A digital companion to the biography Becoming Richard Pryor
Anticipating an event at the Carver Center designed to showcase of over one hundred black “men and women with pretty good jobs in this town,” the Peoria Journal Star saluted these heroes who “proved that the mold of limited opportunity could be broken.”
The editorial underscored how much progress Peoria had made in the year since Civil Rights demonstrations heated up in the city, and gave much credit to “business and industrial leaders”.
“Negro Heroes In Peoria,” Peoria Journal Star, Nov. 17, 1964, p. A6.
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
The Carver Center was thriving in 1952 — and would-be juvenile delinquent “Bob” was proof
Modern dance and checkers, jazz and basketball — all were on tap at the Carver Center
When an “interracial action group” formed in Peoria, the president of the Congress of Racial Equality offered his support
"Sit-down strikes" in eating establishments were the first protests organized by Peoria's CORE chapter
Its membership growing, Peoria's CORE aimed to desegregate public pools as well as local restaurants
CORE broadened its fight for racial justice by taking on a high school's staging of a blackface minstrel show
Restaurant managers boasted defiantly of improved sales after Bradley University's CORE chapter picketed their establishments
A detailed, intimate account of the interracial alliance behind CORE's sit-ins
The Cold War heated up in Peoria when radical singer Paul Robeson came to town
An in-depth interview of Paul Robeson, freshly banned from Peoria
The Chicago Defender sympathetically reported on Robeson's defiance of Peoria's conservatives
A detailed autopsy of the banning of Paul Robeson in Peoria, from the Baltimore Afro-American
A condemnation of Paul Robeson's behavior in Peoria from The Pittsburgh Courier, an African-American newspaper.
Peoria's ban of Paul Robeson echoed its chilly reception of Frederick Douglass 65 years before
A newspaper in New Delhi expressed outrage over Paul Robeson's ban in Peoria
After the Robeson incident, the hammer came down on Peoria's black American Legion post
A reporter dropped into Bris Collins's tavern to take black America's pulse — and met Richard's “Uncle Dickie”
Sparked by the postwar surge in Peoria's black population, the Journal Star surveyed the state of black Peoria
Low black voter turnout was behind black underrepresentation in Peoria politics
Juliette Whittaker was among the professionals spotlighted in “What Negroes do for a living in Peoria”
With liberal conviction, the Peoria Journal Star debunked the myth of scientific racial superiority
A case study in white resistance to desegregated housing in Peoria
Carver Center director Henry Harper was a gentle man with bulldog tenacity
Despite recent accomplishments, overcrowding in the “black belt” of Peoria remained a problem
The PJ Star argued everyone was "somewhat to blame" for the high black drop-out rate
Why did so few blacks in Peoria respond to a newspaperman's basic question?
A Peorian teacher emphasized education in the fight for desegregation
Who was to blame for low black social mobility — Peoria or blacks themselves?
Local churches and businessmen organized the first Trade Fair for black high school and college students
Juliette Whittaker was among the ladylike faces of this Peorian Civil Rights initiative
Racist hiring practices were targeted in a NAACP-organized bus boycott
Black Peorians were staging a bus boycott, but Peoria's Mayor claimed there was “no racial tension here”
Peoria's NAACP president argued that racial tension suffused “almost every phase of life in Peoria”
Unemployment and poor housing were problems that couldn't be solved by demonstrations, said Peoria's Mayor
A newspaper investigation found property values rarely dropped when a “colored family” moved in
Over 200 people hosted integrated parties for Peoria's Inter-racial Home Visitation Day
For lack of a better option, Peoria's blacks were forced to rent overpriced and poorly maintained housing
From the imagination of Juliette Whittaker, a Dixiecrat senator's tour of Hell
By November 1964, a 77% high school dropout rate beset black Peoria - higher than Chicago and Springfield.
The Peoria Journal Star saluted those black Peorians who had entered the middle class
A barbershop where blacks had been refused service was struck with a Molotov cocktail
A glimpse of a musical number from Whittaker's Civil Rights inspired pageant, “I, Too, Sing America”
The NAACP staged a singing sit-in to press for changes in school curriculum and employment practices
The NAACP pressured for school reform with another sit-in — and six were arrested
Teens in the NAACP staged a walk-out to protest inadequate conditions at their school
120 Manual High School students were barred from returning to class the day after the mass walk-out
After approximately 6,200 total student absences, student demonstrators paused to regroup
The Nation of Islam made inroads among Peoria's black population
The US Commission on Civil Rights examined why a busing program hadn't alleviated segregation in Peoria's schools
Twelve black men took up arms to patrol their community — with the sanction of city hall
Businessmen in Peoria showed a growing concern for race relations with an $85,000 pledge to Project TIP
To allay black mistrust of Peoria's police, city leaders planned three-day retreats with blacks, police, and businessmen
Protests by Bradley University's Black Student Alliance resulted in two new academic institutions
White-dominated construction unions were no-shows at a meeting to integrate building trades
An “open society” in Peoria was the goal of the Tri-County Urban League's annual seven-part statement
A benefit for the local Afro-American Black Peoples Federation brought Richard Pryor back to the Carver Center stage
Three days later an editorial praised Bradley's “Statement of Principles” for enforcing the civil rights of all races
Carver Center teens, including later Black Panther Mark Clark, rehearsed a scene from “The Enchanted Cage”
Juliette Whittaker's Civil Rights fresco
An obituary for Mark Clark — a Peorian Black Panther killed alongside Fred Hampton in a pre-dawn raid by Chicago police in 1969
In a high-stakes hostage standoff, the gunmen refused negotiations with anyone but Juliette Whittaker
Juliette Whittaker remembered gunman (and Black Panther) Melvin Burch as “a very gentle man”
Twenty years after Brown v. Board of Education, the Journal Star examined the arc of the city's Civil Rights Movement
The Washington Post traveled to Peoria to take the pulse of the nation during the Watergate crisis
The US Commission on Civil Rights examined why a busing program hadn't alleviated segregation in Peoria's schools