Grantee Partner Spotlight: Black Cornerstones Project

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Features
By Mark Hallett, Director of Grants Programs

Read Time 7 minutes
September 16, 2024

Founded in 2020, the Black Cornerstones Project (BCP) is a civic engagement project that emboldens Black Stories, amplifies Black Voices, and carves out bold and amazing Black Spaces co-created for resistance, resilience, reformation, and restitution.

Black Cornerstones Project's vision, shaping our tomorrow, is Black voices transforming radical dreams of freedom to construct new realities of liberation. Capturing the oral history of Chicago Block Clubs keeps that vision alive and celebrates the rich history of the vibrant Second City, Chicago. BCP received an Illinois Humanities Activate History Microgrant to present this collection during its annual Juneteenth Celebration on June 8, 2024, in the Calumet Heights neighborhood.

Black Cornerstones Project showcased and celebrated 50 stories of Chicago Block Club leaders that captured the oral history of how their groups were formed, the migration stories of their members, and how their work continues. BCP displayed historical artifacts and photographs on loan by various residents, provided listening posts for the oral histories collected over three years, and enlisted storytellers to engage audiences. 

In the following Q&A, read more about the organization's founder, oral history archives, and this project.

A Q&A with Shani Smith

Founder and Executive Director of the Black Cornerstones Project

Shani, where does your interest in collecting and preserving history come from? What drives it?

I am the Founder and Master Curator for the Black Cornerstones Project, a community engagement project. We focus on the four pillars of strengthening and building Black communities. We like to uplift Black voices as well as diverse voices and experiences.

Our pillars are about sharing our stories. When we get folks engaged in storytelling, we are able to share lived experiences that help dispel anti-Black narratives. And, we also focus on co-creating spaces together so that we can engage together. And in a space that is supportive of everyone and inclusive of everyone. while focusing on sustainable resources. The last pillar is to build power collectively through collective action.

My own interest in preserving and collecting history comes from sitting and listening to my elders. My maternal and paternal grandmothers were women from such dynamic and totally different backgrounds. They are an integral part of my journey. My paternal grandfather, my aunt, and my uncles – through their lenses, I learned so much about the world and continue to discover so much about myself.

What drives me is the deep need to honor the identity of my community. I am passionate about our pasts not being forgotten but celebrated and passed down. 

We are building a bridge between the past and the future and empowering others to learn and to heal. It is about reclaiming our narrative and fostering a sense of our history. It’s a powerful tool for connection, sharing, and social change.

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Describe for us the oral histories that you have collected. What are some of your takeaways from them?

What we have done so far is to begin to collect the oral histories, the idea was the oral histories of block clubs, particularly in the Calumet Heights area. We began to interview residents about their participation in block clubs.  It was meant to be a walking history of block clubs in Calumet Heights and in the Chicago area but it became something more amazing. The name is now Building Blocks.

Residents focused on their migration stories, and how they came to live where they are throughout Chicago. In May and June, we wanted to walk the community and gather stories. We ended up creating these walking clubs, and members would come out and they’d share stories of their family history and their future hopes for the Calumet Heights area. In the end, we had 15 participants share their stories. We had already collected, prior to that, more than 20 stories from different people in the community. 

We met remarkable people like a law professor who was one of the first Black law students at the University of Chicago. Residents related to many great Black musicians throughout the city. 

We were even able to reconnect some neighbors with their family history, that they themselves weren’t aware of. 

There was one neighbor whose great-grandparents were the first owners of the house.  In more than one case, neighbors would know the history of people’s families that the families themselves didn’t know. It was very informal, but we would record video. It was all really exciting, just to know that we are just steps away from a richer and deeper connection to our past.

From doing all of these oral histories, one of the key takeaways for me personally is the profound understanding of resilience and strength within my community. 

Listening to these stories has deepened my appreciation for the richness and diversity of our experiences, and it reminded me how crucial it is to preserve these voices.

What is your own personal, familial connection to Calumet Heights?

My grandmother, a sharecropper born in Mississippi, moved to Chicago during the Great Migration, searching for better opportunities to support her family back in the South and to help her children attend school and college. She found work as a hairdresser and domestic worker, cleaning homes and preparing meals in the Calumet Heights area. Despite her hard work, she was not allowed to enter through the front door of the homes she cleaned, walk on the floors she scrubbed, or eat from the tables she set. 

In 1966, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. led the Chicago Freedom Movement, called the most ambitious civil rights campaign in the North, aimed at addressing predatory lending practices and housing segregation. At that time, the city was one of the most segregated in the North, with Black residents systematically excluded from predominantly white, middle-class neighborhoods. Helen Anglin, the owner of Soul Queen Restaurant and one of the few Black residents in Calumet Heights, hosted Dr. King at her home to support the movement's efforts for fair and open housing.

BCP Selfie with Shanni and two others

My grandmother was among the first Black residents to buy a home on South Blackstone Avenue in Calumet Heights. For the first time, she could enter through the front door, walk on the floors she had once cleaned, and enjoy meals at the table she had once prepared.

Calumet Heights has a rich history, and despite the challenges of white flight, this community thrived and my grandmother was a key figure in that history. 

Calumet Heights is my forever home, and I’m determined that my grandmother’s legacy and the legacy of other Black Migrants in this community don’t die with me.

What do you envision for this project in the future?

I envision sharing the stories. Ultimately, I would like to share them with the Library of Congress. I would love to see them as a museum or library exhibit. I can imagine a wall – where you press a picture or a button and hear a story. 

Is there anything that you’d like to share or announce?

I’d like to thank Illinois Humanities and express our deepest gratitude. The Black Cornerstones Project began as a walking history of block clubs in the Calumet Heights area and has blossomed. Thank you for helping to create a space where we can uplift Black voices and make a lasting impact. I’d also like to thank the vibrant network of community organizations in Calumet Heights that we have worked with and the neighbors who are like a second family to me. This project is a creative collective. It is a vibrant network of community leaders who work together. 

Suggested Readings by Shani Smith

About Black Cornerstones Project

Founded in 2020, the Black Cornerstones Project (BCP) is a civic engagement project that emboldens Black Stories, amplifies Black Voices, and carves out bold and amazing Black Spaces co-created for resistance, resilience, reformation, and restitution. 

Its mission, transforming our today, is to have Black People co-creating bold spaces for truth, healing & transformation in places where communities connect. 

BCP's vision, shaping our tomorrow, is Black voices transforming radical dreams of freedom to construct new realities of liberation. Capturing the oral history of Chicago Block Clubs keeps that vision alive and celebrates the rich history of the vibrant Second City, Chicago.

Follow @BlackCornerstones: Website 
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