Exploring the segregated past of Chicago cemeteries

Curious City

WBEZ Chicago

Society & Culture, Education, Public, Chicago, Arts, City, Radio, Curious, Investigation

4.8 • 642 Ratings

🗓️ 4 June 2025

⏱️ 7 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Mayor Harold Washington is buried in a cemetery that was once for “whites only.” Protests and legislative fights desegregated area cemeteries.

Transcript

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0:31.4	It's Curious City, where we take your questions about Chicago and the region, and investigate.
0:37.4	Report.
0:38.3	Explore.
0:39.3	From WBEZ.
0:40.3	What's up, Chicago?
0:43.3	I'm Erin Allen and this is Curious City.
0:45.3	It is no secret that Chicago has a deep history of segregation.
0:50.3	It's still evident in how our neighborhoods are divided, but segregation was not exclusive to the living.
0:57.8	Yes, it even affected the dead.
1:00.8	Robert Lorizel picks up this week's story.
1:04.2	I'm walking around Graceland Cemetery on Chicago's north side.
1:08.5	We'll go over to John Jones.
1:10.7	He's the guy who wrote the Black Laws of Illinois pamphlet.
1:12.6	I'm talking with Adam Seltzer, who wrote a book about Graceland.
1:16.6	We visit the grave of John Jones, a tailor who was one of Chicago's best-known black citizens in the mid-1800s.
1:24.6	When John Jones wrote his pamphlet about the Black Laws of Illinois,
	...

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