A major document of African American participation in the struggles of the Great Depression, The Negro in Illinois was produced by a special division of the Illinois Writers' Project, one of President Franklin D. Roosevelt's Works Progress Administration programs. Headed by Harlem Renaissance poet Arna Bontemps and white proletarian writer Jack Conroy, The Negro in Illinois employed major black writers living in Chicago during the 1930s, including Richard Wright, Margaret Walker, Katherine Dunham, Fenton Johnson, Frank Yerby, and Richard Durham. The authors chronicled the Negroes' experience i ... More

A major document of African American participation in the struggles of the Great Depression, The Negro in Illinois was produced by a special division of the Illinois Writers' Project, one of President Franklin D. Roosevelt's Works Progress Administration programs. Headed by Harlem Renaissance poet Arna Bontemps and white proletarian writer Jack Conroy, The Negro in Illinois employed major black writers living in Chicago during the 1930s, including Richard Wright, Margaret Walker, Katherine Dunham, Fenton Johnson, Frank Yerby, and Richard Durham. The authors chronicled the Negroes' experience in Illinois from the beginnings of slavery to Abraham Lincoln's emancipation and the Great Migration, with individual chapters discussing various aspects of public and domestic life, recreation, politics, religion, literature, and performing arts. After the project was canceled in 1942, most of the writings went unpublished for more than half a century—until now. The editor of this book provides an informative introduction and epilogue which explain the origins of the project and place it in the context of the Black Chicago Renaissance.