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Gospel Music Museum Advocates Push Rahm To Turn Over Closed School

 The Rev. Stanley Keeble, head of the Chicago Gospel Music Heritage Museum who sang performed with gospel music legend Inez Andrews, says it’s time to help preserve gospel music history before it's too late.
The Rev. Stanley Keeble, head of the Chicago Gospel Music Heritage Museum who sang performed with gospel music legend Inez Andrews, says it’s time to help preserve gospel music history before it's too late.
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“When you say 'Chicago,' you think of it as the home of blues and gospel music …” — Mayor Rahm Emanuel on the campaign trail. 

BRONZEVILLE — After years of prayer — not to mention a pretty important political endorsement in the mayoral runoff — prominent Chicago pastors want Rahm Emanuel to do more than sing the praises of gospel music, the Christian jazz-blues sound that got its start on the South Side.

Founders of the Chicago Gospel Music Heritage Museum, an organization with loads of artifacts and no place to display them, want Emanuel to offer up a shuttered South Side elementary school as a permanent home for a national gospel museum.

“It’s time for the mayor to deliver for the black religious community that just delivered for him in the election,” said Mark Allen, who calls himself the “young guy” who gospel legends the Rev. Clay Evans and the Rev. Stanley Keeble have entrusted with forwarding the push to get the museum a permanent home.

Keeble, who performed  with late Inez Andrews, says it’s time to help preserve gospel music history before it's too late.

“Chicago is where gospel music was born. All the pioneers of gospel, such as Thomas Dorsey, Sally Martin and Mahalia Jackson, began their professional work as gospel artists here,” said Keeble, who turned 78 last month.

“I’d tell the mayor that I know for a fact that this would be good for Chicago for a lot of reasons. For one, it’ll preserve history, because we’d have a museum where all our artifacts are secure, and we don’t have anything getting ruined in someone’s basement.”

That’s what Keeble says happened to the tuxedo worn by the late James Cleveland when he won his first Grammy award.

“Inez had the tuxedo and the robe James wore when he started his church in Los Angeles. When she died, her children and grandchildren didn’t know what happened to it. But we do know her basement flooded several times, and that’s where she probably kept the stuff,” he said.

“Everything is at risk if it’s not kept in a secure place.”

Over the last decade, the gospel music museum has displayed some of its collection at schools, libraries and the DuSable Museum, but without a permanent home, the collection remains at risk.

The original sheet music of Thomas A. Dorsey, who’s considered the “father of black gospel music,” was destroyed by the 2006 fire that gutted the Pilgrim Baptist Church, which is credited as the birthplace of gospel music. Dorsey was the church music director there from 1932 until the late 1970s.

Last June, Allen says he talked to Mayor Emanuel about the museum’s request to put the museum at Parkman Elementary, one of a record 49 schools closed in 2013.

“The mayor called me personally and said that it sounded like a good idea and said to keep [deputy chief of staff] Ken Bennett updated on how to move forward,” Allen said. “Well, we’re getting close to a year. There’s been an election. Gospel Fest is a few weeks away. Everyone from the mayor on down says how much Chicago means to gospel music. This is the time for the mayor to make this happen.”

After DNAinfo Chicago called the Mayor’s Office Friday, Bennett reached out to Allen to talk about the museum.

“I said, 'Ken we’re trying to force some movement,'” Allen said.

Bennett, whose son is Chance The Rapper, didn’t return several messages seeking comment. Emanuel’s spokeswoman Kelley Quinn wrote in a statement that, “No commitments have been made, but the lines of communication are open.”

Allen said the plan to convert Parkman Elementary into a gospel museum complete with classrooms for after-school music lessons, record and sheet music archives and an auditorium for performances is supported by Ald. Pat Dowell, who told him tax increment finance funds would be available for the project once it has Emanuel’s approval.

But Dowell’s spokesman Kevin Lampe said in an email Monday that a decision on TIF funds would not be made until a proposal is submitted for putting the museum at Parkman.

“That’s the rollercoaster we’re on,” Allen said. “During the election [campaign] the mayor toured Bronzeville. He says he wants to rebuild it. The mayor openly asked for suggestions for those closed schools. And this is a great idea. What we need is the mayor to take the lead. He’s in charge. He controls the School Board. He controls the TIFs. A commitment from the mayor of Chicago starts a chain reaction … then there’s TIF dollars. And everybody knows how the mayor’s support opens the door for donations.”

Keeble says he wants the mayor to know that preserving of the museum’s collection of records — “gobs and gobs of 78s and 45s that most young folk don’t know anything about" — photos and other artifacts are only part of the reason he hopes for Emanuel’s blessing.

He said the coming celebration of Gospel Fest’s 30th year, three days of free concerts at Millennium Park that city officials expect more than 100,000 people to attend, is proof that people around the world still love and appreciate gospel songs.

“The museum will be good for tourism, and that ought to be worth it by itself,” Keeble said.

“But the museum is also going to bring a lot of kids off the street. They’ll be able to come take music lessons and operate the boards we record on. And we’ll have every instrument available accessible to kids. The thing is, we need a building to do all that.”

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