CULTURE
Music, Literature, Sports
Music
America’s defining music forms — from Jazz to Blues, Rock and Roll to R&B — were pioneered by Midwest African Americans.
Ragtime was popularized by Missouri musicians and record labels. Jazz was born in New Orleans but came of age in Chicago and Kansas City. St. Louis’s Chuck Berry popularized — some say invented — Rock and Roll. Music legends Muddy Waters, B.B. King, and Elmore James made Chicago the capital of the Blues. And R&B, perhaps more than any other musical genre, was transformed in the Midwest — specifically, by Detroit’s Motown.
Music
America’s defining music forms — from Jazz to Blues, Rock and Roll to R&B — were pioneered by Midwest African Americans.
Ragtime was popularized by Missouri musicians and record labels. Jazz was born in New Orleans but came of age in Chicago and Kansas City. St. Louis’s Chuck Berry popularized — some say invented — Rock and Roll. Music legends Muddy Waters, B.B. King, and Elmore James made Chicago the capital of the Blues. And R&B, perhaps more than any other musical genre, was transformed in the Midwest — specifically, by Detroit’s Motown.
Sports
The African American Midwest has had a massive impact on Sports — and vice versa.
From olympians Jesse Owens and Simone Biles to basketball legends Michael Jordan and Lebron James, the Midwest and African American athletic excellence have been synonymous. But it was the Negro National League that was created by — and a defining institution of — the African American Midwest.
Sports
The African American Midwest has had a massive impact on Sports — and vice versa.
From olympians Jesse Owens and Simone Biles to basketball legends Michael Jordan and Lebron James, the Midwest and African American athletic excellence have been synonymous. But it was the Negro National League that was created by — and a defining institution of — the African American Midwest.
Literature
African American Midwesterners have produced many of American literature’s most significant works.
Novelists Richard Wright and Toni Morrison, poets Gwendolyn Brooks and Langston Hughes, and playwright Lorraine Hansbury — artists of what could be called the Great Migration Renaissance — brought to the region the personal, social and lyrical sensibilities that blossomed into among the twentieth century’s greatest works of literature.
Literature
African American Midwesterners have produced many of American literature’s most significant works.
Novelists Richard Wright and Toni Morrison, poets Gwendolyn Brooks and Langston Hughes, and playwright Lorraine Hansbury — artists of what could be called the Great Migration Renaissance — brought to the region the personal, social and lyrical sensibilities that blossomed into among the twentieth century’s greatest works of literature.