the club was a rarity as a haven from segregation, since the Sunset Cafe was an integrated or Black and Tan club where African Americans, along with other ethnicities, could mingle freely with white Americans without much fear of reprisal. Many important musicians developed their careers at the Sunset/Grand Terrace Cafe.
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Bronzeville Military Academy
This was the first armory for an African-American regiment, serving the "Fighting 8th," which fought in the Spanish-American War and served with distinction in World War I. After years of disuse, this grandiose building has been restored and now houses the nation's first public college-prep military school, which is unfortunately not open for visitors.
This monument was built in 1928 to honor the service of the African-American Eighth Regiment of the Illinois National Guard in France during World War I.
Built to house the first African-American insurance company, which was one of the few Black Metropolis businesses to survive the Great Depression. The building houses the Bronzeville Visitor Information Center (see below) and is finally undergoing a proper restoration which will restore the 1920 classical façade.
The home of Ida B Wells, prominent African-American civil rights activist and suffragette, founder of the Black Women's movement, and founding member of the NAACP, lived here from 1919–1929. Today it is a private residence and is closed to the public.
Built in 1899 as a synagogue, this building housed the Chicago Defender (the nation's foremost African-American newspaper through World War I) from 1920-1960. The Chicago Defender published works by Langston Hughes and Gwendolyn Brooks, and is largely credited for starting the Great Migration in its exhortations to southern blacks to move to the North for greater economic opportunities and freedom. The building is oddly vacant and neglected and may be available for sale.
The home of the Chicago Bee newspaper, which was founded by Anthony Overton to promote black businesses and issues. The art deco building has an elegant terra cotta façade and today houses the Chicago Bee Branch Library.