BRONZEVILLE — A prominent Bronzeville performance space, once the stomping grounds of Count Basie, Sarah Vaughn and Nat "King" Cole, prepares to welcome presidential candidate Hillary Clinton Wednesday.
Clinton's Democratic presidential campaign has scheduled a midday Get Out the Vote rally at the Parkway Ballroom, 4455 S. King Drive, at 11 a.m.
According to the Parkway's website, it was a prominent Bronzeville performance space from the 1940s to the mid-'70s, playing host to the likes of Basie, Vaughn and Cole, as well as local blues musicians. Radio shows of the time were broadcast from the Parkway, dubbed such after the previous name of Martin Luther King Jr. Drive, South Parkway.
The venue was once part of a thriving 47th Street center for South Side life, according to Rita Coburn Whack, who wrote and produced Chicago Stories: Remembering 47th Street for WTTW-Channel 11. Listing the Parkway Ballroom along with the Chez Paree, Gerri's Palm Tavern and the original Regal Theatre, Whack writes that by day, the area "was a vibrant commercial district; at sundown it was transformed into a throbbing center of nightlife."
African-Americans, many of whom migrated to Chicago from the South s in the early 20th century, were shut out of Downtown establishments. Bronzeville's 47th Street district "began to prosper, and became a source of pride and a haven for Chicago's blacks," writes Whack.
By the 1950s, though, the civil rights movement and integration allowed blacks more freedom to move and the area declined. Now, though, the area has new hope as redevelopment plans are in the works.
In 2002, chef Clifford Rome reopened the Parkway Ballroom as a site for weddings, fundraisers, summertime socials, New Year's Eve parties and community-development conferences. Rome's Joy Catering was made the exclusive caterer for the location.
Clinton, the former U.S. senator and secretary of state, has been in a national dogfight with U.S. Sen Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), and both have identified the African-American vote as key to the Illinois primary, set for March 15.
Clinton will also be attending three fundraisers in Chicago on Wednesday, including one in the evening at Venue One, 1034 W. Randolph St., where she'll appear with Geneva Reed-Veal, mother of Sandra Bland, a suburban Chicago native who died in police custody in Texas last summer.
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