Run a Self-Guided Route: South Side Girls by Marcia Chatelain

Suggested way to use this page: Use the link below to buy your copy of Dr. Marcia Chatelain’s South Side Girls. After reading the book, lace up your shoes and head to Bronzeville for a ~5-mile South Side Girls-inspired route. Keep this page open during your run for more details.

Buy the Book | Run the Route

This is a ~5-mile point-to-point route starting at the Monument to the Great Northern Migration and ending at Peach’s Restaurant, with four stops along the way corresponding to historical context featured in Dr. Chatelain’s book. Click the link above to see more information about each stop.

About South Side Girls and Dr. Marcia Chatelain

Dr. Marcia Chatelain is scholar, speaker, and strategist based in Washington D.C. She teaches African American life and Culture at Georgetown University. She is from Chicago, IL, and South Side Girls reimagined the mass exodus of black Southerners to the urban North from the perspective of girls and teenage women. Her latest book is the Pulitzer Pride winning Franchise: The Golden Arches in Black America examines the intersection of the post-1968 civil rights struggle and the rise of fast food industry. [Source]

South Side Girls takes a unique look at the phenomenon now known as the Great Migration, a period from roughly 1910-1970 in which an estimated 6 million African Americans migrated to northern cities to escape from harshly violent social and economic conditions of the Southern U.S.

Dr. Chatelain takes a unique approach in this book to examining the Great Migration. In an email to me in December 2021, Dr. Chatelain explained the motives for South Side Girls. She wrote, “I wrote this book to better understand the kinds of conversations that people were having about girls, girlhood when I was growing up in Chicago in the 1990s.  I think what fascinated me about the topic is thinking about how families made the decision to migrate as a response to the conditions that girls faced in the South, especially as young laborers.  In focusing on girls exclusively, I found all these new material that hadn’t really been used in other texts about the Great Migration, which I think points to my motivations for this work: Why do histories ignore the experiences of girls and teenage women?”

Young girls who migrated to Chicago at this time—lured by advertisements for school and work in The Chicago Defender—soon found themselves in the midst of adapting to life and the challenges of being a young woman in society while at the same time experiencing a seismic shift in their environment. In Chicago, girls were able to shop, socialize, dance, listen to music, earn an income, play sports, learn how to camp, and more.

In the book, Dr. Chatelain writes, "For girls hailing from small communities where church was one of the few spaces where black people could express themselves, Chicago presented a dizzying array of new ways of engaging with others and their desires. The privileges that accompanied Migration - from purchasing “race” products in stores to enjoying streetcars without degrading Jim Crow signs - also included freedom from restrictive church communities in towns and hamlets where everyone knew and judged each other.”

Get Interactive: Suggested Stops & What to Look For Along the Route

Olivet Baptist Church

Oldest operating African American church in Chicago. Two congregations (one founded in 1850) came together and formed Olivet in 1861.
Over 11,000 members in the 1920s, once known as the largest protestant church in the world . In Dr. Chatelain's book, she describes how this was one of the main churches that encouraged migration and was ready to welcome the influx of migrants. Women held leadership positions at the church and there was even a weekly meeting that taught women to be good wives and mothers. For girls who migrated north, churches became a way to socialize and make sure they "didn't lose their way." 

Chicago Defender Building

The historic building that housed the Chicago Defender from 1920-1960. Chicago Defender was a weekly newspaper started in 1905 by Robert Abbott and still exists today as an online publication. The world’s most influential African American news by World War I and had ⅔ of its readership outside of Chicago. An estimated 500,000 people read it each week. Reported on lynchings and racist attacks on African Americans in the South and was a huge proponent of migration to the north - credited with prompting many of the millions to travel up north. The Defender would publish train schedules and job postings. KKK members would threaten readers, Pullman train car employees would smuggle it down south and people would read it out loud to each other.  In the book, Chatelain describes how young girls would have read this in the South and based on its advertisements and job descriptions and details of life in Chicago, they would have constructed imaginations of what life was like and how they might have better education, safety, wages if they traveled up north. 

Wendell Phillips High School

First predominantly African American high school in Chicago (by 1918 over 50% black).  Named after Wendall Phillips who was an abolitionist (not black, but highly regarded among Black lawyers of the time). The first year open was the 1904-1905 school year. There were many notable alumni including Timothy Black and Gwendolyn Brooks. In the book, Dr. Chatelain describes how access to education was a huge draw for migration for young girls. She explains that in 1910, there were 315,000 black teens up to age 21 in some type of schools in the North, vs. only 25,000 black children attended one of the 64 high schools in the entire region (for comparison, there are about 148 high schools in Chicago today). 

Site of Former Savoy Ballroom

Opened in 1927 “unquestionably the finest and largest place for dancing that invited colored patronage… the hall was crowded every night of the week.” It was later overshadowed by the Regal Theater. The space held up to 6,000 people and featured many famous bands. In the book, Dr. Chatelain says that many church groups aiming to incorporate young migrant girls couldn't compete with the glitz and glamour of the Savoy and other clubs, like the Palm, Sunset Cafe, and Parkway.  Girls would sneak out of their houses in the finest dresses and in makeup. Chaletain says it was the mark of a youthful, cosmopolitan identity of the north. 

This route was created by Allison Yates, owner and founder of Read & Run Chicago. Read & Run Chicago originally ran this route during a book club run in December 2021.