A group of African American business leaders established Mount Glenwood cemetery south of Thornton in 1908 and a year later, Olivet Baptist Church created Mount Forest cemetery. In the 1920s, two more traditionally Black cemeteries opened in the Alsip area, Restvale and Burr Oak.
On This Day: Rhythm Club fire kills 209 Black patrons
On April 23, 1940, a fire at the Rhythm Club in Natchez, Miss., claimed the lives of 209 people, all Black patrons, in what is now ranked as the fourth-deadliest building fire in U.S. history.
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A plaque bears the names of those who died in the Rhythm Club fire on April 23, 1940, in Natchez, Miss. File Photo by Billy Hathorn/Wikimedia
On April 23, 1993, labor leader and civil rights activist Cesar Chavez, who co-founded the United Farm Workers union, died at age 66. UPI File Photo | License Photo
On April 23, 2007, former Russian President Boris Yeltsin, who faced down army tanks during the fall of the Soviet Union, died of cardiac arrest at the age of 76. File Photo by Jim Ruymen/UPI | License Photo