Built in 1897, The Forum includes a beautiful social and assembly hall and several oversized retail slots located adjacent to the 43rd Street Green Line Station. For the first three quarters of the twentieth century, The Forum stood at the heart of Black Chicago’s social, political, cultural and commercial life. The iconic Forum Hall hosted music greats from Nat ‘King’ Cole to Muddy Waters to the Jackson 5 as well as political speeches, sorority balls, union meetings, dance classes, civil rights events, and so much more.
Forum Hall shut in the 1970s, a casualty of decades of government and private sector disinvestment. Today, Urban Juncture is working to restore The Forum as a hub for cultural programming, hospitality and socializing as part of its Build Bronzeville initiative.
The Forum will feature a live viewing of the recently discovered backdrops (as featured on Fox 32 & Block Club Chicago), a collage of the new development occurring in the West Annex of The Forum, and live musical performances by One City Jazz Band, VanderCook College of Music, The Pen Collective, The Junta Jazz Ensemble and the African Soul Ensemble.
Saturday, October 14
10:30 AM - 1:30 PM: One City Jazz Band from VanderCook College of Music
2 - 5 PM: The Pen Collective
Sunday, October 15
10:30 AM -1:30 PM: The Junta Jazz Ensemble
2 - 5 PM: Ugochi and the African Soul Ensemble
