loader image

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.

The Supremes perform on stage wearing long white dresses
The Supremes perform on stage wearing long white dresses

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.

World’s All Nations, 1912, barnstorming club sponsored by the Hopkins Brothers sporting goods company of Des Moines, Iowa. John Donaldson, pitcher (front, third from right), was known as “The World’s Greatest Colored Pitcher” throughout his 30-plus years on the mound.

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.

World’s All Nations, 1912, barnstorming club sponsored by the Hopkins Brothers sporting goods company of Des Moines, Iowa. John Donaldson, pitcher (front, third from right), was known as “The World’s Greatest Colored Pitcher” throughout his 30-plus years on the mound.

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.

book cover for the novel Native Son by Richard Wright
book cover for the novel Native Son by Richard Wright

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.