- Hi, I'm Hermien Hardman with N'DIGO Studio.

And today we're going to tell you about some house museums, Chicago house museums.

Some houses, some homes, so important that they become museums after the owners have passed to represent the historic quality of the house or the home.

Chicago has house museums that have formerly been country estates, urban grow houses, Victorian houses, homes of activists, artists, politicians and industrialists.

Some of the houses have been preserved because of their architectural style.

of their architectural style.

For example, Adlai Stevenson's home, it's a historic home, the birthplace of Ernest Hemingway, it's a house museum in Oak Park.

The Glassner house, It's a museum in the South Loop and it's a national historic landmark recognized for its beautiful stone and its architecture.

The Jane Addams Hull-House Museum is on the campus of the university of Illinois.

And on the far south side recently, the Pullman Palace has just been a historic landmark district declared by President Barack Obama.

Dr. Mark burrows, she started to dissolve them museum in her south side home on Michigan Avenue and started Black museums in the country.

And today we're adding new house museums to the roster of the 20 historic houses and museums in and around Chicago.

We're going to talk to ladies who are developing house museums in the Black community on the south side to represent Black life.

Hasn't been easy.

Didn't come without controversy and did not come without some pull and some push, but they did it.

And now we've got two new house museums in Chicago.

COZY Conversations drop the knowledge that's for real.. For more information about This show follow us On Facebook or Twitter.

Funding for this program was provided by The Chicago Community Trust The McAurthor Foundation The Field Foundation, Common Wealth Edison, BlueCross BlueShield And Governor's State University So our guest today is Angela Ford.

She recently purchased The Palmer Mansion on 36 and King drive.

Now this was the home of Lu and Georgia Palmer from 1976 to 2004.

Before the Palmers, it was the private home of Justice Harry Hammer.

And he was the builder of the home.

Took three years to build it 1885 to 1888.

It's a queen and style gym.

And then Wendy Muhammad she's recently purchased and renovated the home of the Honorable Elijah Muhammad in the Kenwood community at 49th in Woodline.

Angela, what are you going to do with this mansion that has sat there for about 20 years and just known for not one historic family, but two historic families.

What are you going to do with the Palmer mansion?

- I'm so excited.

We're gonna do some amazing things.

We're gonna rehab a building that's 133 years old, but make it as futuristic and modern for the younger generations to really appreciate the past and be prepared for the future.

- Okay, so we're going to have high tech in the mansion.

- High tech.

- And what are you going to put in it?

What will it house?

- It'll house a lot of the artifacts from the historic Bronzeville community.

It's really important to me that the young people see how great the community was and it is, but it's also gonna be extremely modern.

And a lot of things will be done digitally, really great wifi, a building without good wifi isn't a building.

- No, not now.

- And we're gonna actually have a media room.

that's like a holodeck and really bring some of the images from the past and false around to life.

- So we're going to see photography?

- Yes, we're obsidian, which it'll be called obsidian house and we're preserving and digitizing Black history.

So it's gonna be a lot of images.

- Black history, America, Black history, Chicago.

- Black history, Chicago, mainly for the house, but the organization does the national and international.

So the Black diaspora.

- That's great.

And Wendy, I know you've been working on this for a while there.

- There is so many students of the most Honorable Elijah Muhammad who people say have more star power than he does.

So we wanna know what did he teach and what did he do to help bring these stars to light and bring out their star power?

So living museum.

- So you're going to, you told me this and I want you to give full description to this, you've told me that you've captured on tape living room conversations that Mr. Mohammad had with people like Muhammad Ali, Sam Cooke, I think the Dr. King one didn't get captured, but nevertheless, it occurred.

Talk about that because that just sounds incredible.

- It is incredible.

The most Honorable Elijah Muhammad's grandson actually taped what became known now as the table talks and my friend and brother and business partner, Imam Sultan Mohammed, who is the great grandson of the most Honorable Elijah Muhammad, has these beautiful recordings of course not of the Martin Luther king meeting, but of course the Honorable Minister Louis Farrakhan, Malcolm X, Sam Cooke, James Baldwin, Dick Gregory, Senator Adam Clayton Powell, Thurgood Marshall.

And that's the short list.

- And these were people who came to visit him and to chat with him.

So these are historic.

- There are almost every subject you can think about, they talked about, and you'll be able to hear what they talked about, police brutality, human rights, civil rights, religious rights, anything that was going on.

People came there to talk to him about it.

There were hundreds of people who visited that home.

And so the tapes became history and these conversations are now historic recordings of history.

- So we're seeing documentaries now of Ali and we're seeing the real role and significance that was played with the nation of Islam and with the Honorable Elijah Muhammad.

And it's a history unto itself.

- It's a history.

And I think it's important for everybody to see how did he make these people?

How did he take people and teach them and take them from what you would call derelicts or people in the gutter, criminals, and then make them stars that we still talk about today.

So that's why we call it the living museum and like Angela, we doing a lot of technology.

And so the exhibits will be able to change.

And our exhibit technology is called, He Lives.

-Will you charge, will there be admission fee, donations contributions, -You know What?

Are business model is Is private membership.

Because were really targeting The Journalist And the content creators, To have a safe place to come Create content in peace, Hearing the sounds of Black Chicago.

Seeing images of black Chicago.

And um.. being amounts there own peers.

So there will be public space, You that people can come But were really hoping to To Create membership for The community for Journalist, And that's in honor of Lue Palmer, Who was a very celebrated Journalist.

- So it will be a Membership - Yes!

- So I would be remissed to not talk about two other museums that are opening, and that is the museum of the home of Muddy Waters by his granddaughter.

And Naomi Davis is opening up the Emmett Till house, which would be at 64th, St. Lawrence and that's to recognize where he and his mother lived.

Wendy, when do you plan to open?

- So we're about 85% done.

- So we're looking at fall - will be doing in person and Virtual tours.

So because of the pandemic, we've basically revamped our entire model.

- Everybody, the world.

- People will be able to log on remotely from any part of the world, click a button and walk through the house, look at tours, click and listen to talks, buy from the virtual gift shop.

So really just making it real accessible for everyone and we'll have limited in-person tours, but of course, as you know, we want to keep everybody safe.

And there won't be any public access, you'll go online.

You have to buy your tickets in advance.

- So you will have a ticket entry.

- Yes ma'am, paid ticket, no walkup access, but paid ticket entry.

- Now let's talk about landmark.

So do you have landmark status?

Do you want landmark status?

And what does landmark status mean?

- So for us, we are in the Kenwood district and so the actual district has historical landmark status, but then we also have been nominated and are currently working on becoming part of the national registry.

And for us, it just really gives people around the world an opportunity to really win, a lot of people travel to Chicago and they Google, national historic properties.

And so we wanna be among that piece of tourism, where they will come and visit us.

Of course we all believe that these sacred people that we're honoring are all historical and are all worthy of landmark status, but it just adds an extra notch in the (inaudible).

- So the landmark status means that you're on the tourism circuit.

- We can be on the... - Can be.

Do you want landmark status?

- So there's so many different types of landmark status and we're on national registry already just by the nature of the age and location of the house.

And that's a point well taken, we don't have to do that part, but in order to preserve some of the Chicago landmark statuses, I was hesitant because they can be cost prohibitive when you're trying to bring a mansion that old back online, up to code the way it was in 1888, that could be really expensive and hurt the building's ability to have utility.

I gotta service the debt to fix the building, and it could get really expensive.

- It means you got to borrow money, and then you've got to restore it to its natural state.

- To an 1888 standard.

- with trades men and Craftsmen that don't exist in America anymore.

- Did you have to do that too?

- Yes, we've done that.

We were really blessed because our house was pristine for its age and so we have hired historical architects, people who know how to restore historical windows.

So we've invested quite a bit in restoring the home to the mid century condition when the most Honorable Elijah Muhammad lived there.

So your building is how old?

- Is 119 years old.

- And your building is?

- It's 133.

- So we're in the same era, but you're building sat empty for so long.

- Exactly, and had a lot of informal things done that weren't part of since 1888.

And so putting those things back would mean tearing a lot of things out.

So it's a lot of things you have to consider.

It's certainly an honor, and it's important to have historic landmark status, but it's great that your home was maintained.

- It was not altered.

- Not altered.

Yours had significant alteration from the birds and the squirrels.

- And then you get into this, the millwork of the gutter, I mean the gutters and the millwork and all of those kinds of things.

The technology sometimes has to be replicated overseas and then shipped back and installed here.

I was just concerned Were still going the process To make sure we can Still afford The certain landmark status Taht we want.

- Where does funding come from?

These are expensive projects.

These are not, I'm gonna build a home out of Home Depot and go home and I'm done.

These are historical restorations that you have to do with very particular guidelines.

Where does funding come from?

Where's the funding?

- In my case, I feel like it's important for us to monetize and control our culture and not have the dictation of outside investors who wanna control programming.

So I self-funded the project.

- You did this all on your own.

So this is your property, your building, your funding?

- Yes.

- Wow, Angela?

- I did not sell fun, but I take your point.

I completely agree that it's important that we control the narrative.

We had conversations with people that often make donations, but then name the buildings after themselves.

And a lot of things have to be compromised and we're committed to preserving the culture.

So we took on debt, which is why our building has a business model of a private membership.

And then we are receiving non-profit funding from grantors that aren't requiring that heavy input and that heavy dictation.

- Foundations.

- Yes, some foundations and some private donations, but controlling the narrative was the entire purpose.

And we ran off a lot of the traditional help that comes to our community that kind of rewrites the narrative.

Once we changed the history.

Yeah.

And it it turns into something that really wasn't my experience.

Like that was Lou Palmer.

Yeah.

And that was it was.

And that was in Black Chicago.

The narrative has become so, so unplugged that it wasn't my experience.

I'm a native Chicago and I absolutely had a wonderful life practically walking distance from the Nation of Islam.

So I'm so excited.

- Angela, Lu Palmer and Georgia were both writers, I knew both of them.

And in Lu's later years, we tried to talk him into where's your writings, where are your tapes, because he was also on radio for many years.

Do you have the tapes?

Do you have the writings?

And will they be inclusive in the museum?

- We don't have his artifacts at this juncture.

We were looking for the public artifacts and we're reaching out to the family to see what they wanna share and what involvement... - But they do have some of that?

- We understand that they do.

- Okay.

You don't have your hands on it.

- No.

We do not.

- Okay, and I think we have to recognize with Mr. Mohammad, he had a sense of history.

He had a sense of historicness.

He knew who Muhammad Ali was before Muhammad Ali knew who he was.

So you have a different something because you do have recordings, writings and so forth.

- Recordings, writings, photos, and we are preserving every single thing.

There's a very famous story of when he and Minister Louis Farrakhan were walking up the driveway of that house.

The most Honorable Elijah Muhammad said to him, he pointed to a tree, he said, "One day, when they find out who I am, they're gonna rip the bark off the trees."

So I took that and I said, well, we're gonna rip the bark off the trees.

We ain't throwing away nothing.

So extra limestone, we're making things that we can sell.

We have windows that we restored that we're gonna put a plaque on, that we can auction off.

We took down the copper gutters and melted them and made commemorative coins.

And so we are preserving everything, old mantles, we've made tables out of them just to recycle and continue that history because it's so important to us and it's sacred space.

- Yes it is.

So when I visit your museum, what is it that you want me to take away?

- You're gonna see a lot of the historic Bronzeville artifacts, the stories, the mood, the atmosphere and it's not just for Lu Palmer, that entire block had so many stellar journalists.

- Ida B Wells, Etta Moten Barnett and her husband, Claude Barnett.

They all lived on that same block.

- The other end was The Supreme Life Building, which was John Johnson's building.

- Earl Dickerson.

- Yes, we're gonna make sure that people who come to that corner property understand how vibrant and important the community was and can be with more entrepreneurship, just encouraging that.

- So how far in history do you go back?

Do you go to the migration?

- Yes, now I'm excited that we actually just acquired the oldest policy machine existing.

And that was from 1885.

- So that was a game policy that was very vibrant in Black communities, that is the precursor to lottery.

- It was the economic engine.

It was when Illinois lottery was in our community and The Policy Kings.

- Not his Illinois lottery though.

- No, no, that is one of my passion stories, and having that original, one of the oldest machines, is a beginning of telling our story because the Policy Kings made the business laws.

- The machine that you have is where they rolled what they called out the drawings, which was the numbers, which was the lottery ticket of the day and how you knew whether you won or net.

- So those millions of dollars that you see on TV now, they were in our community, which is why the community was wealthier than Harlem.

- The original lottery ticket.

- The original lottery tickets.

And we have two original lottery tickets.

- You got two.

Oh my gosh.

When I visit your museum, the Honorable Elijah Mohammad House, what do you want me to leave with?

- You will experience the most Honorable Elijah Muhammad in a way that the media doesn't allow you to experience him.

You're gonna feel that he lives through his works, his teachings, and through the people who he resurrected and raised, we call it from the dead, because there's a life giving teaching that he gave us.

And so everybody will be able to take away from learning and just hearing some of the principles and conversations from dietary suggestions.

We have our kitchen, we're calling it, the how to eat to live kitchen.

His kitchen, designed by his wife was COVID friendly back then.

And so we're gonna talk about that infectious disease prevention, we'll have that conversation.

There's other life giving teachings like hospitality, that his wife, so graciously, literally taught.

And so we're gonna show you that.

So what we wanna show you is a lifestyle that everyone was attracted to, that can benefit all of us to this day.

- Wendy, you sense that we're having a cultural Renaissance.

Talk about that for me.

- I believe not so much that I sense, but I believe that through what we're doing with all of these house museums and recognizing our history that we are on the cusp of a cultural Renaissance here in Chicago.

And my goal, my thought is that we can make Chicago known for its rich culture and its rich history, as opposed to being known for the vortex of violence.

We can change that narrative by really creating a Black space where people who want to travel to Chicago and learn about its rich Black history.

- And the museums that are opening are concentrated on the south side of Chicago.

- Except for the Fred Hampton House.

- And that's on the west side of Chicago and that's in the house where he was assassinated.

- Yes ma'am.

- Okay.

So we are seeing their 20 house museums in Chicago.

So with the addition of what you were doing, we are seeing a Renaissance, we really really are seeing a Renaissance.

do you think this is happening all over the country or is this unique to Chicago?

I think we can we can motivate it to happen around the country.

Just in Chicago alone, in addition to the people we mentioned, you've got famous Chicagoans who've made history right in this area coming from the Great Migration from.

So, you know, sometimes when you're doing what you're doing, you don't really know what you're doing, i.e.

Mark Burrows, There would not be a National Museum of African-American History in Washington had Margaret Burrows not started her house museum Exactly.

On South Michigan Avenue.

Right.

Interesting.

That's an interesting piece of history right there.

The whole that right there then like Amy Bunch comes to Chicago and he is executive director of the history of the Chicago Historical Society.

Yes.

Okay.

So Lonnie got a lot of hands on ground history in Chicago when he started talking about the National Museum and he was talking about everybody thought he has lost his mind.

He is crazy.

But he had his plan.

He knew what he wanted to do.

But my point being Margaret Berle's House Museum on South Michigan Avenue started a movement.

It really started a movement, not allowed movement, but a quiet moving movement, because from that we've got museums in Detroit, Rosa Parks Museum, you've got museums in Harlem, you've got museums all over.

But she really was the mother of all.

She was the impetus of all museums and it started in her house.

Wendy, your neighborhood is a residential neighborhood primarily, but the mansions, there are a lot of very historic mansions.

Talk about that for me for a minute.

- You know what it's interesting Hermien is that when you travel in these neighborhood, there are so many historic homes, they are so significant.

A lot of them already have historical landmark status, but they've been able to do that quietly.

And for us as, as Black people, when we get ready to say, "Hey, we're gonna put up culture and we're gonna own and monetize our culture."

It becomes very loud.

It becomes an issue.

But for us, yeah, we're right there in good company.

- What's some of the company?

- Wow, there's The Rand Home, you got, of course The Robie House, which is right about a mile away from us.

- And that's a Frank Lloyd Wright.

- That's a Frank Lloyd.

There's a couple of Frank Lloyd Wright houses there.

- We had a Monsignor's home there.

They've had some monks live there, the Jesuits have lived there, Mohammad Ali's home.

- Mohammad Ali, I believe Helen Curtis.

- Oh, I didn't know that.

- So there's some significant homes in that neighborhood.

- You've got President Barack Obama home, we've got the Goodman.

Do you know about the Goodman home?

James and Montgomery, he bought it, but his original state, it was the Goodman, the people who are the founders of The Goodman Theater.

- There's also the Goodyear mansion, which is right on Greenwood.

- Wow, so the neighborhood has got a lot of history, but all of those homes are historic, but they're not what you were doing.

They're not landmark.

They're not slated, they're not even identified.

- So the neighborhood is landmark, but they're not identified as such.

- Interesting, one of the things, there was an article not long ago in the New York Times by Brent Staples, and he talked about how White media suppressed Black news through ignoring it and misrepresenting it.

And so as we, a hundred years now, as we look back on a lot of things, 50, a hundred years ago, there's a whole new information.

There's a whole new interpretation.

There's a whole new, and I'm thinking of Tulsa, for example, when talk to the Tulsa victims, it is a very, very different story than to look at the Tulsa newspaper.

And what I did on my own accord, Angela I thought about you when I did this, is I went to the White Tulsa newspaper and I found the Black Tulsa newspaper.

They were totally different stories.

And I think that's what you're saying with the Honorable Elijah Muhammad.

We've heard this, we've heard that, but we're going to hear his own words, we're going to hear his messages and we're going to see the true representation of his work.

And Angela with you, the same thing.

You've got to get some of those original writings.

A lot of times, Lu didn't write, Lu talked, but his legacy lives on.

And I just wanna say thank you on behalf of not the Black community in Chicago, but the Chicago community, because we're not gonna come home until we recognize everybody and everything that has contributed to the greatness of this city, making it the most beautiful in the world.

Thank you ladies and good luck to you.

I can't wait for you to open.

I gotta be there for both of you for opening day.

Thank you, Wendy Mohamed and thank you Angela Ford.

And thank you for the historic work that you're doing that will become legendary.

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Funding for this program was provided by the Chicago Community Trust, the MacArthur Foundation, the Bill Foundation, Commonwealth Edison, Blue Cross, Blue Shield, and Governors, State University NDIGO Studio.