A digital companion to the biography Becoming Richard Pryor
Unger Juliette Whittaker’s direction, the Carver Community Center Adult Theatre performed “I, Too, Sing America,” a historical pageant focused on “depicting the Negro’s role in the making of America.”
Interestingly enough, the pageant was not presented at the Carver Center stage. Instead the Agudas Achim Synagogue hosted the production and it was presented to B’Nai B’rith Women.
“I, Too, Sing America,” Peoria Journal Star (photo and photo credit page), Feb. 1966.
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
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
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
When police raided the brothel of Richard's father and stepmother, Buck ran and Ann stayed
Ann, already sick with cancer, was sentenced to jail time for running a brothel
Richard's stepmother Ann, accused in court of being a "madam," was kicked out of a local vocational school
The notorious Elmer Poos was brought down by an ex-lover who worked for him as a prostitute
The FBI joined the crackdown on prostitution in Peoria
Buck arrested for 3rd time in as many years for running a brothel
In the year before his death, Buck was still getting arrested in vice squad raids
China Bee Parker, wife of Harold, ran a N. Washington St. brothel for thirty years without spending a night in jail