Beloved Bronzeville firebrand Harold Lucas has died. Organizer, activist, historian and preservationist shall be missed. ‘Harold was one who did the work.’

Neighborhood organizer.

Activist.

Preservationist.

Historian.

Advocate.

Instructor.

Tour information.

Entrepreneur.

Bicycle owner.

Fisherman.

Pal.

Father.

Kingmaker.

A self-described “brick thrower,” Harold Lucas, Jr. had many monikers throughout his 79 years, and each linked him to his native Bronzeville and its cultural heft. For years, Lucas helmed the Black Metropolis Conference & Tourism Council, an advocacy group working to revitalize the neighborhood.

Lucas was born Nov. 1, 1942, to Katherine Hodges and Harold Lucas Sr. Lucas Jr. died Aug. 9, based on household and pals. Lucas’ daughter, Sherri Lucas-Corridor stated her father suffered a stroke in 2020 and had endured sickness over the previous two years.

“He’s a historian to everyone else — to me, he was simply daddy,” stated the mom of three. “I’ve identified of his work my entire life. My earliest recollections, I spent a variety of time within the South Shore Nation Membership with my dad as a result of we used to go there and have picnics with the household. We had picnics most weekends, so when he began preventing to protect the South Shore Nation Membership (by the Coalition to Save the South Facet Nation Membership) that didn’t shock me as a result of that was the place we’d frolicked, why would we wish them to tear it down?”

Lucas-Corridor, a tutorial enterprise proprietor, says she bought her struggle from her father. Presently coaching educators on the right way to higher train studying to pupils, Lucas-Corridor stated she discovered what she believes in and has been preventing for it for the previous three years. A Hyde Park Profession Academy alumnus like her father, she remembers how his yearslong struggle was all the time for and in regards to the Black neighborhood. His work was “for Bronzeville to remain what it was to all of these those that migrated from the South as a result of that is the place they congregated … within the Bronzeville space and he wished to protect that as a neighborhood for Black folks,” she stated.

Mates of Lucas say the DNA of Bronzeville (aka the Black Belt) was Lucas’ life’s work and legacy. Figuring out the realm’s historical past: It being residence to tens of millions of Blacks fleeing racial violence within the South and a spot the place they confronted discrimination by way of housing, jobs and schooling, Lucas got down to share that information and historical past with everybody from youth who weren’t conscious of it to adults who appeared to have forgotten about it.

“He actually propelled Bronzeville as a frame of mind by way of what this mixture of Black folks from the South created in Chicago,” stated Anton Seals Jr., govt director of Develop Higher Englewood, a meals and land sovereignty nonprofit. Seals bought to know Lucas by his father as a toddler and reconnected with him as an grownup. “He type of coined that round us, holding on to our historical past to be able to create a greater future and that our historical past makes us.”

“As a metropolis, we don’t inform our narrative as one of many premier Black capitals in America,” Seals added. “With segregation, there may be the spotlight the place you might be amongst your personal folks. When you consider all of the individuals who got here out of that — Dinah Washington was the queen, Nat King Cole was the king, all of the literature, theater. However it’s by no means informed that manner. These tales will not be canonized in methods like different locations that you simply go are.”

Lucas labored on making Bronzeville a global sustainable Black heritage tourism vacation spot, a neighborhood of the long run with a wealthy previous. That meant retaining the buildings that held that historical past. Per his pals, Lucas had a hand in saving from demolition the Chicago Bee Constructing (3647 S. State St.) which housed a Black newspaper based in 1926 and now homes a department of the Chicago Public Library; the previous headquarters of the all-Black “Combating eighth” regiment, the armory at 3533 S. Giles Ave., and the previous headquarters of the Supreme Life Insurance coverage Co., (based in 1919 at 3501 S. King Drive), the primary Black-owned and-operated insurance coverage firm within the northern United States — the place Lucas carried out enterprise for years. Saving this historical past was a process tackled with others dedicated to Bronzeville’s rejuvenation — these comparable to Paula Robinson, president of Bronzeville Neighborhood Growth Partnership and Bernard Turner, govt director of the Black Metropolis Nationwide Heritage Space fee.

“I used to be neighborhood relations, he was neighborhood organizing, and we each started to go down this path of neighborhood financial improvement. We realized extra about what that’s … a regeneration for these communities,” Robinson stated.

She stated Lucas was of the Saul Alinsky model of organizing, and noticed neighborhood organizing as a career and never only a ardour. Robinson labored with Lucas on numerous commissions, together with the Mid-South Planning Growth fee and the Black Metropolis Nationwide Heritage Space fee (steering committee).

Turner, writer of “A New View of Bronzeville,” used to conduct excursions of Bronzeville with Lucas. Turner stated he would supply the glass half full perspective, whereas Lucas would share the injustices inside the space. He emphasised if one thing wanted to be accomplished and “didn’t spare the phrases.”

“We wish to choose up from the place he left off with sure kinds of advocacy for preserving what’s nonetheless there,” Turner stated.

“He was about saving the buildings, defending the integrity of the neighborhood … he was uncompromising in these areas,” stated good friend and activist Eddie Learn. “He stored attempting to rebuild each side of Black life. The factor I find out about Harold Lucas is that his rules and integrity had been about preserving the tradition, the standard and sincerity of Black Chicago and instructing it to the subsequent era. Even along with his tourism piece, I by no means noticed him as anti-anyone, the phrase that Harold Washington used that exemplifies Harold Lucas was ‘in his pro-ism, it didn’t imply that he was anti-anything else.’ He was very professional high quality of life and the essence of what Black Chicago was and what he thought it ought to proceed to be for the entire proper causes.”

Will Crosby stated he met Lucas in 1976 when doing a little work for congressman Ralph Metcalfe. The pair would go on to work on different political campaigns and set up free jazz live shows on the South Facet by the years. Lucas lending his experience with media, graphics and photographs. Abilities he taught to youth when he had the time. Crosby stated throughout their friendship, he by no means knew of Lucas leaving Bronzeville for greater than a few days.

“He was simply deep into Chicago,” he stated. “He actually was attempting to work on Bronzeville, or what he known as his native son.” Even whereas out and in of medical establishments the previous a number of months, Crosby stated “Harold’s thoughts by no means stopped interested by what he was attempting to do.”

“It’s all the time been a number of individuals who do the work and lots of people get the reward and Harold was one who did the work,” Crosby added.

That’s to not say Lucas’ work ethic bought in the way in which of his enjoyment of what Chicago needed to supply. Lucas might usually be discovered driving his bike alongside the lakefront, having fun with the close by inexperienced areas (forest protect/parks), and fishing in Kankakee or Marquette Park. Harold Corridor, aka Brother Corridor, was rods his good friend strung for him when he had a hand harm. Corridor stated Lucas liked to interact Black youth within the metropolis’s pure panorama too.

A number of pals bear in mind how the guide “Black Metropolis: A Examine of Negro Life in a Northern Metropolis,” by St. Clair Drake and Horace R. Cayton, Jr., was Lucas’ bible; and a portion of the Richard Wright introduction a mantra he usually cited in public discourse. (Lucas even acquired a typed letter at one level from Drake in 1986, a letter discovered within the Harold Lucas Papers on the Newberry Library). Corridor remembers a good friend who would assist him feed the homeless; somebody who would ask a good friend to drag over the automobile to speak to youth to inform them in regards to the hallowed floor they stood on, given the ancestors and notable Black figures who known as Bronzeville residence.

“Should you’re going to talk about Harold, talk about how he reached out to these much less lucky than himself, talk about how he would take his final $15 and share with brothers who couldn’t assist themselves and wanted to get a meal for his or her household — that’s the Harold I do know,” Corridor stated. “When it got here to with the ability to talk with all, he was properly versed, he might articulate the language very properly. However he was a pissed off large as a result of he understood that it didn’t take 10 bubble gums and a Coca-Cola to get his neighborhood by, it took a bit of bit of affection and a bit of little bit of understanding … he’s somebody who understood the institution earlier than the institution introduced it up on the folks. He understood city renewal, gentrification … and he used to convene conferences simply to guarantee that we weren’t omitted within the chilly.”

Marquinn McDonald, co-founder of Bronzeville’s neighborhood patrol group Watch Guard, likened Lucas to the late Timuel Black, and was not the one individual to take action. Lucas was a bridge to the previous and a griot of the Black neighborhood that held a college of data.

“The factor that was magical about Harold Lucas is when you had been out of order, he didn’t give a rattling who you had been, he challenged you. He pushed again and he pushed again onerous and he didn’t compromise on his pushing again,” stated McDonald. “I had the pleasure of being in a number of conferences with him to see him break it down. He didn’t care who was there, he was going to let you know the reality, he didn’t chunk his tongue.”

Corridor stated he was earlier than his time, a MacGyver of the neighborhood. Lucas was a proponent for space web earlier than the pandemic, hoping to spur communication and financial improvement in Bronzeville. He additionally requested the rising variety of younger professionals shifting to the realm lately to interact in activism and make the realm higher. Seals stated he was top-of-the-line public advocates Chicago has seen, one who used the system to be able to extract and leverage sources for the neighborhood. Seals is hoping the work Lucas did with Robinson will proceed and canonize Bronzeville as a nationwide historic website. And from there, the linkages to our footprint on this metropolis and our tradition is mirrored and that we aren’t erased.

“He was one in all a sort — preserving folks sincere, not getting enthralled with politics, understanding that politicians play a task and as public advocates, we play a task,” Seals stated. “It’s not about you not being pleasant, it’s understanding that you simply’re there on the enterprise of those that despatched you so when you must name folks to account, you do this. It’s about pulling up your sleeves and understanding that coverage proceeds program.”

Lucas-Corridor stated she wish to see what her father constructed proceed, in addition to the struggle he took on for the neighborhood. She wish to see Bronzeville as an area the place Black folks have room and locations they will afford to dwell.

“Harold is a illustration of previous Chicago, and even us as youthful Chicagoans or new Chicagoans provides Chicago the worth that it deserves, and even perceive it,” stated Toussaint Werner, graphic artist and co-host of “I Mentioned what I Mentioned” podcast. Cook dinner County is the biggest focus of American descendants of slaves left in America. So what that represents is that we actually lead the trigger for what Black tradition is in America. This can be a mecca for Black folks. And I feel as this begins to crumble, our existence on American soil will look very completely different and like Uncle Harold, I’m very afraid of what that’s. I feel his legacy can be that of an alarm, attempting to wake the populace as much as the probabilities of both greatness or failure. As a result of we harness each. If this falls aside, what occurs to Black existence in America?”

Lucas is survived by a daughter Lucas-Corridor; a son Eli Lucas; three sisters Lydia Lucas, Helen Lucas and Harriet Herron; and three grandchildren.

A lot of memorials/tributes are being thought of for Lucas, together with a motorbike experience over Labor Day weekend. However the first memorial takes place 5 to 9 p.m. Monday on the Quarry, 2423 E. seventy fifth St., Chicago.

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