The historic Phyllis Wheatley Club and Home at 5128 S. Michigan Ave., an early 20th century settlement house established by suffragettes in the early 1900s, to aid African-American women coming from Down South during the Great Migration, made Preservation Chicago’s list of the city’s “7 Most Endangered Buildings” on Thursday. Supporters are fighting to save the home that’s poised to be torn down.
Anthony Vazquez/Sun-Times
The Phyllis Wheatley Club and Home, a historic settlement house in Bronzeville established by Black suffragettes in the early 1900s to aid African American women coming from the South during the Great Migration, was named one of Chicago’s most endangered buildings Wednesday by Preservation Chicago.
The city is poised to tear down the historic Phyllis Wheatley Club and Home at 5128 S. Michigan Ave., an early 20th century settlement house named for the former slave who was the first African American ever to publish a book of poetry, and third American woman ever to do so. The home was established by suffragettes in the early 1900s, to aid African-American women coming from Down South during the Great Migration.
Anthony Vazquez/Sun-Times
When Ariajo “Joanne” Tate and her husband bought a gray limestone in 1989, they had no idea their new Bronzeville home had once been the Phyllis Wheatley Club and Home a historic settlement house established by Black suffragettes in the early 1900s.