We Are the Culture: Black Chicago’s Influence on Everything

Black Chicago culture is American culture.
During the Great Migration, more than a half million Black Americans moved from the South to Chicago, and with them, they brought the blues, amplifying what would be one of the city’s greatest musical art forms. In 1958, the iconic Johnson Publishing Company, the voice of Black America, launched the Ebony Fashion Fair show, leading to the creation of the first makeup brand for Black skin. For three decades starting in the 1970s, households across the country were transported to a stage birthed in Chicago as they moved their hips in front of TV screens airing Soul Train.
Chicago is where Oprah Winfrey, a Black woman who did not have the ＂traditional look＂ TV managers pushed on talent, premiered her talk show, which went on to break every record possible and solidify her position as the ＂Queen of Daytime TV.＂ It’s where Hall of Famer Michael Jordan led the Bulls to six championships, including two three-peats, making the NBA a must-see attraction worldwide and wearing Jordans a style symbol to this day. And it’s home to Grammy winner Chance the Rapper, whose work honors the city’s cultural institutions, from the White Sox to modern art superstar Hebru Brantley.
Pop culture expert Arionne Nettles takes us through the history of how Black Chicagoans have led pop culture in America for decades, and gives insight into the ways culture spreads and influences our lives.

Arionne Nettles is a journalism lecturer at Northwestern University’s Medill School, deputy editor at nonprofit civic media organization City Bureau, and host of the A Kids Company About podcast Is That True?, a kids podcast about facts. A multiplatform journalist, Nettles reports on Chicago history, culture, gun violence, policing, and race and class disparities as a contributor to the New York Times Opinion, Chicago Reader, The Trace, Medium’s ZORA and Momentum, Chicago PBS station WTTW, and NPR affiliate WBEZ. Nettles is a proud member of the National Association of Black Journalists and works to teach Chicago-area teens the power of words through her organization, Write Chicago, and its ＂sicker than your average＂ writing workshops.