Great Migration – darkjive.com

Ricky Allen: He can’t stand no signifying… come to think of it, me either.

signifying (verb): a good-natured needling or goading especially among urban blacks by means of indirect gibes and clever often preposterous put-downs -Webster’s Dictionary Ricky Allen recorded the booming groover “I Can’t Stand No Signifying” on Jack Daniels’ West Side-based Four Brothers label round about 1966. Both Jack Daniels and Johnny Moore (the co-writer on this…

November 20, 2011

ayanacontreras

Blues, Chicago, Chicago Blues, chicago radio, Great Migration, Jack Daniels, Junior Wells, Mel London, Music, Ricky Allen, signifying, wls

Army and Lou’s: obituary of an icon.

(above, Common pictured at Army and Lou’s) How does a person write an obituary for a restaurant? Not just a restaurant, but a place with historical significance. The Sun-Times did a pretty good job: It was the late Mayor Harold Washington’s favorite restaurant — the booth where he always sat still bears his name. And…

February 5, 2011

ayanacontreras

Chicago Cultural History, Commentary, the Goodness

Black Business, chatham, Chicago Cultural History, Chicago Sun-Times, Great Migration, Harold Washington, Kitchen Nightmares, Martin Luther King Jr, restaurant

Operation Breadbasket, the seed of PUSH

I have dedicated a number of posts here at Darkjive to the PUSH Expo, a 1970s exercise in Black Economic Empowerment (or Black Power as it was then known). The PUSH Expo phenomenon was borne from the seed of Operation Breadbasket (a department of Martin Luther King, Jr.’s Southern Christian Leadership Conference), but the roots…

September 5, 2009

ayanacontreras

Chicago Cultural History, Commentary, Jive Culture

Chicago History, Civil Rights, community building, economic empowerment, food justice, Great Migration, inner city, Jesse Jackson, Martin Luther King, operation breadbasket, PUSH Expo, Race, Ralph Abernathy, SCLC, urbanism