Bike Tour 9/30

What feels like many weeks ago I participated in the South Side History Bike Tour, the morning that Megan arrived. This was an event put on by the university's Office of Civic Engagement and the speakers during the trip were two professors, one history, one economics I think, and a dean with a background in urban planning (Are you picturing three older white guys? Good.). We biked around 20 miles and saw 10 sites of Chicago. (1) We started at the Dusable Museum of African and African American History which is right by campus. It was founded in 1961 and is the first and oldest museum dedicated to the study and conservation of African American History (it's also where I saw some musicians during the Hyde Park Jazz Festival the weekend before).(2) Next was the tomb of Steven Douglas which is his burial burial site. Douglas was a distinguished Illinois statesman remembered for his legendary senatorial debates against Abraham Lincoln.

(3) We next went to a neighborhood called Bronzeville to walk about the migration of African Americans from the South, escaping oppression and seeking industrial jobs. (4) The Prarie Avenue district was the city's most fashionable residential district after the Great Chicago Fire. (5) The Chicago Coliseum Site was the city's premier meeting hall from 1900 until the Chicago Stadium opened in the late 1920s. It hosted every Republican National Convention from 1904 - 1920 and the Bull Moose Party convention in 1212.

(6) Jane Adams Hull House established in 1889 was the first social settlement and is now a museum located on the campus of the University of Illinois, which is where we had our bathroom break. (7) Mayor Richard J Daley's home. He was the mayor of Chicago for 21 years and then his son became mayor too. (8) Union Stockyard Gate was the entrance to the famous Union Stock Yards, the  once dominant meat packing industry (think The Jungle by Upton Sinclair). (9) Harold Washington Cultural Center back in Bronzeville, Harold Washington was a native Chicagoan and grew up in Bronzeville. He served in the Illinois Legislature and in the House of Representatives before being elected as the city's first African American mayor in 1983. (10) President Barack Obama's home.

Did the descriptions of the stops not sound like me? That's because they are the ones that can be found on the information sheet they gave us. I'm not some expert on Chicago history now. Though I was somewhat familiar with a few of the sites because of the reading I did over the summer.

At each stop the professors would pass around a megaphone and give information about the sites. To help us navigate riding around the city in a group of 50 or so bikes, we had "bike marshalls" from Blackstone Bike Works who would put themselves in front of cars so we could ride through even after the lights turned red. For the most part this was through mellow areas but when we went through Motor Row and got closer to downtown, we incited lots of honking and shouts of "use the sidewalk." Really, sir? 50 bikers on the sidewalk in a city, use your head. It was a long day but I really enjoyed it. They do another tour in the spring of a different area and I look forward to participating.