| Douglas, Chicago |
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| community areas of chicago | |
| united states communities with african american majority populations | |
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Douglas, located on the South Side of Chicago, Illinois is one of 77 well-defined Chicago Community Areas . The neighborhood is named for Stephen A. Douglas a famous Illinois politician whose estate included a tract of land given to the federal government. The Douglas tract later became the infamous Civil War Union prison camp, Camp Douglas , located in what is now the eastern portion of the Douglas neighborhood. As part of the Chicago 2016 Olympic Bid , the Olympic Village is planned to be located on a 37 acre truck parking lot south of McCormick Place that is mostly in the Douglas Community Area and partly in the Near South Side .1 The community area contains part of the famous neighborhood of Bronzeville, a very famous center of African-American culture in the city. NEIGHBORHOODS Bronzeville Bronzeville is a neighborhood located in the Douglas and Grand Boulevard community areas on the South Side of Chicago around the Illinois Institute Of Technology and Illinois College Of Optometry . It is accessible via the Green , Red Lines of the Chicago Transit Authority or the Metra Electric District Main Line . In the early 20th century, Bronzeville was known as the "Black , founder of the Negro National Baseball League; Ida B. Wells , a civil rights activist, journalist and organizer of the NAACP; Bessie Coleman , the first African-American woman pilot; Gwendolyn Brooks , famous author and first African-American recipient of the Pulitzer Prize ; and Louis Armstrong , the legendary trumpet player and bandleader who performed at many of the area's night clubs. The neighborhood contains the Chicago Landmark Black Metropolis-Bronzeville District .2 47th Street was and remains the hub of the Bronzeville neighborhood and in recent years has started to regain some of the former glory of years gone by. Gone though for good is the Regal Theater (demolished in 1973) where many great performers took the stage. During the 1950s and 1960s, a decision was made to replace the "slums" with several straight miles of high-rise public housing projects, managed by the Chicago Housing Authority , essentially isolating and simultaneously concentrating the poor black population in this section of the city. The largest complex was Robert Taylor Homes . The result was high crime and prolonged disinvestment in the community. Recently, these complexes have been demolished by federal mandate; however, they are being replaced by less than half the number of previously-available public housing units. Crime has gone down, however, which allows the fringes of the rapid Gentrification occurring in the South Loop and Kenwood neighborhoods to move into the neighborhood. Origins of the name The name itself was first used in 1930, by James J. Gentry , a local theatre editor for the Chicago Bee publication. It refers to the skin color of African-Americans, predominant in that area at that time. It is also more accurate, because the skin tone of African-Americans is more brown that black. It has became common usage thorughout the decades. http://www.iit.edu/~bronzeville-stories/history.html Education The following . Bronzeville is also home to the renowned Illinois Institute Of Technology which is famous for its engineering and architecture programs. It also is home to the Illinois College Of Optometry . REFERENCES EXTERNAL LINKS
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