By Dee Longfellow
For The Elmhurst Independent
If you haven’t had a chance to visit the exhibition currently on display at the Elmhurst Art Museum, it’s time to get there before it closes and goes away. The last day to view “In Focus: The Chicago Freedom Movement and the Fight for Fair Housing” will be Sunday, June 20.
Granted, it’s been tough throughout COVID-19 over the past year to go places publicly and to spend time the amount of time needed to really take it all in. Now that things are loosening up a bit as people obtain vaccinations, this is something you’ll want to see first-hand. (COVID-19 protocols are still in place.)
The Independent was able to enjoy a private tour of the exhibit with Executive Director John McKinnon last week, who explained all the facets of the display.
More than an art exhibit, the exhibition is a history lesson that all ages should view but especially children who may not realize there was such a time when people were indeed apprehensive about people of color moving into their neighborhood.
“Of course, school groups have not been allowed to tour due to the pandemic,” McKinnon said.
The exhibition takes visitors through the beginning of the fair housing movement, showing much of the propaganda and brochure pieces created to ease the concerns of Chicago residents and the rest of the nation as it began to adjust to a new way of living. Part of the exhibit is dedicated to the March in Selma in 1965 – and how Elmhurst responded with its own local march.
The Cleve Carney gallery of the Elmhurst Art Museum offers a timeline of things that happened from July 1966 through 1968, when Martin Luther King, Jr. was slain.
Another gallery is filled with art created by local students who were asked to ponder the exhibit and especially, to consider a quote from MLK or other leaders at the time and to create art displaying their feelings and reflections.
The exhibition features 40 historic photos by activist Bernard Kleina, a resident of Wheaton, who captured rare color photographs of not only Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., but also of other Chicago civil rights leaders and organized public marches. Following the Chicago Freedom Movement, Kleina served as Director of HOPE Fair Housing Center, helping to eliminate housing discrimination in northern Illinois for more than 40 years.
The exhibition includes insights to the Chicago Freedom Movement and the Fair Housing Act of 1968, especially through maps, statistics, and first-person accounts provided by the National Public Housing Museum, HOPE Fair Housing Center, Elmhurst History Museum, and The HistoryMakers®.
This exhibition offers a reminder to viewers that we still have a long way to go before we achieve what Dr. King and others fought for. It includes recent photographs of summer 2020 protests taken by Chicago photographer Vashon Jordan Jr.
The exhibition also debuts a collaborative project between the Design Museum of Chicago, Elmhurst Art Museum’s Teen Council, and York Community High School’s Black Student Union. These groups worked together to produce a photography-based project in which the teens consider their own relationship to their residences in combination with a quote by Dr. Martin Luther King.
Before visiting, it’s a good idea to go to the web site at elmhurstartmuseum.org to review the COVID protocol and to purchase advance tickets. Right now, there is a free audio tour available that includes first-person accounts of Chicago’s housing history.
Coming in July
Families will be invited to tee off at the Elmhurst Art Museum’s new artistic mini-golf course, Par Excellence Redux, opening July 7.
Two exhibits—Front 9 and Back 9—will introduce a playable 18-hole course, created by more than 20 artists, designers and architects from throughout the Midwest and beyond. The display is designed to pay homage to the School of the Art Institute of Chicago’s original 1988 exhibition.
The Elmhurst Art Museum is located at 150 So. Cottage Hill Avenue in Elmhurst’s Wilder Park. For more information including hours, admission fees and protocols, call 630-834-202 or visit elmhurstartmuseum.org.
