CHICAGO — Here's what we're reading on this sleepy Monday.
Remembering 'Negroland': Pulitzer Prize-winning theater critic Margo Jefferson's new memoir "Negroland" explores a fascinating slice of Chicago history: the black upperclass living in the city in the 1950s. Jefferson, whose father was head of pediatrics at Provident Hospital, tells Publisher's Weekly that the title "is my word for this somewhat rarified, specialized world previously known as the colored elite, the Negro elite, the talented 10th.” Their racial position was tricky: some whites resented them, others held them up and wondered why more blacks couldn't be like them. Their own view of lower-class blacks was complicated.
Senior editor Andrew Herrmann recommends an excerpt in Guernica magazine, which includes Jefferson describing a vacation in Atlantic City gone bad ("Oh, here you are Doc. We had to change your room," says the hotel clerk) plus an uneasiness the father feels when a new family moves to their neighborhood.
Meanwhile, the Tribune reports that while Chicago is still among the cities with the most numbers of wealthy black households, it has fallen out of the top ten in percentage of households earning over $100,000. The change reflects more educated African Americans moving to Southern states like Georgia, experts say.
Win a Bed & Breakfast Along Missouri's (Much Longer Version) of The 606: The owners of the High Street Victorian, a bed and breakfast near the Katy Trail, a 240-mile long former railroad that is the country's longest "Rails-to-Trails" path, have put their Inn up for grabs, through a nationwide essay contest, the Chicago Tribune reports. For an entry fee of $150, plus a 200 word essay response to a question of "Why do you want to own The High Street Victorian Bed and Breakfast?" the property could be yours. Deadline for entries is Oct. 15. Read the contest rules here.
Let's Make a Deal: News that Dennis Hastert, the former Republican speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives, may plead guilty to charges he agreed to pay $3.5 million to conceal sexual misconduct decades ago while a high school wrestling teacher, prompted reporter Heather Cherone to read Chicago Magazine's deep dive into how Yorkville — a tiny town in central Illinois where everyone knew everything about everyone — could have been completely oblivous to Hastert's alledged wrongdoing for so many decades. The up shot: Hastert was beloved for bringing home the bacon, and human nature makes it hard to confront something as awful as sexual abuse.
Urban Unsprawl: Businesses that fled to the suburbs in the 1970s have been jumping back downtown for the past couple years, from Kraft Heinz to Motorola. Reporter Ariel Cheung is reading a Crain's Chicago piece that suggests McDonald's and Walgreens should do the same as they attempt to refocus their brands. Not only would the companies be at the center of city buzz and innovation, but also attract talent from a generation that prefers urban life.
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