Building Neighborhoods
Deeply Rooted and Rising High: African American Experiences in Lake Forest
Birthday party at Bebb Jones residence on Washington Road, c. 1920s. Image source: Rochelle Davis.
Today, Lake Forest’s Black residents live all around the city, but historically, this was not always the case. In the late 1800s and early 1900s, African Americans built homes mainly in specific neighborhoods. Some were soon overtaken by development: on Maplewood, near the AME church (now Lake Forest College South Campus), and at Illinois Road and Bank Lane (now the site of the Deer Path Inn). Others thrived for decades: at Illinois and Washington roads, and along Spruce Avenue and Edgewood Road.
A few homes from the heyday of these Black neighborhoods still stand, testaments to the community’s longevity and resiliency. Pictured: 449 Spruce (far left), longtime home of the Jiles family, and 441 Spruce (left), still owned by members of the Lawson-Jordan family, both dating to the mid-1920s; and 674 Illinois (right), built circa 1900.
Two threads run through the evolution of these neighborhoods. Even though African Americans have held property in Lake Forest nearly since the town was founded, by the 1920s race-based restrictions, most commonly in the form of background “gentleman’s agreements,” but also in writing on deeds, limited which lots in town could be sold to Black homeowners. It was not until the Civil Rights movement in 1968 that Lake Forest finally passed an open housing ordinance addressing this problem.
Chicago Tribune, June 6, 1968.
Despite this, also underlying the Black neighborhoods was a vibrant sense of community, personal connections based on proximity and shared life experience. The neighborhoods provided a landing place for African American migrants from the South, as they adapted to a whole new milieu. Neighbors helped prop each other up, exchanging vegetables and casseroles, watching each other’s kids and mowing each other’s lawns.
Bill MacMillan (on tricycle) with Billy Shearer (third from left) and the Pearson siblings, Ardell, Genevieve, Ivan, and Guynell. Image source: David Forlow