History Center to use grants to produce digital history of Blacks in Lake Forest; ‘Our goal is to make this a living collection’

The History Center of Lake Forest-Lake Bluff is set to produce a digital collection on the history of Blacks in Lake Forest following the acquisition of grant funding from the National Archives and the Mellon Foundation.

Last month, the History Center announced it would receive almost $106,000 in grants over the next two years as it plans to produce, “Deeply Rooted and Rising High: African American Experiences in Lake Forest.”

The digital project’s goal is a presentation on the Black population in Lake Forest that goes back to 1860, according to History Center Executive Director Carol Summerfield. She described the initiative as a prototype that will allow the History Center to explore questions about the overall experience for the Black population in Lake Forest, and throughout the North Shore.

“There are interesting crossroads within the historical narrative that are worth exploring, and some of which we do not have informed information on to make a statement,” Summerfield said in an interview. “The goal of a collection like this is to expand that, and to allow others to bring materials in to help us answer some of these questions.”

Laurie Stein, the History Center’s deputy director and head of curation, provided some additional details regarding the project’s goal in a statement.

“Our initial model is planned around three core topic areas: building community, building opportunity, and building neighborhoods,” she wrote. “These categories provide collection opportunities for materials that illuminate experiences in education, jobs, training, housing, religious institutions, networking organizations, and social clubs and activities.

“We’re particularly focused on the materials that illustrate the Lake Forest’s Black community’s development of self-governed institutions and organizations, social events, and informal community building activities, and connections with the educational institutions surrounding them,” Stein added. “Our goal is to make this a living collection, adding materials on an ongoing basis.”

Summerfield said Lake Forest’s Black population has always been small on a percentage basis, yet noted Black residents owned one of the city’s first hotels. She said while the white population grew after World War II, the Black population remained flat.

There were 245 Black residents in Lake Forest in the latest posting on the United States Census Bureau website in an overall population of nearly 20,000.

Summerfield said that would be examined in the collection, as well as Black student enrollment at Lake Forest College, which she said has grown over the years.

Summerfield’s co-leader on the project will be Courtney Joseph, a Lake Forest College assistant professor in the African American Studies Department. Others members of the team include Lake Forest College students and faculty, Loyola University Public History students and community advisers among Lake Forest’s Black residents.

Summerfield said the first step in the process will be a meeting with all the core members of the team within two weeks, and they will put a timeline together on steps to create the program with the goal of having an initial digital collection available in two years.

“We recognize the value of these stories, and how unique they are,” she said. “The idea that we can make this more broadly available to the public is amazing, and it is a huge opportunity.”

The History Center was one of two Illinois organizations receiving the National Archives funding.