Celebrating Harold: a new cultural center embodies the vision of former Chicago Mayor Harold Washington and helps to revitalize the community

Ebony, Dec, 2004 by Shirley Henderson

FORTY-seventh and South Park was one of the most famous corners in Black America, dreamed about and gossiped about, and occupied by landmark businesses and the legendary Regal Theater.

Year after year, the Duke Ellingtons, Count Basies and other royalty of African-American music made their way to this Chicago corner, and neighborHood youths, including a young man named Harold Washington, lined up to watch the parade of stars.

Then, suddenly, time and trends changed, the corner became 47th and Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Drive, and the Regal was pushed into the background and razed.

But neither history nor the 'Hood forgot, and after an uphill development struggle and predictions that the whole project was doomed to disaster, a gleaming limestone structure bearing the name and a 7 1/2-foot statue of Harold Washington, a neighorhood boy who made good as the first Black mayor of Chicago, was erected on the same corner. A legend, he was called "Harold" by almost everyone.

An unlikely combination of forces, including a militant Black alderman, a White mayor, a Black sculptor, and Black and White financiers made all this possible. And when the Harold Washington Cultural Center was dedicated this year, people of all races and political persuasions, including Alderman Dorothy Tillman, Mayor Richard M. Daley and sculptor Ed Dwight Jr., united to praise "a world-class" cultural center that many hope will bring economic and cultural revitalization to the area.

The sparkplug behind the development of the Center was Alderman Tillman, a Martin Luther King Jr. disciple, famed in Chicago for her spectacular hats and her equally spectacular campaigns for reparations and Black economic and cultural development. Tillman was the founder of Tobacco Road Inc., a non-profit company that joined with the city in developing the $19.5 million project, which was funded by private and public sources in a TIF (tax increment financing) district.

The building dominates the area and is visually striking. On entering the lobby, two-story windows loom above visitors, permitting natural light to filter in. Sleek marble floors and eggshell-colored walls are offset by a black-and-white spiral staircase, which looks like a winding piano keyboard.

One of the standout attractions of the Center, which includes an art gallery and museum space, is the 1,800-seat Com Ed Performing Arts Theater, an elegant venue with plush wine-colored seats and excellent sight views. The utility company bought the naming rights to the theater for $800,000.

Alderman Tillman and her daughter, executive director Jimalita Tillman, say the Center is not just another pretty building. It is, they say, a community educational and resource center that will host a music business and a performing arts institute where students will learn both the creative and business side of the entertainment business. "We are an entertainment facility," the younger Tillman says, "but we are primarily an educational facility."

It is also a focus of community development for the long-neglected Bronzeville historic area on the city's South Side. Major institutions and corporations, like Second City, have already settled in the area or have announced plans for future developments.

The Harold Washington Cultural Center is also a living reminder of the testament and dream of the late mayor who died in office at the beginning of his second term and who never ceased to call for the empowerment of all neighborhoods and all Chicagoans.

In the final analysis, Alderman Tillman says, the Harold Washington Cultural Center is about empowerment. "We Black people don't control our culture," she says, "we only groom our culture. The Center was designed so that we can take ownership. We wanted to build a theater not only to use, but as an anchor to build our cultural district."

Photography by Vandell Cobb