A digital companion to the biography Becoming Richard Pryor
An “emergency loan” from the Community Chest and Council in 1956 provided the Carver Center with enough space to build the combined 1200 seat gymnasium-auditorium where Pryor emceed a set of talent shows.
The Center’s expansion was justified by the “extremely high” population density in the area around it, where blacks in Peoria were concentrated, and by the lack of nearby recreational facilities.
“Carver Center Steps Toward Expansion,” Peoria Journal-Transcript, Aug.21, 1956.
As Peoria's black population surged in the 1940s, plans for a new community center were laid
The Center Fund Drive launched with hopes of raising $15,000 in a week.
For its founders, the Carver Center promised to inaugurate “the postwar of tomorrow”
The mural, a mix of uplift and militancy, that faced Richard onstage at the Carver Center
“We must help each other” was the theme of the Carver Center's mural, “The Pursuit of Freedom”
The Carver Center's mural was taken to be a significant work of public art in Peoria.
The Carver Center was thriving in 1952 — and would-be juvenile delinquent “Bob” was proof
Celebrating ten successful years, the Carver Center released a report on its progress.
Modern dance and checkers, jazz and basketball — all were on tap at the Carver Center
Pryor's time onstage at Carver was the era of its greatest expansion
Carver Center director Henry Harper was a gentle man with bulldog tenacity
The 1957 Center curriculum ranged from baton-twirling and canasta to scenery building and choir
Reportage on the Carver Center, from the point of view of a suburban high schooler
A quarter of Peoria's black population were enrolled in Carver Center activities in 1959
Local churches and businessmen organized the first Trade Fair for black high school and college students
A benefit for the local Afro-American Black Peoples Federation brought Richard Pryor back to the Carver Center stage
A portrait of Peoria's economic struggles during Reagan's first term
Juliette Whittaker's first original work for the Carver Center -- a lively musical set in the Cuba of 1950
Shakespeare's classic re-imagined by Whittaker in an original Carver Center Youth Theater production
A review of “Rumpelstiltskin,” Richard's first stage appearance.
A closer look at the Carver Center's resident playwright, director, stage manager, and set designer
Presenting the Silicons - a doowop group featured in a Carver Center talent show that Pryor may have emceed
A story of Juliette Whittaker's mentorship — and one of her paintings — grounded this Carver Center fundraising appeal
Carver Center teens, including later Black Panther Mark Clark, rehearsed a scene from “The Enchanted Cage”
From the imagination of Juliette Whittaker, a Dixiecrat senator's tour of Hell
A glimpse of a musical number from Whittaker's Civil Rights inspired pageant, “I, Too, Sing America”
A portrait of the young Richard, courtesy of his childhood friend Matt Clark
A closer look at the Carver Center's resident playwright, director, stage manager, and set designer
An in-depth profile of the remarkable woman who first mentored Richard Pryor as an artist
“The artist part of me has always chosen a storytelling style,” explained Whittaker
After 80 years of living creatively, Whittaker peacefully passed away in 2007
At her funeral service in the Carver Community Center, Whittaker's gift for nurturing talent was fondly recalled
Juliette Whittaker was “my angel,” wrote Richard's childhood friend Matt Clark