The Ida B. Wells Homes, which also included the Clarence Darrow Homes and Madden Park Homes, was a Chicago Housing Authority (CHA) public housing project in the Bronzeville neighborhood on the South Side of Chicago, Illinois, bordered by 35th Street to the north, Pershing Road (39th Street) to the south, Cottage Grove Avenue to the east, and Martin Luther King Drive to the west. The Ida B. Wells Homes consisted of rowhouses, mid-rises, and high-rise apartment buildings, constructed between 1939 and 1941 to house African American tenants. They were closed and demolished between 2002 and 2011.
Ida B. Wells (1862-1931), the civil rights advocate and investigative journalist, lived nearby, and The Light of Truth Ida B. Wells National Monument was dedicated in the neighborhood in 2022.
History
Named for African American journalist and newspaper editor Ida B. Wells,Caryn Rousseau, Associated Press, "Ida B. Wells Sculpture To Be Built In Chicago", Chicago Impact, Huffington Post, December 28, 2011. the housing project was constructed between 1939 and 1941 as a Public Works Administration project to house black families in the "ghetto", in accordance with federal regulations requiring public housing projects to maintain the segregation of neighborhoods.Harvey M. Choldin, "Chicago Housing Authority", Electronic Encyclopedia of Chicago, Chicago Historical Society, 2005.Kenneth J. Saltman, Capitalizing on Disaster: Taking and Breaking Public Schools, Cultural politics & the promise of democracy, Boulder, Colorado: Paradigm, 2007, , p. 121.The area called Bronzeville was at one time "the heart of the African-American community in Chicago" - Peter K. B. St. Jean, Pockets of Crime: Broken Windows, Collective Efficacy, and the Criminal Point of View, Chicago: University of Chicago, 2007, , p. 14. It was the fourth public housing project constructed in Chicago before World War II and was much larger than the others, with 1,662 units. It had more than 860 apartments and almost 800 row houses and garden apartments, and included a city park, Madden Park. Described as "handsome [and] well planned", the project was initially a sought-after address and a route to success.J. S. Fuerst and D. Bradford Hunt, When Public Housing was Paradise: Building Community in Chicago, Westport, Connecticut: Praeger, 2003, , p. 2, pp. 52–57.Nicholas Lemann, "The Origins of the Underclass," Part One, The Atlantic, July 1986: "It is common in Chicago to meet successful blacks in their late thirties and early forties who spent part of their childhood in the projects."
Darrow Homes and Madden Park Homes In 1961, the Clarence Darrow Homes were built adjacent to the Ida B. Wells Homes and in 1970, the last of the Chicago Housing Authority's high-rise projects, the Madden Park Homes, were built east of the Wells.Madden Wells Homes, Frank's Masonry. The "three huge, contiguous projects" lined the northern edge of the Oakland community area.Alexander Polikoff, Waiting for Gautreaux: A Story of Segregation, Housing, and the Black Ghetto, Evanston, Illinois: Northwestern University, 2005, , p. 295.
Problems
By the 1980s, the Wells homes were plagued by problems such as neglect by the housing authority,Tom McNamee, "Ida B. Wells - big and bad", Chicago Sun-Times, December 7, 1986. gang violence, shootings, drug abuse, and drug dealing.Derek S. Hyra, The New Urban Renewal: The Economic Transformation of Harlem and Bronzeville, Chicago: University of Chicago, 2008, , p. 89. The Black P. Stones gang in particular asserted authority over the area and residents of the Ida B. Wells Homes; Eugene Hairston, co-founder of the gang, was shot dead at his home there in September, 1988.Jerry Thornton and Robert Blau, "Police Say Shooting May Have Been Ordered By Rukns", Chicago Tribune, September 23, 1988. One mother-and-son cocaine ring in the project reputedly had customers standing in line "50 at a time, 'like at a Popsicle stand on a hot day'".Charles Nicodemus, "`Major, Major' Drug Ring Broken", Chicago Sun-Times, May 20, 1995. The 30-minute audio documentary Ghetto Life 101, released in 1993, was made by two teenagers from the project, LeAlan Jones and Lloyd Newman. Their second audio documentary, Remorse: The 14 Stories of Eric Morse, which won a Peabody Award,Don Terry, "Graduation Ends a Partnership Born in a Chicago Ghetto", The New York Times, June 9, 1997, p. 2. deals with the murder of 5-year-old Eric Morse in the project on October 13, 1994; he was pushed from the window of a vacant 14th-floor apartment by two older boys (aged 10 and 11) after he refused to steal candy for them.Remorse: The 14 Stories of Eric Morse , Sound Portraits.1 Remorse": Two children of the Chicago projects have made a remarkable documentary on the life and death of 5-year-old Eric Morse, killed for refusing to steal candy. Their work will be broadcast tomorrow on NPR. VOICES OF EXPERIENCE March 20, 1996Flynn McRoberts, Julie Irwin, et al., , Chicago Tribune, October 16, 1994. The project was also the location for Frederick Wiseman's 1997 documentary Public Housing.Roger Ebert, "'Housing' unlocks truth: Filmmaker lets camera tell CHA residents' story", Chicago Sun-Times, November 27, 1997.John McCarron, , Chicago Tribune, November 28, 1997: "'Public Housing' was filmed entirely within the Ida B. Wells public housing complex".Elise Nakhnikian, "Fred Wiseman Is There: Public Housing", The Measure, The L Magazine, October 15, 2010.
Demolition In 1995, the United States Department of Housing and Urban Development took over the Chicago Housing Authority's public housing projects and decided to demolish the high-rises. Demolition began at the Ida B. Wells Homes in late 2002 with the high-rise buildings on Cottage Grove Avenue. It was completed in August 2011 with the demolition of the last two residential buildings at 3718 S. Vincennes Avenue.Jacqueline Thompson, Ida B. Wells Revisited, Residents' Journal, We The People Media, October 5, 2011. Construction began in 2003 on the mixed-income community of Oakwood Shores, which will replace all three housing projects, Ida B. Wells, Madden Park, and Clarence Darrow,Oakwood Shores , Chicago Housing Authority.Oakland , South East Chicago Commission. A commission, led by Well's great grand-daughters raised funds for a public memorial to honor Wells near the site, which had also been close to Wells' own neighborhood.Ron Grossman, "Supporters propose monument to Ida B. Wells: Ex-residents of the vanished housing complex named for the civil rights pioneer call for a lasting tribute", Chicago Tribune, November 9, 2011.Bronzeville, City to honor pioneer Ida B. Wells , Gazette Chicago, February 2, 2012. The Light of Truth Ida B. Wells National Monument created by well known abstract sculptor and Chicago artist Richard Hunt was unveiled on June 29, 2021. See also Cabrini Green References
Further reading
LeAlan Jones and Lloyd Newman, with David Isay. Our America: Life and Death on the South Side of Chicago. New York: Scribner, 1997. . Based on the two radio documentaries Ghetto Life 101 and Remorse: The 14 Stories of Eric Morse.